Transendentalism - Imagination and Emotions Are Important

Aleeza Lapidus    

Ms. Blodgett

Period 1

11-02-15

Imagination and Emotions Are Important

    Thinking is the most important thing you can do in your life. Thinking can lead to lots of good or bad things. It could lead to feeling mad, sad or happy depending on what you are thinking about. Sometimes you can think of the most random things and start to picture them happening (using your imagination).If people didn't think or feel where would we be today? Would we have as much technology?

 I believe that Emotions and the Imagination should be celebrated but controlled. Emotions are good things and should be celebrated but they can't lead our lives, sometimes we have to make the logical decision instead of what we feel. The idea of celebrating Imagination and Emotions is a transcendentalist tenant. Transcendentalism is a philosophical and literary movement that emphasized living a simple life and celebrating truth found in nature, personal, emotion, and imagination.Children have the best imagination and a lot of emotions even though they don't quite understand them. One day I had an idea for something and it was a bit off the wall. I was talking to my friend’s dad about it when we were all in the car with her grandpa. All of the sudden he interrupted me and said “that’s stupid, children should be seen not heard”. This infuriated me and I told him so. I said “How dare you say that. That saying is the stupidest thing anybody could ever say. Children are the future of this country and world by saying that you discourage what could have been a great idea that could lead to the cure for cancer.” After I said this he stopped talking until we got back to my friend’s house. All inventions start from a thought, an idea, or an imagination. What if somebody discouraged Tomas Edison and he gave up, we wouldn’t have lightbulbs. If we didn’t have emotions or imagination we wouldn’t have movies, books, plays, or entertainment in general. For example in Emerson’s essay Nature in line 16 he says “I become a transparent eye-ball…”That had to take some imagination to compare himself to an eyeball. If we didn’t have emotions people wouldn’t have manners because we wouldn’t get offended. We take a lot of things for granted especially the little things in life such as imagination and emotions that are actually everything even if they seem meaningless and small.