what heaven looks like

N (4.6 years) is running in circles.
A large piece of white chalk on the
ground brings him to a full stop.

"I want to draw heaven."

"Me too.", M (age 3.5 years) adds.

What does heaven look like?

"Nobody knows.", M explains.

Then how can you draw it?

M draws a long oval shape and adds a tiny circle
inside of it. He points to the small circle.

"That's me."

Next, M draws a larger circle above this shape,
adds 6 vertical lines inside of it and points
to the sky.

"It's up there. My grandpa is up there with
some others. They can see us right now.
You go there when you're done."

Was it Hegel who first distinguished between
imagination and fantasy? Both determinants
of intelligence. But imagination being
simply reproductive (imagining something
previously experienced but currently lacking).
And fantasy being inventive (producing the
image of a thing that was never previously
perceived by the senses ... the remote,
the absent, the obscure).

A poetic or productive imagination being
completely impractical; conjuring the unknown.
But a reproductive imagination remaining
pragmatic (like imagining water when one
is thirsty). Either way, it proves
Sartre's notion that,

"The imagination is an act, not a thing."

Ultimately, the fantastical imagination
escapes the real as fast as it can. And
doesn't this make poetry and all art
political?


Gianni Rodari writes,

"If a society based on the myth of productivity
(and on the reality of profit) needs only half
human beings - loyal executors, busy imitators,
and docile instruments without a will of their
own - that means there is something wrong
with this society and it needs to be changed.
To change it, creative human beings are
needed,people who know how to use their
imaginations ... let us develop everyone's
creativity so that the world will change."

He adds,

"Creativity is synonymous with
"divergent thought", that is, thinking
that is capable of continually breaking
the schemes of experience. A mind
that is always at work is creative,
a mind that always asks questions,
discovers problems where others find
satisfactory answers. It is a mind
that prefers fluid situations where
others only sense danger, a mind that
is capable of making autonomous and
independent judgments (also independent
from the father, the professor and the
society), that rejects everything that
is codified, reshapes objects and
concepts without letting itself be
hindered by conformist attitudes.
All these qualities are manifested
in the creative process. And this
process - it should be stressed -
has a playful character. Always."

His question is:

Why do schools relegate the role of
creativity to minor projects? Does
this imply the repression of creative
potentiality as a main objective?

"If one sees things in advance, one can
be regarded as a dreamer because history's
course of time is never identical with that
of the individual, and things do not ripen
at fixed times like peaches ... it takes a
great dose of imagination to see beyond
the school as it is now, and to imagine
the crumbling of its "reformatory with
curriculum" walls. But it also requires
that one believe that the world can
continue and become more humane."
(Gianni Rodari)

What is the shape of heaven?