Imagination is greater than knowledge: Do you dare to fly?

Sometimes I just sit down waiting for something to happen. Life can be so slow paced at times! So boring…I bet I am not the only one who has experienced this in this room.

I try to look for quick fixes to get the spark back...do my nails, scroll down in my social network feeds...Anything I come up with just doesn’t work. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I get out of this numb state? What am I?Abnormal? Deranged? Unbalanced?

Deep?

We try so hard to find that perfectly structured life with every answer, attempting to look away from problems and envying those who have the fewest. We believe in what we know. and we only know is what we can see, touch, feel. Rational thinking ties us down to the petty range of facts that we can actually see and measure, but it cuts us off our contact with reality… that dangerous place where things no longer fit perfectly like the pieces of a puzzle, quite the contrary...that place where we are exposed to those emotions we don’t enjoy such as fear, grief, pain.

We are taught to be afraid of danger, of the danger of pain, of the danger of grief. Nobody takes us to funerals. How many people take their children to funerals? Its just not part of culture anymore. Nobody takes us to the cemetery. When was the last time you had a family visit to a cemetery? So, though death is no longer a terrible mystery, a tragedy that requires courage and imagination, it has just become an inconvenient fact to be avoided.

I once read that we are a culture that has lost its fire and is devoted to facts. But what is it about facts that has us so trapped? Where did it all start? I remember we studied the age of reason and enlightenment. In History, maybe that’s where all ideas came, from worshiping facts and science and technology and just kept on growing for a couple of centuries. But it feels so artificial, so inhuman, maybe we need to connect more with other sources such as those cultures of the past that fed on emotion and intuition. For example you may have studied the Romantics. Authors who wrote about feelings and imagination, and lived lives full of feelings and imagination. Maybe we would need more of those, those who are not seduced by the illusion of control facts give us.

Once I had a Biology test on the cell. I felt hopeless.Thing is that I sat down to study and started crying. My sister decided to help me and instead of reading from this massive text book full of facts she started telling me a story. She said the key was to imagine it first. She compared the nucleus, which is the one in charge of directing all cell actions, with the boss of an industry, and just like that I studied for my test. I got an A. That was when I realized that imagination was the way I could translate facts and incorporate them as knowledge.

Oscar Wilde said “To live is the rarest thing in the world, most people exist, that is all.” So what would this mean? We can exist all our lives just dealing with facts, but can we live? Is that really living? We have no problem with fantasies, movies and so on because they don’t belong to the realm of what is real. But they are mostly a cheap substitute for real imagination, from deep within ourselves.

I won’t define knowledge nor imagination. I only want to share with you my hope. As we leave this room who knows? It might be imagination that saves us. A person who uses imagination is the one who can see beyond what is merely presented to us taking objects, ideas, emotions and concepts from reality and transforming them in order to present them to the rest of the world in a unique way which is accessible to us all. So imagination is not only greater than knowledge and not only vital to knowledge...it´s downright inseparable from knowledge. Imagination leads to questions. Questions lead to answers, and answers lead to knowledge. Imagination takes us beyond the realm of all known physical possibilities. Having imagination doesn’t mean that you are a poet; baking the best possible cake is imagination.

Teenagers today, unfortunately, often feel that they need to take substances in order to drift their minds away from reality. If parents and educators encourage them to fly with their imagination they’ll realize they won’t any need artificial and dangerous substances.

Imagination gives us wings to soar and fly well above and beyond past what we know, to dream of and bring to life what we can create ourselves. I have been flying for a while now...are you going to stay on the ground?  

Emily

One moment she was there, and the next...she was still there. She was always looking, always listening, and I bet she is watching you too.
I layed on my bed, always facing sideways to my right-hand night table from where she observed me. I would never dare to face elsewhere, I wouldn't like to offend her. Oh no, you really don't want to do that. Sometimes I just stare at her the way she stares at me. However, she is a master at staring, she never even blinks...ever. And she has that look, those eyes that penetrate you like swords. I would never possibly outrage her. But...please don't get me wrong! She is adorable indeed! She always wears white dresses with pink polka dot ribbons, her blonde locks in two ponytails and for make-up she never wears to much, just some blush an pink lipstick. She is definitively one of a kind.
I covered myself with blankets and while she stared at me without saying a word, I thought about that day when it all started. Our very first day together, a year ago. It was raining, I can remember because I was wearing rain boots, jumping over the water and I accidentally splashed my new dress. I was about to run home to clean it, mum would have been very pissed if I didnt, but something caught my eye. It was that house, the Pennsbury's house. Frederick, who is eight and a hald, only a bit older than me, has always told me stories about it. He said that the house has been either abandoned, or that nobody has ever left it. It remained just the same for years. Same plants, and that same old funny-looking dwarf by the porsche. Nobody knew nothing about the Pennsbury's. Nobody got out, not in...I told Frederick that maybe somebody even died there and that nobody would ever know! However, that day something had changed...She was there, sitting on the doorsteps, looking stunning on that white outfit. That look...it was the first time. I didn't know why, I didn't know for whom, but she has always had that very look on her face. An energy like a charge of electricity ran all over my body and somehow, minutes later she was home with me. She was sitting on a chair right in front of me without saying a word. I combed her hair, washed her wet clothes, and hid her. She had to be as happy as possible, I couldn't let her down because if I did, she might want to go back to the Pennsbury's house. That is how it all started...I gave her everything, always keeping her with me in case she would want or need something, keeping her away from all her previous memories that could ever make her want to go back to where she belonged.
I found her to be very intriguing. Even her look was puzzling. And to be honest, I became that too after she came into my life. I took her to school with me, and if I heard a branch cracking or footsteps, I would hold her tight and run back home. I would never let her go.
She kept on staring, and I was yawning with tired eyes. Today we ran eight blocks because I believe that I heard someone. I was not totally certain, but there cannot be room for doubt, one must always be on alert. Emily is my one and only friend, I always do what she tells me to...I trust her. I noticed the pills on my night table. Mum made me visit the doctor lately, but this time a different one, one who is very talkative and likes to scribble while I talk. Maybe he gets distracted with all my talking, but he did look concerned when I told him about Emily and her story. I always took her with me to all of my visits with the talkative doctor. Emily doesn't like him, she even told me not to drink those pills. She says that we might not be friends anymore if I take them. If I decided not to, and flushed them into the toilet, as she said, we could play a game. The game was of giving back to others...at least that is what she said. Once we sprayed my cousin's make-up brushed with oil and the day of her prom her face broke out completely! Emily said that she deserved it for not letting me try her prom dress on. I laughed for hours after looking at her. Emily didn't, but I knew she was joyfully drowning in the taste of revenge. We played every day, and we gave back others what they deserved. Emily is so nice, she teaches me how to give back to others, they deserve to get what they give.
Mum looked worried at times with Emily's presence , so she took me to the doctor once again.  Doctor Mitch doesn't like Emily either, and that day I asked him why. He said that dolls shouldn't talk, but I see no problem with that. She is adorable, she couldn't even hurt a fly, could she?

By: Lucia Miri Echavarria

Skaters Gonna Sk8

EMUN 2013: Power and Accountability

Public Speaking Competition 2013: Breathtaking Ideas

Waiting room

I am lost and on my own. Empty and full at the same time. Overwhelmed and confused...I touched heaven with my hands and I could feel it. I wasn't dreaming, it was real...it was different, but it was just right. Every breath I took was soothing. My wounds wouldn't hurt anymore, or at least they weren't in my sight...Something pleasant had appeared at last. I could feel it. The fall...I knew it was coming sometime, happily ever after is just for cartoons, and I should have known...All of a sudden I was free falling. I could see every single cloud I had past on my way up drifting away in the blink of an eye. There I was, on the ground...hurt and alone, empty handed and lost.
Is not having an answer to the "Is everything alright?" question a possibility? It's crazy...It's crazy how I can feel so much going on inside me but yet, I can't find enough words to describe it. Although I feel overwhelmed by thoughts and feelings, I am full of emptiness. How can you be full with emptiness? How am I even supposed to solve my problems if every time I try, so many other questions arise?
I am tired of trying...tired of tripping and falling over and over again, and karma I am not blaming you this time. I am young, but is making so many mistakes an option? If I would have known that before I might have thought of taking chances twice...Somebody could have warned me, leaving a post-it on my door would have been totally okay with me, you know?
I am standing, holding this imaginary thread in which I am holding onto, the one I don't want to let go of hoping that it will lift me up again to that heavenly feeling I used to float in, and it is starting to hurt. I am facing thousands of doors and although I have the keys, I still want to go back to the old door, the one that made me feel so at home. New feels scary...new is unknown and, therefore, uncertain, and new definitively eliminates old. It's crazy, how doors close unannounced and going back is not an option at all.

I turn backwards and I see nothing... Memories scream in my mind blurring my thoughts. I wasn't ready for it, but now everything I felt is gone, every gleam of happiness has been sucked by a black hole of cynicism. The door has closed and the lock has been changed. The thread? There is nothing tied in its end but my dignity and the memories that used to fulfil my soul. It is sad that I can't even take a peep in the door that used to feel mine, because I am not part of that room anymore.

In life sometimes we are kicked out of our present and stand in the middle of a room, facing new doors and moving backwards is not an option...These waiting rooms we are in while we decide which path to follow aren't stable, oxygen doesn't last long...You can choose to die or to survive by taking chances and seeking for shelter in some other door.
I can't breathe anymore...I am drowning in confusion and breathing problems. My body is tired of swimming in quicksand, paralysed by fear. I am screaming your name. but you won't open the door.
I close my eyes, no expectations, no disappointments. No trust, no regrets. I am in pain, but I won't let anybody help me, and I will wait...I will wait for that door to open again. I will wait to feel somebody pulling on the other extreme of my thread.

Save me.

You need two to tango

They stand face to face. Walk towards each other .When their eyes meet they know they are ready and the music starts to play. The audience is amazed by how synchronised they look. The man leads, but it would be graceless without her hooks and eights. All of this, blend together in the typical argentinian TANGO music.

Thoughts and feelings dance together, but you couldn’t do without them both taking turns to lead. What do I mean by this?  Thoughts and feelings complement each other, when you think too much, there’s no room for emotions to flow. Imagine you are walking on your own on a dark alley at night. You hear footsteps behind you. Your heart starts beating faster, your hands are shaking and covered in sweat. You are afraid and run all the way to the next block where you see light. At that moment, out of danger, you realize you were afraid that someone would hurt you and decided to run. Two minutes before, you couldn’t have put your feelings into words because your emotions overwhelmed you and that was the way it could have been. If you were to start thinking instead of running I wonder what would have happened to you. Maybe you could have turned around and you would have realized the “supposed footsteps” were some shutters banging with the wind….However you could have also turned around to face a dangerous murderer pointing at you with a gun and in that case it would be too late!

There’s a link between emotion action and thought. Every event that defines an action either follows or will be followed by both an emotional response and a thought.

You are sad or angry and accidentally you shout to your mother; then you start thinking about it and how wrong you were. Here we have a FEELING, ACTION, THOUGHT link. Otherwise this “chain: could start with the action; so, you shout to your mother, you think about it and then you feel sorry afterwards. Finally everything can start with a thought, for example thinking your mum might be upset because of how you treated her; then it it followed by an action as you go and talk to her and finally you feel better after exchanging a few words with her and saying sorry.

Sometimes it’s the emotion who’s leading the way, and this is more evident when we let go of all rational thought and act impulsively. The best example that comes to mind would be that 5 cm above the floor feeling you get when you are in love. Of course, then comes the fall. And no matter how many times we hit the ground, there we go again!

I refuse to think that we are irrational beings, but then again, why do we behave as if logic didn’t matter when we should be the most careful? We know that falling in love actually includes Falling, and we keep on doing so! 

Yet, the only thing that really differentiates us from other species is the fact that we have the chance to choose and not to act upon mere instinct, so I must conclude that the whole process of balancing our thinking and rational self with our emotional being is not without purpose.

After all, we do need two to tango.