I have been too exposed to today`s world of media. The generation of writers who lived in a world dominated by written media is dying out and the imaginations of today are all gobbled up by the freely available variety of all kinds of visual media. The thing is that visual media proscribes while written media only describes. Most fruits of imagination in this age of information are being interpreted before they reach our imagination and the rate at which this is happening is increasing dramatically. Most of if not all the kids today see already interpretations of Lord of the Rings, interpretations of Harry Potter before their imaginations have the chance to create any imagery of their own. And when if at all they get to read the original stories, their mind automatically re-creates the visual images already associated with this familiar story. And this will continue to happen and in years to come, there will be almost no one left who knows that Tolkien did not create the Steward of Gondor a heartless and cruel man. I would dare to say that imagination has its pathways cut off by the visual media, they are plastered shut with metaphorical posters under which only the rarest individuals will find their Shawshank`s Redemption. To proceed with the first-mentioned remark about myself, I find it very hard to do any kind of creative writing, because the very way how I imagine things is visual and I cannot find the words to put the things into. Words... woooooords. Words is what feeds our imagination. Words is how myths and legends were created. Words is what creates stories. Images can only re-create, which is a repetitive function that ultimately has just one purpose – to provide a precise example of something. The flight of imagination stops at an image. If the information from which the myths arose were to be passed down in such precise and cohesive way, where would the myths go? Where would the imagination go? I cannot write like this. I need space. Even now, when reading most of the modern writers I feel as if the writer is trying to put images straight into the writing. Be it consciously or not, I believe it is the result of the current age where most of our experiences are being presented to us in a visualized state. Of course, I`m saying this while thinking exclusively about fantasy literature, for I wouldn`t know any better to judge any other genre and the fantasy literature exclusively is also the literature that deals with the aforementioned spheres – myth and legend. I can`t say if this is for good or bad, but I sure feel that it impedes my personal freedom of imagination. I do not wish any images of dwarves or elves in my mind before I`ve gotten to read any of the books that present these races. For example, there is Terry Pratchett, who is most definitely a monumental fantasy writer of the modern age, while also old enough not to have seen too many films in his childhood. When I`m reading any story of his I can`t straight ahead go through his book by visualizing it, I feel I am following the words and the story very closely, but the first thing that happens in my mind is the action itself, then the meaning and only then perhaps a framework of a picture if necessary, however while trying to read the Warlock series I felt constantly compelled to visualize before any meaning was drawn to the image. As if the colours and things that you can touch by visual means were the most important. I must admit I could not bear with it and didn`t read much more than a half of the book, but I felt this scraping at the back of my imagination. I felt as if watching a film which was too long while reading the book. This is not how books should work. And the rate of success of the book however only shows how unaware the readers are of what is happening with their imagination. I don`t know, perhaps so it must be and the future of imagination is based solely on visualization, but in that case it is not my future. It is too boring and real imagination is becoming really scarce.