We are facing a collapse of imagination in the 21st century.

In so many of our workplaces, just as in our political and academic institutions, we seem to have lost the ability to exercise our imaginative capacities — to entertain genuinely alternative possibilities to business-as-usual.

"We’re so busy that there’s no time for our imaginative lives", writes Rob Hopkins in an interview on the importance of imagination - "We’ve come to see imagination as a luxury."

Especially over the last decade, this state of affairs has been exacerbated by the ever-increasing algorithmic reproduction of what we've already known and liked and created in the past. If we only ever encounter what we're already familiar with, and if what we're familiar with is, increasingly, an environment (built and/or digital) that is almost entirely man-made — then it is hardly surprising that our imaginative capacity suffers as a result.

Alongside this phenomenon, the doom-ist tone of discourse around the climate and the environment tends merely to add despair, panic, and denialism to an atmosphere that is, quite literally, oppressive enough as it is.

Of course, there is absolutely a need to lay out the situation as it really is, so that everyone can understand what we're dealing with. And according to the science, that situation certainly isn't looking promising. However, we also need to make considerable space in our collective psyche for other, more hopeful and playful modes of thought and dialogue, as well.

Currently it's as if we're standing in front of Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights at the Prado Museum in Madrid, and instead of allowing our gaze to take in the full triptych, we're just choosing to look over and over at The Hell, totally ignoring the earthly delights of the central panel and the peaceful harmony of The Eden on the left.

Learning to look at the painting as a whole again

Personally, I think it is much better to look at all three panels — and at all of the diverse scenes and figures and moods they contain — rather than to focus obsessively on the scary one to the exclusion of everything else.

Of course, the scary one is still there, and we should certainly make sure to look at it too. But if we stare only at that particular section, we'll inevitably fail to appreciate the possibilities and the significance of the whole painting.

Now... explore the painting for yourself!

Before reading any further, I highly recommend that you spend a while exploring this amazing painting for yourself. Of course, unless you're in Madrid, or going there soon, you'll need to use the miracle of digital technology.

Linked just below is an 'interactive documentary' which allows you to freely zoom in & out and move around the painting in fantastic levels of detail. There's accompanying music and soundscapes, as well as insightful commentary, if it's of interest. It's a real trip:
​https://archief.ntr.nl/tuinderlusten/en.html​

Now that you've had a chance to do that, I'd love to know — what was your experience of the painting? Consider which details drew your attention; which scenes amused or intrigued or repulsed you; whether (and how) it sparked your imagination...

Indeed, this is, I think, one of the great joys of both art and of gardens — and one of the things that makes them so important: they give us permission to let our attention wander freely.

This woman on the left (below), for instance, has become deeply enthralled by a conversation with a man who has a blueberry for a head. (And who wouldn't? I'm sure he would have some incredibly interesting things to say.)

The man in the detail on the right, by contrast, has concerned himself with inserting flowers into another man's bottom. I love his look of total nonchalance, and quiet satisfaction with his handiwork.

In short, there are many things — in the garden, as in the wider world — that might happen to draw our attention. Or rather, many things to which we might choose to give our attention. Indeed, the giving and receiving of attention is represented here as free and reciprocal — and ultimately, as a kind of play.

What if inserting flowers into people's bottoms isn't particularly our bag? Well, that's entirely ok; we are free to go off and do something else. We might feel like joining in the fun of this riotous, inter-species congo-line situation (below, left), for instance.

Or if we're more the quiet, introspective type, we might simply go up the big pink tower and quietly watch the world go by (above, right).

Hell, by contrast, is a place where attention is manipulated and overwhelmed through sensory overstimulation. It is not given or received freely, but systematically oppressed. Look at this man (below, left).

He cowers and covers his ears in an instinctive attempt to preserve himself from the cacophony of horns and drums and people screaming all about him; the peaceful harmony of the garden has been replaced with an unbearable discord.

Meanwhile, the man on the right struggles to ward off the unwanted advances of an amorous pig dressed in a nun's habit.

Clearly, there's a lot that's awful about Hell. But one of the most awful things, it seems to me — besides the more obvious stuff like the grizzly dismemberment and physical torture — is the loss of the freedom of people's attention, and therefore of their possession of themselves as human beings. If we aren't able to direct our own attention, then we've lost all hope for imagination.

Perhaps it is a bit of a stretch to draw an analogy with the current state and direction of digital technology, and its effects on our minds and our social fabric. Though honestly, I'm not sure it really is...

Choosing where and how we give our attention

Either way, we're not in a full-blown hellscape just yet; we do still have the freedom to choose where and how we give our attention. Perhaps a wise choice might be to spend less of our time beholden to the algorithmic manipulation of corporate interests — and yes, less time fretting over changes to the climate about which none of us can do anything genuinely significant as individuals — and more of our time out in gardens and galleries.

We might choose to do this because these environments afford us, among other things, the freedom of our own attention, and the possibility for encounter and observation.

Together, these are fundamental for developing ecological intelligence, as well as for recovering our capacity for imagination.

Through visiting and spending time in gardens in particular, we have the opportunity to encounter and observe a wide diversity of plants and animals, all with their unique forms and ways of being in the world.

By allowing our attention to wander in this way — and by practicing the generosity of giving our attention to the more-than-human world which, in the words of Gaston Bachelard, "seeks to be admired by [us]" — we might just begin to create the space within ourselves for our imagination to thrive again.

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