Monday, June 4, 2012

If I imagine writing this paper to be fun, will it come true?

This paper writing experience has been very different from previous experiences. In this case, I feel like we have used every single resource available to us, and it has allowed me to see how wonderful social proof actually is. I don't know what I would have done without my cohorts to keep me on the right track! Here is the very first draft of my paper. Many things will be changing, but this it where it all begins.




Imagination in the Blogging World

Since the beginning, myth and imagination has influenced how we see the world. Our history books are filled with the romanticized idea of events that actually occurred. In Anne of Green Gables, Anne is consistently known as a character with a knack for imagination. While many think that daydreaming and imagination is a way to hide from reality, this is not true. Our imaginations are a product of human labor. For some, this comes easily, but for others they struggle to see beyond the scope of their own reality. By using our creativity and ability to re-imagine our own personal world in blogs, today's technology allows each of us to take part in the transformation and growth of our culture.
There are many definitions and ideas that surround the broad topic of imagination. While one common definition is the producing of ideal creations that are inconsistent with reality, or in other words, the ability to picture our lives differently than they are, imagination is also the ability to face and resolve difficulties, or having resourcefulness. In order to picture different outcomes and be able to act when they come our way, we need to be able to visualize different results of our actions. Imagination is something that is important that we develop, because it allows us to “live in a subjectively colored world unlike the gray world of reality(study of imagination).” While imagination often has an emphasis on the “power of invention,” it is important to have a broad definition in order to encompass all the small facets of the nature of imagination. In one particular article, called "Do you use your Imagination?" by Remez Sasson, the definition of imagination is questioned. It isn't a useless waste of time, but the ability to visualize different situations and events. By using this tool, we can prepare ourselves for different problems that may arise, plan events, and create something completely new.
 In a more romantic sense, one blogger named John claimed that there is a traditional "understanding imagination as the spiritual heart of the human person." By combining both of these ideas, it can be argued that imagination is both useful and romantic. It covers every aspect of human life. It allows us to be practical and accomplish things that we need to do daily, while still allowing us to show a reflection of what lies within our hearts.  There is a new study about the sociological aspect of imagination called the sociological imagination. “The new sociological imagination is a search for satisfactory ways of understanding the contemporary world in a rational, communicable, telling and coherent way, while also contributing to the development of the public sphere and a collective understanding of social issues.  If we apply this definition to our total understanding, then our perceptions of reality become the blueprint for our lives.
Anne of Green Gables is the perfect book to exemplify the power of imagination in our daily lives. The story begins with a young, unloved orphan named Anne, who is quick to love, and quick to hate. She is talkative and willful, but she is filled with a desire to be good, despite her tendency to make dreadful mistakes. In Anne's case, her imaginings affected her everyday life. She was a dreamer, constantly trying to form her world to fit the way she saw things inside her head. She had so many ideas that she formed a story club in order to 'cultivate her imagination.' Anne influenced so many people because she dared to dream big and spoke of the things in her imagination unabashedly. People today are still dreaming, and imagining things that they want to happen in their own lives.
In Anne of Green Gables, one of the main characters, Matthew Cuthbert, is known for being shy and unable to speak his mind to women. He is stuck in his own boring, daily routine. When he and his sister, Marilla, plan on adopting a young boy to help around the farm, they accidentally get a girl instead- Anne. While Marilla wants to send Anne back to the orphanage, Matthew imagines what his life would be like with a talkative young girl around. From the moment Anne and Matthew left, her imagination began to change the way Matthew saw the world around him. In that one instant where he allowed his imagination to run free, he let his heart open to this love starved little girl, and it ended up changing his life forever. Anne is known for saying, “It is delightful when your dreams come true, isn't it?" Anne had a way of not using her imagination just to escape the world, but to influence her life and the lives of others.
Marilla Cuthbert is severe and believes in duty and decorum above all else, although she does have a sense of humor.  While it takes awhile for Marilla and Anne to find a sense of balance between their two opposite personalities, Anne helped Marilla see the lightness and joy in the world, while Marilla helped Anne to use her imagination for useful things. While our imaginations are a tool we must take advantage of, in the beginning, Anne only used hers in order to dream of fanciful things that could never actually true. Under Marilla’s influence, these imaginings and daydreams turned into ambitions that made Anne work hard in order to become a college graduate, school teacher and writer, all in a time period where women were supposed to stay at home, get married and have a family.
While reading a literary criticism on Anne of Green Gables, an author wrote, while the writer “cautions against letting the female imagination run wild, (the writer) does not deny the power of imagination nor suggest that a woman’ life can be negotiated through reason alone. Our ability to imagine is also our ability to create, to wonder, to inspire, and to influence the real world. In order for change to happen, it has to start with someone thinking about how things can be different. If we stick to our old routines and never picture anything other than our real lives, then everything stays the same. Inventions, and new ideas all begin with imagination. However, this does not mean that we should ignore our real lives, but use imagination and reality in a perfect balance, allowing each to play a role in who we are and what we do. A blogger named Darcy wrote, “"Imagination is not an unalloyed good, and neither is instant access to everything anyone ever wrote on a topic. But it's probably better than the alternative. Looking directly to the use of imagination, it's true that broadly defined imagination is essential. Arguably we couldn't function without it, the ability to envision a situation different from the current one doesn't just allow us to change our lives in significant ways, it helps us to simply get through the day. But not all imagination is of the same quality."
In the digital age, we are now capable of spreading our thoughts and ideas to the entire world. The hope is that our own perceptions of reality influence someone else and their own perceptions. We aren't speaking to ourselves, but to the entire world. The only problem is everyone wants to be unique and to put their every thought and feeling out there for everyone to see. Like Dr. Burton said, a lot of content on the Internet is inert and doesn't really have a point. However, the digital media has the potential to act as a medium for our own ideas to become the blueprint for other people's ideas about the world. Blogging is one of the many useful tools that the Internet provides for creative expression. In today’s media culture, blogging is the perfect outlet for our thoughts and ideas to turn into creative content, because it is a space with no rules. White twitter and facebook are mainly used for chatting, looking at pictures and writing a short, meaningless status update; blogs have the ability to become much more than that. It is n this forum that people represent their creations, rant about their inner thoughts, display their personalities, and write about the things they love.
By reading blogs, we become well acquainted with the individual that writes them. Blogs that we keep coming back to have a common theme of allowing us to see behind the words and pictures, and letting us see the person that is writing them. This has changed how we read literature today, because now we expect to be entertained, and well informed all within a shorter body of text. Literature that we don’t understand is quickly skipped over. Blogging has influenced the ways we connect with text.
Even more importantly that how blogging changes how we connect to literature, blogging has changed the way we create, and even the nature of imagination by allowing the world to comment on our thoughts and inventions. This "social proof," that our ideas are relevant and interesting to someone other than ourselves changes the way we think. By allowing others to engage in our imaginations, we transform the way we ruminate. Our imaginations have the ability to move our lives in different directions than we originally expected. It is important to use blogs not just as an online journal, but also as a way to really express the way we think and to be creative in a social atmosphere. By allowing the two-way street of letting our ideas influence others, and others creations spark our own ideas, the online culture of letting imagination run wild and free directly affects our lives.  "On the human imagination events produce the effects of time. Thus, he who has traveled far and seen much is apt to fancy that he has lived long."








Bibliography

The Lion and the Unicorn 34 (2010) 125-147 c. The John Hopkins University Press

Olis-Gadea, Hecter Raul. “The New Sociological Imagination: Facing the Challenges of a New Millennium.”
          International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society 18.3-4 (2005):113-122

Montgomery, L.M., and Cecily Margaret Devereux. Anne of Green Gables. Peterborough,
         Ont.:Broadview, 2004. Print.



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