Nikola Tesla: Imagination and the Man That Invented the 20th Century

by Sean Patrick

“Facts and ideas are dead in themselves and it is the imagination that gives life to them.”

In every field of human endeavor, the more visionary the work, the less likely it is to be quickly understood and embraced by lesser minds.

Ray Bradbury said that thinking is the enemy of creativity because it’s self-conscious.

Creativity dances to a different tune. Once you flip that switch, things get a bit chaotic. Ideas start buzzing. Images start popping into your head. Fragments of all kinds of data find their way into orbit. We’re pulled in one direction, then suddenly our instincts send us flying in another. Material collides and fuses, disappears and reappears. This chaos is essential to the creative process. A breakthrough occurs when pieces happen to come together in unique and harmonic ways.

“Our first endeavors are purely instinctive prompting of an imagination vivid and undisciplined,” Tesla wrote. “As we grow older reason asserts itself and we become more and more systematic and designing. But those early impulses, though not immediately prod...

Your mind has an incredible ability to cross-pollinate—that is, to connect disparate things to solve problems in unique ways or envision new creations. Einstein attributed many of his physics breakthroughs to his violin breaks, which he believed helped him connect ideas in very different ways.

curiosity. It’s an essential part of becoming more creative. Expand your interests in life. Seek out new, interesting experiences, no matter how mundane or inconsequential they might seem to others. Read books, watch documentaries, and discuss your ideas with others. No subject, no matter how specialized or esoteric, is off limits. You never know where your imagination will find pieces for its puzzles.

By exposing yourself to an abundant variety of ideas, facts, art, and stories, and by pulling from your vast collection in many different ways—by entertaining any idea no matter how seemingly absurd—you can bring your imagination to life. And when you do, there’s no telling what new things you can bring into the world and how it will change.

It takes curiosity to find your call to adventure, it takes courage to venture into the unknown, and it takes imagination to create your path.