Imagination-Exercising #3

"There it is again."

That's it.

This four word springboard invites leaps in whichever direction you can imagine--followed by new leaps once your imagination* gets its second wind. 

Are scenarios popping up like dandelions?

Not so much? Just a couple?

This may help.

We have five senses tuned to the outside world but sensory input becomes less important when it is incomplete. Think about those ambiguous "Fantasizing Fotos Fridays" photographs. Each one is open to interpretation thanks to its lack of visual detail.

On FFF days, whether we realize it or not, we rely on experiences and memory to help us make sense of the visual ambiguity. Less detail allows our imaginations greater latitude. Acknowledging few limits, our imaginations obligingly fill in those FFF sensory gaps with whichever fragments it chooses from our personal experiences. This time, that old memory. Try again, and maybe a snatch of conversation or a lyric will fill the gap.

Let imagination do the work! Don't insist that some part of last night's conversation with your son must fit into "There is it again" any more than it would dovetail with last week's photograph.  That's not being creative. Creativity requires letting go.

We've focused on visual ambiguity on FFF because it works best in a blog environment. Remember the near absence of auditory, tactile, taste & olfactory data stimulates creativity in the same way we react to minimal visual information. Still, humans do rely most on visual input and experience. 

"There it is again" is about as minimal as it gets. How likely is it that two people will have similar reactions to just those four words, given that everyone's personal experiences begin to diverge at birth? 

                  "No two people will imagine the same thing. That would be weird."                   

~~~~~

You may want to experiment with the following versions of our game...

Let's say you imagined five different scenarios based on "There it is again" except one just isn't as satisfactory as the others.  What happens if you add or change a detail? Noisier. Quieter. Winter chill. Heat wave. You're in a crowd--or this time you're alone when, "There it is again!"
Did that darned repeating thingie change? Maybe your reaction to it did?
Example. "Forty minutes and Peabody's still tooting his vuvuzela at every car. Well, he can have the heat and the mosquitos! A/C here I come!"

When presented with this little game, we assume that we're imagining our own reactions to those (cool, pesky, enticing, uncomfortable, hilarious, terrifying, infuriating, marvellous) "its". What if we imagine that someone else--someone imaginary--sees the green light flash in the closed deli across the street?

Too much for now? We'll get back to this.

There it is again!

*Yes, I anthropomorphize objects. It's fun, except when hanging out with The Imaginationless Crowd.

"There she goes again."