The Paintbrush Mind

 The mind is capable of many things, if only we recognize that the phenomena are not fixed in one place. I think about how this statement relates to the ages of 7 to 10 years old, when children first start to understand and play with their capacity to draw pictures and images with words. I wonder if you ever recall the first time you ever wrote a paragraph or a single coherent story, and how empowering that felt. I would have to say that in terms of writing, my peak 'experiences' may very well have occurred at a) age 10, when I was introduced to the elements of a story (and was asked to write a few in class) and b) age 17, when I acquired my first electronic typewriter. In both these stages, I experienced what it was like to put something together that was coherent and 'moderately' professional enough to be seen by others as a real product. I even recall the time when I was 10, and I bought a black book with my allowance, and started writing stories in it. I still have this volume to this day, and these stories represent my growing interests (at the time) in mythology, crime stories, science fiction and just plain weird stuff.
    Although I am not one to try to create stories in the way that I have just described, I would have to say that those years are valuable for people of all ages. They teach people what a wonderful mind they have to be able to imagine pictures and bring them to life through the power of words and shared writing. Can we not take this same ability and apply it to the way we use thoughts in daily life? For example, if the boss in my mind is angry all the time, perhaps I can tell the story in my mind of how she or he got to be this way, and what causes him to feel so much suffering.
   But I think the problem is that after about 5th Grade, story telling and imagination are downplayed in favor of other skills which are useful but which don't stress the active elements that imaginative re-framing can provide. As many scholars have mentioned in the past, there is a tendency in modern society to relegate imagination to something 'pre-rational' or 'only make-believe', and there is even the sense that people must somehow outgrow the imagination in order to deal with 'real world' problems. But this argument misses the point that all 'real world' is a construction of mind, and there are always ways to reframe it, even using narratives as a 'palette' or a form of practice.
    Even if the words don't always come naturally, sometimes one only needs to give their hands a chance to start moving and they will find that there is a lot inside of them that is worth expressing. I am suggesting that people should not be held back from expressing what is infinitely possible and available to mind, in favor of something presumably 'real' but is only an accretion of habitual ways of experiencing the world and life. Writing is one way to access the many possibilities of framing experiences.