Is anyone else totally blown away by Google Earth? I can literally spend hours using it without really knowing what I'm looking at. Sometimes I like to pretend that I'm taking on a long trip/adventure in India or Russia or something and then I follow a path of intrigue and exploration. I try to imagine the places, people, sights, sounds, smells, foods, traditions, colors, life and beauty of wherever I'm Google Earthing. It's a poor substitute for actually going to these destinations but it will do the trick until fortune smiles more kindly upon my wallet.
Do people really still use their imaginations? I find that I need to allot myself time to imagine. There was a time in my life when I was burning through the books I was reading at such a lightning fast pace that I had no time to imagine. One day, I finished a book and it hit me that I had no mental image of the main character nor could I pronounce her name vocally. I had finished a beautiful and complex story but, because I read it like it was an article in a newspaper, I had not gleaned anything from it. I had completely missed the emotional complexity and involvement. I had entirely missed the experience that the world of this book was trying to provide me. When I read I want color. I want beauty and feeling. I want friends and family. I want life and I want to learn. These things cannot be had without imagination. The words on the page need to become something else in my mind. They need to come together and form a life of their own. They need to spur the creation of my own words, thoughts, and explanations.
I reread that book. I'm glad that I was able to realize what I was missing. I hope to never make the same mistake with any other book again. Imagination can touch and improve more than our books and stories. If people would stop stifling their imaginations I think that many of societies ills would be bettered or even cured.
For Pete's sake - take some time to imagine.
P.S. I really love this video. Rakafeed is insanely beautiful and I love the way the video weaves together three separate events or memories to create a tapestry of emotion.
I found myself wondering if the dark night was before or after the other events. I think it was after. He was alone in the night. I think that he was retracing his memory path and experiencing flashbacks of his memories with his girl. She may have left him or died or something because in the night scenes he seems unstable and upset (almost frantic). The flowers are for her grave?
I loved, loved, loved that video. I feel like I just lived a whole extra phase of my life through it. I didn't even consider that the night scenes might have been before. I liked the contrast and the back and forth between the happy, daylight scenes, and the dramatic, night time scenes where he is alone.
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me of a poem I read in high school, a girl had written about things that happened in the night, or that were just more night appropriate. One line stood out to me and it was something like "emotions come out that are too raw for the daytime". Emotions always seem heightened late at night, it's especially easy to reflect and retrace your happy moments when the day is drawing to a close. ya know?
on the imagination note,
in my English 1010 class, we've been writing a lot. (in an english class? weird, i know.) Our teacher keeps pushing us to use lots of detailed imagery, but I actually kind of find it annoying. I hate it when authors are too descriptive of the scene, or some characters. Sometimes I like to decide for myself what setting they are in, or what that person looks like. I like to create and imagine it myself. It's more fun, and I feel like I can own it more, and make the story more mine. And what is reading for if not to make a story your own, right?
I guess I kind of made that poem (or rather, that line from the poem) mine, by remembering it and thinking about it often, even years later.
I dunno.
I like your blog though. :)
And was slightly surprised I didn't get a call at 9:15. :)