How does imagination lend meaning to our lives and experiences

The imagination is a one of our most valuable skills. The imagination can act as a defense mechanism when we need it the most. It can do anything, from keeping us sane in times when we are faced with something traumatizing to entertaining us when we are bored. It can be the key to happiness or lead to our demise. In Twilight zone episodes “Walking distance” and “lonely” we can see examples of how powerful the imagination can be. Us, humans, are one of the few beings in the planet that can experience incidents in our head before and after they happen. We can re-live our experiences or have ‘what if?’ experiences through our imagination; we use the imagination to do this almost as if watching a film.

In Twilight zone episode “Walking distance” we are introduced to Martin Slone. Martin believes he has travelled in time into a period of his life that he appreciates dearly. It is not until the end that we realize why he is there. Martins father tells him that he should stop seeking the happiness he had at his youth and look for happiness somewhere else or he will remain depressed. This final conversation he has with his dad leads me to believe that the entire time travelling experience was Martin’s subconscious using his imagination to move on. Sometimes there are things we know deep down inside and Martin uses his imagination to experience what advice his dad would give him. This episode made me realise that taking a trip down memory lane can be nice but dwelling in you past and not doing anything for your future will get you nowhere.

In “The lonely” we me a man named Corry who is sentenced to be alone for 50 years on an asteroid for a crime he did not commit. Capt. Allenby and his crew are in charge of supplying Corry with food four times a year and are then only people Corry ever gets to see. What Corry wants more then anything else is some companionship and that’s just what Allenby provides for him. Corry is left with a human-like robot that was built to be a woman. She has all the attributes of a human and can even cry. Corry wants the loneliness to go away bad that he lets his imagination take over and comes to see the robot as a real woman and falls in love. Capt. Allenby returns with the news that Corry’s case has been reviewed and he was found to be innocent. Corry is exited to go back home with the love of his life but his dreams are shattered when the Capt. tells him that the ship can only carry fifteen pounds of stuff besides him. Corry only needed to imagine the robot was real while he on the asteroid. The Capt. frees Corry from his self induced delusion by shooting the robot in the face and showing him the reality. Corry’s imagination helps him survive the final months he was on the asteroid; I’ve come to this conclusion because he tells the Capt. that the robot is the reason he has kept sane.

These too episodes put us in seemingly impossible situations but we can see real cases where the imagination has helped people in similar ways. My grandmother used to tell me about all her problems when i was a baby. This might seem absurd since babies can’t understand but she imagined that i could and letting out her problems made her feel better. In life one must always seek happiness and this is made possible by the imagination even when we are put in situations that can make happiness hard to come by.