Are you killing your imagination?

The first weekend I was here in Eureka Springs I visited one of the many art galleries in town and instantly fell in love with a picture by a local artist named Teresa Pelliccio. It showed a girl and a bird in a field with the words: KILL YOUR TELEVISION printed across the bottom. 

It appealed to me because when I was growing up we didn’t have a TV - not even one of those crappy black and white portables where you had to turn a dial to try and find one of the THREE channels available!

And as I’m a child of the 70s it’s not as if I could seek refuge online, and the closest thing to having a mobile phone was moving your monster of a rotary phone as far as the wire would allow it.

At the time I was extremely pissed off at my parents and their hippy-dippy notion that we shouldn’t have a TV because television killed a child’s imagination. I mean, as if!!! TV shows were a major topic of conversation in the school playground, meaning that I was unable to participate. I once tried pretending that I had seen the latest episode of Grange Hill (a favourite show for UK kids) but that ended in complete disaster - let’s just say it’s where I first learned the meaning of the saying ‘oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive.’

Anyway, as we had no TV or internet or mobile phones I was faced with a stark choice - either I learned to love reading … or I died of boredom. 

Thankfully we had a lot of books in our house and my mum always took us to the library every Saturday, where I’d max out my library tickets (remember those?!) and, wouldn’t you know it, I learned to love reading.  And it wasn’t long before my rapidly expanding imagination was conjuring up stories of its own. (I still refused to believe that my parents were right though!)

Now I’m a good deal older - and the author of over 40 books - I feel very grateful that my mum and dad refused to buy a television and encouraged my imagination to run wild. So I mailed my dad a card with Pelliccio’s KILL YOUR TELEVISION artwork and I bought myself a print, which I’ve propped on my desk here to inspire me while I write.

But the other night I became aware of a tragic irony (cue dramatic ‘duh-duh-duh!’ music)

While I’m here in America I’m writing a new World War 2 novel and as I’m spending a large chunk of my days writing and researching, most evenings my instinct has been to turn on the TV and chill out in front of it.

The other night, as I was about to dive into the third episode in a row of a gripping show named ESCAPING POLYGAMY, because doesn’t everyone want to know how to escape polygamy?! I noticed the most spectacular sunset going on through the window on the wall next to the TV. 

It was so stunning it inspired me to turn off the TV, grab my notebook and write a poem about it. And even though I’ll now never know how to escape polygamy, the difference I felt physically was palpable. 

Without realising it, sitting staring numbly at some random people trying to escape a hard core splinter group of the Church of the Latter Day Saints had sent me into an almost vegetative state. But when I watched the sunset and wrote a poem about it I could feel myself sparking back into life. 

And then my gaze fell upon the print by Teresa Pelliccio on my desk and the words KILL YOUR TELEVISION and I couldn’t help laughing.

Instead of killing my television I’d been killing my imagination without even realising it. It’s so easy to do - especially after a long working day - it can be all too tempting to switch off your brain and stare at a screen.

And in these days of ‘bingeworthy’ TV series it can be so hard to just say no to Netflix and before you know it an entire evening has been lost.

So this week I have another fun little challenge for you. For just one day or night, kill your television (and your online surfing, scrolling and swiping). Spend any spare time you have reading, writing, creating, listening to music, or simply daydreaming instead, and notice how different you feel.

One of the locals I’ve got to know here is a musician and artist named Eric. He also works at the pretzel, corn dog and funnel cake stand, which is where I got to meet him as I slowly make my way through the menu. One day we got chatting about music and he recommended a new band to me. Last night instead of watching TV I listened to an album by this band in its entirety.

I don’t know about you but it had been a very long time since I listened to an album from start to finish. In these days of streaming music it’s all too easy to hop from one artist to another, one track at a time.

As I lay on my bed listening to the album and staring at the trippy galaxy lights on the ceiling I could feel my mind expanding into the space I’d created for my thoughts to meander and dream. And it felt amazing!

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic. How do you keep your imagination alive?  Or do you feel as if too much binge-watching Netflix and internet scrolling have deadened it? If so, do let me know how you get on if you accept my challenge. 

Here’s to killing our televisions and sparking life back into our wonderful imaginations!

Siobhan

Find out more about Teresa Pelliccio’s incredible artwork here.