Tag Archives: thoughts

We don’t need no imagination

I saw a tweet yesterday that quite took my breath away. It was from Martin Daws, the Young People’s Laureate for Wales. The tweet was as follows:Imagination-tweet

“Year 7 Student today “we don’t need imagination, we’ve got phones and stuff”

I don’t need to explain what is so very wrong about that statement or why it is wrong on so many levels.

As Computers become more and more “clever” and take over more and more of the mundane, everyday tasks, imagination is all we will be left with to be able to compete and outwit other nations, cultures and even the machines themselves.

This Year 7 will probably end up with VR goggles and intravenous feeding tubes, their only purpose in life to be an audience for those who retain and make use of their imagination.

STEM and Academic qualifications will mean nothing in twenty years time. Imagination and free thinking will be king – assuming we are still allowed to think for ourselves. These are “interesting times”, as the Chinese curse puts it, and they are getting more “interesting” by the day.

 

Where do ideas come from?

It’s the question that authors get asked the most. I used to give jokey answers,because i didn’t have any idea what the answer was. But I’ve spent a long time thinking about it and this video is a stab at explaining where I think that ideas come from. If you think I’m crazy, I probably am – but it works for me and that’s the important thing!