Award winning author Neil Gaiman has written many fabulous books: The Graveyard Book, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neverwhere, American Gods, and the graphic novel series Sandman. In 2013 he gave a lecture entitled “Reading and Obligation” in which he defended the importance of books, reading, and learning to exercise our imaginations. One very important statement he made in that speech was this:
“Fiction builds empathy. When you watch TV or see a film, you are looking at things happening to other people. Prose fiction is something you build up from 26 letters and a handful of punctuation marks, and you, and you alone, using your imagination, create a world, and people it and look out through other eyes. You get to feel things, visit places and worlds you would never otherwise know. You learn that everyone else out there is a me, as well. You’re being someone else, and when you return to your own world, you’re going to be slightly changed.
Empathy is a tool for building people into groups, for allowing us to function as more than self-obsessed individuals.
You’re also finding out something as you read vitally important for making your way in the world. And it’s this:THE WORLD DOESN’T HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS. THINGS CAN BE DIFFERENT.”
It’s very important that your education develop not only your critical thinking skills but also your creative thinking skills. Critical thinking can help us understand the problems we face. But it is creative thinking, imaginative thinking, that is needed to solve our biggest problems. But like everything else, doing good creative thinking takes practice.
Comic books and superhero stories are particularly good for helping us to practice using our imaginations. You might think movies like the Avengers are fun or maybe just silly. But you probably didn’t know that every time you watch or read a superhero story, a fantasy epic, or a science fiction adventure you are learning to think more creatively. In fact, as Gaiman says, all fiction helps us to imagine other kinds of worlds, other possibilities. People were using iPhones on Star Trek when it premiered in 1966.
And if you’re wearing a smart watch, it’s only because Dick Tracey was using one wayyyy back in 1931. (In fact he could watch TV on his, and we still can’t do that!) A lot of our best real world ideas started as imaginative ideas first.
So here’s your chance to practice some creative thinking. Write a 2-3 paragraph description of what you see when you land on the planet of Tarnax. You might describe what the plants look like, what the cities look like, what the people and animals look like. But try to think beyond what you know about all of these things on earth. Imagine a world of pink people or liquid plants. It’s easy, all you have to do is use your imagination.
