Insert more imaginative title here

So this is the first draft of a blog I am working on for another site, this is the more personal opinion version! Enjoy... 

Sat staring at a blank computer screen, at a desk in an office, it is hard to believe that it’s my imagination that got me here.  But then I don’t work in your normal day to day office and I don’t have a normal job.

In fact my job is almost entirely make believe.

I should explain, I’m a performer, a story teller, a writer and generally creative. With this in mind then you would assume that I am one of those people who just loves to post an inspiring quote on my Facebook wall, often super imposed over a beautiful sunset. Well I’m not. In fact most of the time I would argue that Facebook is the last place you should be looking for inspiration but when my mind drew a blank, that’s where I headed, and there was Einstein staring back at me telling me:

Einstein, he like totally knew his stuff yeah?

‘Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand while imagination embraces the entire world and all there ever will be to understand.’

And, who am I to disagree with a genius?

As a story teller I obviously work with children a lot. They have even bigger imaginations than me most of the time, but the biggest challenge I often face is getting them to release it! At a children’s festival last year I asked a little girl, if she could live in the world of make believe what would she do?

Her answer?

Sit and watch TV all day and never have to turn her iPod off at bed time. My heart broke a little. I’m not about to start a rant about the youth of today, because this little girl still had her imagination. In fact she used it regularly to make sure she didn’t have to turn her iPod off at bed time in the real world either.

‘But Mum, I’m listening to the bible!’

Nor, am I advocating the use of the imagination to tell great big whopping fibs either.

I do think though that we forget the importance of something as simple as storytelling.

To paraphrase another inspirational quote:  Behind every great person there is a great story, a story that was probably inspired by another great story.

Stories and the imagination are everywhere. They are what drive us to explore and find out, it’s what made Colombo set off sailing and what keeps astronauts sane on the space station.  Stories tell us what happened in the past and how to behave in the future, they help us understand other cultures, they introduce us to love, life and death, and most of all they make us, us.

One can only dream, that one day my something I say
will be as inspirational as this sunset.

Now I don’t have a whole bunch of statistics to back up the importance of storytelling, of which I am sure there are many, but then I’m not in the business of facts. I’m in the business of make believe and in my eyes, stories are important for children and big kids alike, because they are what makes this very real world make sense.

But I don’t think that’s catchy enough to print over a picture of a sunset.

Stephanie Claire runs Teacup Theatre and Storytelling Workshops at Chorlton’s Jellyfish Rooms Sunday 12-2pm, find out more at www.teacuptheatre.com