I liked this pithy analysis by Vico, which could serve as an exercise in imagination training: take a memory, describe it as a realistically as you can, then alter or imitate it in some form, then give it a new turn by placing it in a relationship to other things.

Memories pile up through life, and recalling and sharing them can bring pleasure and occasionally solace and generate a new memory of something enjoyed with someone else. Which is why Memory is a key theme on nuannaarpoq.com.

‘Memory has three different aspects: memory when it remembers things, imagination when it alters or imitates them, and invention when it gives them a new turn or puts them into proper arrangement and relationship.’

Source: Giambattista Vico (1668-1744), quoted in Alberto Manguel, Homer’s The Iliad and the Odyssey: A biography (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2007), p. 151

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