I Miss My Imagination       Though I've thoroughly enjoyed many of the added responsibilities and privileges that come with getting older, I must admit that I miss much of my childhood quite a bit. Are these privileges I've earned worth losing some of my childhood creativity?   One of the things that I associate most strongly with my childhood is imagination. Though I still consider myself a creative person and enjoy activities that play to the artistic side of my abilities, I feel that I've lost much of my childhood creativity. As a kid, I found that my imagination was a significant part of who I was. I remember being secretly proud of the fact that I gave myself nightmares, due to my overactive imagination. At that point, my imagination seems like an integral part of myself, something that originated from inside me. In a sense, I used my imagination as a way of interacting with and making meaning from the world in a similar way that I now use goals and organization. As Cobb explained, imagination as a method of perception is used as "an active organizing process, itself possibly including an element of purpose" (Cobb 716).   With the increase in ordering and reasoning as a way of finding meaning and a decrease in my everyday use of my imagination, I feel that my imagination is no longer such a strong force well up from an inner source. Rather, it almost feels separate from me, more external than internal. My perception has begun to focus much more closely on goal-setting and external measures of accomplishment, such as recognition by others or achievement of specific goals. However, not all is lost. Several of my classes this semester have prompted me to look at a given situation, a certain problem, or even my life as a whole more broadly. I feel that, in many ways, my awareness has expanded, and hat I have become somewhat reacquainted with my childhood self's ability to "perceive...and participate with the whole bodily self" (Cobb 718).   Psychology is one of the subjects that has broadened my awareness   As I continue with my mental development towards adulthood, I hope to hold on to or even to rediscover completely this childhood ability to perceive the whole, as well as my part in that whole.