I was totally confused and reversed cause and effect, thinking that it meant "If I'm a cat, I'll have internet access!" Since I (a) am not a cat and (b) have internet access, I wasn't quite sure how that worked.

If you don't want to lose your imagination, don't. Imagination does change as you age, but if you will it, it will never be lost. Also, the internet does not equal imagination. It is a tool.

True, but there is a cultural difference. Online culture suggests that having an imagination is a good thing, I've yet to see any area offline wherein the dominant concept of imagination is as anything other than a childish concept to be discarded. Subcultures, yes, but if you look at the general culture of a city, or a country, or even a neighborhood one will find an anti-imagination attitude.

Unfortunately true, this is one of the reasons why I have no one to talk to at work. Art, literature, and gaming are all very foreign concepts where I live and work, Pennsyltucky. If I didn't have the internet my wife and I would go insane.

I disagree. There were communities that supported imagination before the internet. The most prominent one was 'The Arts'. Writers, Actors, Artists.. They were harder to find before the internet, but that doesn't mean they were not there. I think you label them as subcultures and dismiss them unfairly. Imaginative things are cast aside when 'real life' threatens, but that is part of growing up. Cities are not built by children, but by grown ups. Most grownups find a balance between life and imagination. The lucky ones get to combine the two.

BCGamer, I think you are confusing the gaming culture with imagination. Imagination designs buildings, storefront displays, the clothing you wear, the food you eat, football plays... Just because those people do not express their imaginations the same way you do, does not make their use any less valid.

The internet enables people to express their imagination in ways outside of work. It also enables people to find others with the same interests as themselves and you can use it to find things that spark your imagination. Clearly, you can have an imagination without the internet, but it also acts as an enabler.

I can only speak from my own experience, but during the dark days between the end of college and the rise of the WWW, my imagination really atrophied. Getting online helped spark it, but it didn't completely respawn until I became a father.

Wow. My jacakassary actually sparked a real conversation. Who'd o thunk it?

Exactly. The internet is a tool. What we do with it is up to us. Don't you think other fathers and mothers get sparked by their children? People tired from a long day of work sitting on their porch swings imagining a better future? We all get ground down by the monotony of living. It always was, and always will be. You have to work to keep that spark alive. It is easier with the tools we have nowadays, I give you that.

You hang out with the wrong people, then. Almost everyone I know is an artist of some sort---musicians, stand ups, actors, directors, dancers, sculptors, etc. etc.

I went to a Catholic school and didn't have that problem.

I think you are allowing imagination to be overtly ambiguous. There are ideas and imagination. I know what I'm talking about, at my warehouse job I do not get into interesting conversations about design, architecture, clothing, or culinary arts.

From my personal experience with the area that I live; retelling of television programs, stand up routines, or discussions about who they should draft for their fantasy leagues does not qualify with using your imagination. It comes down to regurgitating someone else's imagination or referring to a player's stat block from the previous year does not illustrate an exercise of imagery.

We could argue about the definition of imagination for a while, it is a word, they have different meanings to different people.