The other day I listened to a motivational speech given by comedian Steve Harvey. He talked about the word “imagination.”

“Everything we have today is because of somebody’s imagination,” he said.

Somebody thought it would be great if we could talk on a telephone without an attached cord, almost anywhere. We have the cellphone. Somebody got tired of walking everywhere and created the automobile, and somebody else got tired of driving long distances and invented the airplane.

Harvey got me thinking. Every mind comes with a preinstalled imagination. Just think if nobody had one. We’d be wandering around still living in the stone age. We wouldn’t have any of the conveniences that keep coming our way with modern technology.

Another point from Harvey is that no one’s imagination is like any others. We have the same internal organs, and on the outside, we have the same body parts given at birth. But once inside the brain, we’re all originals when we think outside the box of literal reality.

Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is everything. It’s the preview to life’s coming attractions.” Yet, we draw a line between what practical applications are invented by imagination on one side and stuff we think of that is just stupid and not real on the other.

Many believe that ghosts and aliens exist, though no one has yet to prove it. Many believe in a god they’ve never seen, but say Santa Claus is a figment of our imagination, even though the iconic holiday figure was created from a real person born in the year 270.

Harvey says that anything we keep imagining should be something we need to get to fulfill our purpose of being alive. The problem we have, though, is that we tell our big dreams to a small-minded people. You come up with an incredible idea. You tell it family and friends, and they shoot it down. They shoot it down because your idea is not in their imagination; it’s undoable to them. Imagine how many dreams and great ideas never got past the kitchen table.

If we never acted upon our imagination, never tried to capture a dream we’ve had, our lives would be unfulfilled and incomplete. Harvey says when we wake up in the morning that means that God still has plans for us, and as long as we keep faith, we can succeed in having our imagination become reality.

I find too many people around my senior citizen age giving up on themselves. They say it’s too late for them to follow a dream. They’re too old with too many, “I shoulda, woulda, couldas” in their past that are no longer possibilities.

Grandma Moses began painting at the age of 78 and became a renowned American folk artist. Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote her first book when she was 64; it became the basis of the popular “Little House on the Prairie” TV program. Colonel Harlan Sanders was 65 when he started the Kentucky Fried Chicken. Rosemary Smith at age 79 became the oldest person to drive a Formula One race car. World War II veteran Mohr Keet began bungee jumping when he was 88, and at 96, was the oldest to ever perform the daredevil event. Cancer survivor Harriette Thompson ran her first marathon race when she was 76 and her 15th at age 91.

These accomplishments all began as pipe dreams from their imaginations they made into their beautiful realities.

My 1969 high school yearbook listed what every senior wanted to be after graduation. Mine said “sportswriter” next to my picture. After teaching for 38 years, 44 years later I became a sportswriter for the newspaper you are reading right now.

Famed artist Pablo Picasso said, “Everything you can imagine is real.” I don’t believe that anyone can argue his point. Think of some of the most creative ideas that went from mind to matter. Disney World was built from a 1928 black and white cartoon mouse. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright built a house in 1935 directly over a waterfall in Mill Run, Pennsylvania. In 1963, the Gateway Arch that marks the history of westward expansion was constructed out of steel, and in the Black Hills of South Dakota, Mount Rushmore was sculpted from rock by Gutzon and Lincoln Borgium from 1927 to 1941.

All these incredible constructions had begun with a simple idea from someone’s imagination.

The problem I had with my imagination has been doubting its credibility, but now I feel it’s as real as the air I breathe. If you’re a regular reader of this column, you’ve seen my imagination in full force. I’ve given human life to a penny. I’ve made walls talk about somebody who once lived in a house. I’ve had veterans from different wars meet in heaven to talk about their battle experiences. I’ve looked into the future and shown you a museum with artifacts like books, records and newspapers.

I’ve taken a risk with you. A while back, somebody asked me, “Where do you come up with such ideas?” The answer — my imagination. I trust it at the risk of me opening my mind and you thinking I’m crazy. So were the Wright brothers who flew the first airplane, so was Martin Cooper who invented the first handheld phone, and so was Henry Sampson who contributed his knowledge to the creation of the cellphone.

Anyone who dares sharing his imagination with others is “crazy” good in my opinion.

Thank God for early humans who came up with ideas to create the first fires so they could have heat. Thank God for poets who remove us from the Bubble Wrap we live in and enlighten our lives by giving human qualities to mountains and oceans. Thank God for songwriters who sing love inside blue skies and red wine with their words and music.

So come on board. Go crazy with me. Think outside the box. Trust your imagination and dare to share!

Note: Regarding last week’s column about Oneida Lake in New York, many of our area residents visit the lake each year. To conserve the quality of the water and fund community projects, you can donate as little as $8 a year at the website oneidalakeassociation.org. Thank you!

Email Rich Strack at richiesadie11@gmail.com