Imagination

Imagination is something that is essential to creative writing. The above picture is a photomanipulation I made a few years ago by merging several images into one. By doing so, I combined several elements of various pictures into one unique image that I can look at for quite a while and still find new things about it to inspire me. A lot of the time, that's what creativity is! It isn't very often--if ever at all--that we come up with something truly unique, and original. While some ideas may unquestionably be our own, we often, whether intentionally or accidentally, use elements from other stories. Stories that have been told for dozens or hundreds or thousands of years. 

In my English class, one of my favorite things that I've learned has been this principle. (If you can call it a principle, I guess, haha) Many elements of famous stories like The Odyssey are used more frequently than we might think. What is The Lion King but Shakespeare's story of Hamlet told with animals? 

However, it is the ways that we combine these elements of stories that we have read, seen, or experienced, to create something new. If we had never done anything in our lives, never read a book, watched a movie, or heard a story, would we be able to create one of our own? Kinda fun to think about. 

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I recently posted a quotation by Albert Einstein that I found on Tumblr. It has quickly become one of my favorites. 

Originally, I was planning on writing a post dedicated to this quotation, but I guess I got carried away with literary philosophy. :) I guess from here, I can continue the philosophical approach. Why not, right?

So... If creativity is intelligence having fun, and creativity is also the way we combine elements of the stories of our lives, then would you say that being intelligent denotes creativity? What about creativity requiring intelligence? 

And my favorite question: do the stories of our lives make us more intelligent? I like to think so. 

What do you guys think? I REALLY want to hear what you guys have to say! Take the extra minute or two to comment. What else do you have to do? :) I'd love to have this post explode into an Internet forum full of heated digital debates about creativity and intelligence via literature. I don't know about you, and maybe it's my own nerdiness, but that just sounds awesome! 8D

Dream on!

Oliver Dahl