Imagination - what does it mean to you?

"What do you value above all else?"

That’s easy - my imagination.
Without it life would be empty.
Dull.
Colourless.

Imagination accompanies me wherever I go.

I use it consciously by day.
Unconsciously by night.

It fuels my thoughts, my dreams.

I rely on it for inspiration.

Without it the writer could not write.
The artist could not paint nor the sculptor carve images in wood or stone.

Imagination transports me on a magic carpet.
With it I can fly.
Be a bird.
Be an astronaut or deep-sea diver.

I can live in the present, in the Middle Ages or in a future time.

I can walk through New York, Moscow or Timbuktu and travel wherever my imagination chooses to take me.

I can be any age I want to be – a child, a teenager, a crone.
I can be man or woman, boy or girl.
An animal.
A vampire.

Imagination permits me to discard convention, dress as I please, say what I want.
It broadcasts dialogue in my brain, a never-ending stream of conversations.
It laughs.
It cries – a constant tympani of sounds that only I can hear.

It allows me to be brave, outspoken, malicious, evil – a character unlike the person that I am.

I can imagine horrors that I pray will never happen, and sample lives of those less fortunate than me.

It makes me Prince or King, President or pauper, and all within the blinking of an eye.

Imagination is a crystal ball that lets me glimpse into the future.
I see the house before it’s built.
The trees grown tall before I plant the saplings.
I see the flowers blooming as I cast the seeds.

And so the list goes on...
What do I value above all else?
Without a doubt – my imagination