Real is considered to be the world around us that we have the ability to interact with. What is real is the here and now, the present and all things in it, what we refer to collectively as reality. What we know to be real today was not always known as fact. Much of today’s reality was at one time considered to be magical or purely impossible. Similarly, what is considered impossible today may someday be commonplace. Our understanding of reality is always limited by our ability to perceive it. Today, it is understood that light exists as a particle called a photon which travels through space as an electromagnetic wave, the same as radio transmissions and microwaves. That’s reality. 200 years ago, what we now acknowledge as reality had not yet been conceived. In the year 1814, photons and electromagnetic waves were not known to be real, they were figments of an overactive imagination. So while reality itself has not changed, our understanding of what is real has. So where does our reality end? Our understanding of what is real has evolved throughout history as our ability to observe reality has improved, so that means our concept of reality ends where our powers to observe it break down. This is where imagination takes over.
Imagination allows us to create possible explanations to fill in the blank spaces and gaps in our understanding, to help us explain the things that we don’t understand. Imagination takes the role of creating placeholders in this situation, filling in the blank spaces until better solutions can be found. Imagination, however, is not just a means by which we manufacture temporary placeholders. The imagination creates the inspiration necessary to guide society towards the ultimate solutions, and the future. Modern-day smart phones are a far cry from the large and expensive bag phones of the 1980’s. Comparing the two of them side-by-side yields almost no similarity, other than the ability to communicate with others on-the-go, anywhere within range of a cellular communications tower. Even though that primary purpose has stayed the same, the means by which we do so has evolved considerably. Bag phones were a necessary step in the evolution of communication from being tied down at a fixed location to the ability to move about freely while still remaining connected with one another. Bagphones were a placeholder, a temporary stand-in during the transition from land-lines to smart phones, the product of some imaginative vision of the future. Imagination is only half of the story, though. We must also be able to embrace the products of the imagination, and recognize the possibilities that they present.
Open-mindedness is the second part of the equation. Being open-minded means to be accepting, or at least welcoming towards the discussion of new ideas, however improbable they may seem. Most Americans have the understanding that you have better odds of getting struck by lightning than you do of winning the lottery. The average person has about a 1 in 260 million-shot at winning the mega-millions, but on average, 1 in every 3000 people will be struck by lightning. So should people stop buying lottery tickets and start buying lightning insurance? That’s up for debate, but the reality is that however improbable it may be for any one person to win the lottery, it is not impossible. The main difference between an improbability and an impossibility is an open-mind. Having an open-mind requires walking a very fine line between being open to new possibilities and being outright accepting of the absurd. “Open-mindedness, in brief, is not an invitation to give respectful and thoughtful consideration to pseudoscience, paranormal claims, Holocaust denial, and all manner of nonsense and flimflam; these ideas have failed the test of critical scrutiny, and rejecting them simply recognizes the outcome of open-minded inquiry” (Hare 38). Being open-minded to ideas means to give thoughtful consideration to the possibilities that new ideas suggest, however improbable they may seem, unless those ideas have already been proved to be folly.
So where do these new ideas come from? More often than not, ideas leading to these new discoveries seem to come out of nowhere. A common story begins with a person going about his or her daily life, taking a casual stroll through a park, when all of the sudden, an idea just strikes. Brilliant and creative ideas seem to come to us when we least expect them. These new ideas are really just new connections made in our minds between areas of pre-existing knowledge. “Evidence suggests the existence of a ‘default network’, in which the brain gets busy talking to itself in the absence of an external task to focus on” (Poole 25). When the brain talks to itself, connections are made. New relationships between random bits of knowledge are created, and through those relationships, ideas are formed.
Popular culture tends to drive the idea into our heads that real innovation is the result of sleepless nights, long working hours and an endless supply of 5-hour Energy, not from peaceful walks along a serene lakeshore. Society regards those who spend their days with their heads in the clouds as lazy. Their thoughts are always somewhere else, never focused on what is right in front of them. “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration” as Thomas Edison put it. Modern-day society has misinterpreted this quote to mean that tireless work is what is required for innovation, but society has forgotten what came first; one percent inspiration. Even Thomas Edison was a dreamer, and he worked tirelessly pursuing his dreams.
The common misconception today is that a dreamer is the exact opposite of a realist, someone who wastes time pursuing frivolous ideas and does not have a clear understanding of reality. But a dreamer most certainly has an understanding of the way things are, and he or she will go to great lengths to change reality to the way that he or she thinks it should be. Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computer, was a dreamer. He grew up in a world where computers were accounting machines and not much else. Mr. Jobs didn’t accept that. He dreamed of a world where computers were utilized in all aspects of life. You might even have an iPhone in your pocket right now.
The idea of having a pocket-sized machine that keeps track of all your important dates, reminds you of of upcoming appointments, allows you to communicate instantly with people on the other side of the globe via text, voice and now even face to face is now commonplace. We’re starting to forget what it was once like to have to wait for days or even weeks to receive a postcard from a friend or relative who is visiting some far off land through the old-fashioned mail service. I remember fondly being a child, dreaming of what life was like elsewhere, writing letters to pen-pals by hand, sealing them in an envelope and mailing them in to the unknown. A week or two later, I would walk to the mailbox and find a letter addressed to me, I couldn’t wait to tear it open and see what was inside! I dreamed of what it would be like to be able to be at home and still able to communicate instantly, face-to-face with that friend, where ever they were, like Dick Tracy was able to do with his 2-way communicator watch. “Some day I’ll have one of those” I told myself. Though I don’t wear my phone on my wrist, I now possess this capability, and I now find myself wondering how long it will be before I have my own light saber.
The idea of a real-life light saber may seem a little further “out there” than a wrist-worn videophone, but there was a time when both ideas seemed equally like absurd science fiction. Two-way communication once required an entire laboratory’s worth of machinery and technology. The idea that the technology filling an entire building could be made to fit in your pocket was entirely irrational. However, science-fiction has a peculiar tendency to eventually become science-fact.
Science-fiction, like a giant July 4th fireworks pinwheel, throws off flashes of potential futures … that readers are not likely to encounter by reading the predictions and prefigurements of scientists and other scholars. However rational, however commonsensical, the scientists and scholars may fail precisely because they are rational and commonsensical (Ghiglione 138).
I’m not proposing that science-fiction is somehow able to predict the future, but rather, the future will be a result of the inspiration and ideas given to us through today’s seemingly “out there” ideas, mixed with unforeseen advancements in culture and technology. How many more of Nikola Tesla’s inventions and ideas would be in use today had society been more open-minded towards them during his life?
Some ideas, however random they seem, are harder to have an open-mind about than others. The less-revolutionary an idea is, the easier it seems to approach with open-mindedness. Let’s say that one day I woke up and decided that my life would be better if I had a refillable, beverage-holding bladder attached to my backpack. By any interpretation, that is quite a random idea. Why not just carry a bottle? A point overlooked by many is that there are numerous situations where the need to carry a personal supply of water is incredibly beneficial, yet it is not often practical to carry a cooler or fill your pockets with water bottles. That random idea is in-fact a tremendously popular product in the world of outdoor enthusiasts, the CamelBak.
The CamelBak’s success was not because of the way it was marketed or because it was just a clever idea. The CamelBak served a purpose. It took a basic human need (the need for hydration) and approached it in a way that allowed for simplicity of use and ease of transport. When I’m hiking through the woods all day taking nature photos, I don’t want to worry about how I’m going to carry multiple bottles of water around for when I get thirsty, I just strap my CamelBak on, and through the drinking tube, I have instant access to hydration conveniently located right by my mouth. That means I won’t be digging through a backpack for a bottle of water and miss the eagle swooping out of the sky to capture a mouse in its talons. “Purpose arises from an understanding of how important ... actions are from a wider perspective” (Moran 119). The purpose of the CamelBak is to let me focus on my goal of capturing the moment and not worry about how I’m going to survive.
“As an internal moral compass, purpose provides self-generated reasons ... to control behavior; yet these personal reasons consider consequences beyond self-interest” (Moran 119). Much stronger than a goal, purpose gives reason for existence. To wake up every morning with the knowledge that my life has a meaning to it is one of the strongest motivators that I can dream up. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lived with purpose. He had “a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” His purpose was equality for all men and women, regardless of their heritage. It was a radical idea in his time, and eventually led to his assassination. Dr. King’s purpose survived, though, and because of that purpose, our country is now closer to equality than ever before. Dr. King was a dreamer, and it was his dream that led him to his purpose, and that purpose changed the nation forever.
All great change begins as a dream, connections are made in the brain to form new ideas, and with any luck, these ideas become reality. The common understanding is that dreamers are lazy, unfocused, and without a clear understanding of reality. On the contrary, dreamers have a very strong understanding of reality, and odds are that they’re dreaming of a way to make it better.
Works Cited
Edison, Thomas. “Edison in his Laboratory.” Harper’s Monthly. Sept. (1932): Print.
Ghiglione, Loren. “Does science fiction - yes, science fiction - suggest futures for news?”
Daedalus 139.2 (2010): 138-147. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.
Hare, William. “What Open-Mindedness Requires.” Skeptical Inquirer 33.2 (2009): 36-39. Web.
14 Apr. 2014.
Moran, Seana. “Changing the world: tolerance and creativity aspirations among American
youth.” High Ability Studies 21.2 (2010): 117-132. Web. 13 Apr. 2014.
Poole, Steven. “The right to be lazy.” New Statesman 6.12 (2013): 23-25. Web. 16 Apr. 2014.
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