A Magnified Look at the Beauty in the Seemingly-Mundane

A Magnified Look at the Beauty in the Seemingly-Mundane

By John Murray '24

Dancing colors flourish into magnificent patterns intricate in their splendor, yet vague in their nature. “What a sight!” one might say, but it is no sight at all. This is the mere mind of a young child and not a particularly creative one either when measured amongst the rest. Others manage to visualize a story taking place, fantastical figures of both original and unoriginal origin engaging in the most peculiar of actions and movements, some with a method and long strung plot but more so others in a less deliberate manner. Such visually stimulating ideas materialized without the slightest employment of the eyes, it's a truly remarkable power. Imagination is what we label this capability maintained by so few.

Why is it this way, that an attribute that is nearly universally considered great or even indispensable is allowed to slip through the fingers of most of us? Ordered routine into the office or classroom, the same motions completed cyclically day after day. It's gray, it's bleak, it's…unimaginative.

Pick something, anything in your surroundings and really observe it closer than you ever had. Maybe it's the imperfections in the paint on the wall or the metallic flecks speckled haphazardly in the flooring. There are a million stories to be told in even the most seemingly-mundane details in the things right before us.

What is imagination but simply making something from what is seemingly nothing. Have an eye for detail and before you know it, you will gain a mind geared for imagination.