Imagination is Always Better than Knowledge, Really?

Imagination is Always Better than Knowledge, Really? ©

By Michael Casey

I wrote something and when I read back the finished piece I wondered how I’d managed to write it. This happens frequently, I read back my latest piece and I’m not just pleased but slightly amazed where the words came from. Everything is in the soup as I’ve said before and I just ladle out the words, like a dinner lady. Or perhaps like a painter with a blindfold on, who only sees the final result when the blindfold is removed, that would explain a lot about Picasso’s work.

So I wondered was there a fancy word for it, a kind of word serendipity, I did a quick google and the best I could find was the idea that Imagination is better than Knowledge. So you would imagine that knowing stuff trumped everything else, I’m seeing the verbs I’m using just as you are and I’m seeing the potential for comedy straight away. Trump will always be a comedy word now, well at least for 4 years or until Trump gets bored and leaves the job via a Tweet.

So if you have Knowledge then you should always be smarter than the next guy because you know all there is to know, whatever you are doing, see the verb “doing” can be used and misused in a variety of ways. It just depends on your Imagination, if you have ever read my Lenny Bruce piece then you will know what I’m on about, and if you haven’t then you’ll just have to make an obscene photo call to Dustin Hoffman and if you can put on a Tootsie voice HE may explain it to you. But don’t ask him why a guy so short can be so full of, so full of such big performances, be careful how you pronounce performances or he’ll scream back in his Lenny Bruce voice, and tell you to go Blah a Blah, which is a disgusting thing to say to anybody at Christmas.

Knowledge informs your choices and by using knowledge you’ll find the solution to anything. A doctor or a car mechanic follows a path, a yes or a no path until they either fix your car or work out what ails you. Though never get your mechanic or doctor mixed up as you wouldn’t want a mechanic giving you an “oil change”, in place of your Proctologist, I’ll leave it to your imagination. It does prove the point though about Knowledge being important, especially so when the right person is in the right job.

But what of Imagination? If you present all the information to specialist you’ll get a reasonable answer because they have Knowledge, but the guy with imagination he produce a work of art or an escape route. If you are trapped in a room how do you get out?You pile all the books together and use them to create steps so you can escape. Or you all take you clothes off to make a rope that’ll help you escape, this one is worth remembering if somebody is in a lake drowning or has fallen through ice, a human chain or a rope made from clothes can and will and has saved lives. Though it might just be a prank to put on UTube, or a way to see you all near naked.

I think this revelation about Imagination trumping Knowledge should be passed to our kids immediately, tonight when you put your kids to bed or when they come home drunk from the office Christmas Party, whatever age they are, tell them you love them, as you wipe the sick away and hold their clothes at arms length as you put them in washing machine. It will give them hope for the future and besides from the really clever people I’ve met they may have knowledge but they lack common sense, or imagination, clever but dull.