ODDS & ENDS - part 1

Articles In This Section:

· ODDS & ENDS - part 1

· ODDS & ENDS - part 2

· ODDS & ENDS - part 3

· ODDS & ENDS - part 4

· ODDS & ENDS - part 5

· ODDS & ENDS - part 6

· ODDS & ENDS - part 7

How to Use Your Imagination. Imagination is a dream searching for fulfillment. You will find it wise to dream. Dream magnificent dreams—the wildest dreams. Incorporate your ambitions and wants into these dreams. What would make you happiest in the whole world? Well dream about it. Picture this dream. Fix it in your mind. Now just how impossible is it? What would you have to do to make it come true? What can you do? What have you that will help you in the way of realizing this dream? What does it really take? Imagine yourself taking every step to realize your dream's fulfillment. Do any embryo plans begin to present themselves? Does any idea come to you that you can use to bring this about?

Dreams are the stuff ambition is made of. Dreams beget interests and pursuits. Dreams are the basic raw material for ideas, plans and, eventually, a course of action. Dreams are easy. They spring from desire. But putting dreams on the drawing boards— and thence to a material reality is beyond the average person. A thousand miles of dreams will draw them only a mile along the road. Better mileage any worthy dream deserves.

Don't be afraid of being labeled an idle dreamer. If you use your imagination enough sooner or later you'll give birth to a dream desirable enough and practical enough for you to undertake its realization. I subscribe to being a dreamer. During my younger years my dreams ran into fantasy. They were not practical by any stretch of the imagination. But of these impossible beginnings were laid the groundwork for mental projections of a more realizable nature. My tastes began to become definite and cultivated along certain lines. I began to find things I liked well enough to have in this world. My fantastic dreams gave way to the realization that every want we really have can be satisfied fully in this world we have in hand. I still, on occasion, dream on an astronomical basis. But I manage to boil something little and something worthwhile out of them. Little inventions are the practical stuff of big dreams. Personally, I do not limit my dreams to this or that.

Whatever strikes my fancy or interest I delve into. How does a dream—or an imaginative project—like this sound to you. Let's try to create an engine that operates directly upon the heat of the air! I have heard a hundred persons say it was impossible for every one who thought it was practical. But I have had no one to tell me why it couldn't be done. That is impossible too! If it can't be done there must be reasons why. If it can be done there must be reasons why. Can't you just imagine such a machine—a machine where fuel costs were no consideration? The heat of the air is ever renewed by the Sun. Why can't it be extracted or captured? We humans feel we utilize tremendous amounts of power but our power use is minuscule comparatively. I, personally, have had a lot of fun with this particular idea among others. It would be a great dream to have such tremendous energy that oceans of fresh water can be pumped to great deserts and be turned into Edens of plenty. But in some of my encounters with unimaginative engineers I have come across arguments against it on the basis that it was perpetual motion, etc., etc. In fact, the impossibility of the idea was so stressed that I confess I made fools of some of them. What is not— is impossible. But many educated men cannot see this idea—when such is no longer just an idea. The heat pump is an embryonic beginning of just such a development.