How The Acceleration Of Imagination Is Powered by Tangibility
I felt something when I finished the first draft of my first book.
It took me over eight years to write.
My second book took me four.
My third, two.
The faster pace wasn’t because I’d suddenly become a better writer. Something else had changed. Once I knew I could finish a book, the process became more concrete, more efficient.
It became tangible.
I printed out the really rough draft and held it in my hands.
I then could do more! I wanted to do more! I did do more!
This sparked an insight: once an idea moves from theory to practice, the rate of progress accelerates. It’s like there’s a tipping point, where imagination shifts into something real, something actionable.
Let it be known that I have not published a book, as editing and marketing is something I have not even started… I have only written first drafts that are over 80,000 words. But I digress.
What is it about tangibility that drives imagination forward? And does imagination hit a wall after a certain point of realization, or does it evolve into something else?
The Etymology of Tangible
The word “tangible” comes from the Latin tangibilis. This means “that can be touched,” derived from tangere, which means “to touch.” It first appeared in English in the 14th century with the same literal sense.
Over time, its meaning expanded beyond the physical. By the 16th century, people used "tangible" to describe things that could be understood or comprehended. As well as touch, that remained.
This shift in meaning shows us why tangibility is crucial for innovation. When an idea moves from theoretical to practical, it becomes something we can interact with. We can test it, refine it, and improve it. This is essential for turning imagination into reality.
What’s The Tipping Point For Tangibility?
The tipping point for tangibility often happens when a concept moves from being a possibility to something you can see working in real life. This can be the first successful test, but it doesn’t always happen that way.
Take film and movies, for example. The early days of cinema were all about the spectacle. Then came A Trip to the Moon in 1902, with its imaginative narrative and special effects, showing that movies could tell stories. Fast forward to 1927, when The Jazz Singer became the first movie to successfully combine sound and picture. Once the audience realized, “Wait, movies can talk now?”, it set off a massive acceleration in filmmaking. Different genres exploded, storytelling got richer. Now, it is in everyone’s home.
A similar tipping point happened with air travel. Sure, the Wright brothers’ flight in 1903 was a big deal. But the real acceleration didn’t come until the 1950s with the commercialization of jet engines. When airplanes stopped being a risky venture and became reliable enough for mass transportation, the entire world opened up. Once airlines realized, “Hey, people will actually pay to spend less time travelling”, it made commercial airliners necessary. Air travel then exploded in accessibility.
Then there’s AI. For decades, AI was this abstract concept people loved to talk about in sci-fi novels and conference rooms. But the tipping point? That came when OpenAI’s GPT models hit the public, and suddenly AI wasn’t just something we dreamed about. It became tangible. People could interact with it, build businesses around it, and the world took notice. And now? Everyone’s scrambling to one-up each other in this new AI arms race, accelerating innovation faster than anyone could have predicted.
A Proof Of Concept
Finishing my first draft was proof that the idea wasn’t just living in my head anymore. It existed, awkward and flawed, but real. This is where imagination accelerates. Once you’ve made something tangible, imagination stops being romantic and starts being practical. You’ve done it once, so your brain stops treating the process like an impossible dream and starts treating it like a problem to solve.
The uncertainty is gone. It becomes tangible. And you have momentum. You have a more plausible belief in the idea.
This is the power of the Proof Of Concept. It can be done. The assumption of impossibility has been removed. It’s the same with any kind of innovation — once you’ve built the first prototype, or written that first draft, the process accelerates. Not because it’s easier, but because you’re no longer asking “Can I do this?” Now, it’s “How do I do this faster?”
So, for me, finishing that first book was a tipping point. Not because I was suddenly a brilliant author — trust me, that first draft is extremely terrible — but because it gave me something real to work with. Imagination needs that kind of tangibility. Without it, it stays stuck in speculation.
Any major innovation goes through this proof-of-concept phase. History shows that once something is proven possible, it accelerates. The internet followed a similar trajectory. Its early incarnation in the 1960s and 70s as a military communication tool was limited and niche, but by the time Tim Berners-Lee introduced the World Wide Web in 1991, the concept of a globally connected network was no longer theoretical. In just a few years, the internet went from niche to necessary, changing how we communicate, work, and play.
The reason the proof of concept is so powerful is that it answers the big question: Can this be done? Once that’s settled, people stop wondering if something is possible and start figuring out how to make it better. In business, this means competitors scramble to iterate and refine. In creativity, it means artists and creators push boundaries. Imagination speeds up not because the road ahead is clear, but because the assumptions holding it back are gone.
Constraints and Imagination
Tangible realities come with constraints. When we dream up an idea, it’s like painting on a blank canvas. You can do whatever you want. But once that idea hits the real world, it encounters the brick wall of feasibility, budget, and practicality. These walls don’t just stop creativity; they shape and direct it.
It is because on the other side, is tangibility.
The original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) had to work with very limited hardware. Instead of a high-definition graphics powerhouse, developers had a system that could barely handle basic 8-bit graphics. Yet, this limitation led to the creation of iconic games like Super Mario Bros.. That 8-bit piece of kit created worlds. These constraints weren’t obstacles; they were the playground where some of the most beloved games were born.
Once an idea transitions from the drawing board to tangible reality, it steps into a feedback loop that speculation simply can’t offer. This is where imagination meets real-world scrutiny and develops through interaction.
Early personal computers, like the IBM PC from the 1980s, were rudimentary. But these early computers didn’t just sit on shelves. They were used, broken, and improved by everyone. This real-world feedback loop was crucial. It highlighted shortcomings and sparked a whirlwind of improvements. Innovators took the initial concept and built upon it.
Look at the development of the iPhone. When Apple introduced it in 2007, it was a revolutionary piece of technology, but sheesh, it had problems. Users quickly found bugs and limitations, and Apple responded with updates and improvements. And they still do today. This cycle of feedback and refinement turned a revolutionary device into an indispensable one.
By exposing ideas to real-world use and critique, we move from theoretical possibilities to tangible innovations. Our imagination accelerates when we know things are tangible.
The Imagination Trap
Tangibility can be a double-edged sword.
While it undeniably accelerates progress, it can also become a trap. The very act of turning an idea into something real can cause us to narrow our focus, reducing a once-limitless imagination into something that fits within the confines of the tangible world. We often mistake the first manifestation of an idea for the final one. We blind ourselves to its deeper potential.
Take the tech industry. The smartphone revolution didn’t stop with the first iPhone. That was merely a proof of concept, yet it instantly reshaped our collective imagination. Suddenly, every phone had to follow this template: glass screen, apps, touch interface. In its tangibility, the iPhone became the new boundary, the new “box” we couldn’t think outside of. Yes, it revolutionized communication, but it also monopolized our imagination. We stopped asking bigger questions like, “Is there an entirely different way to communicate?” Instead, we got stuck refining what already existed — making it thinner, faster, or shinier. In chasing refinement, we sacrificed radical imagination because it was tangible.
Similarly, in architecture, the dominance of skyscrapers in urban planning was once a bold, imaginative leap. A building assembled vertically to accommodate dense populations. But now, that imagination is now more measured. Tangibility has locked cities into vertical designs, and we’ve stopped asking if this is even the best way to live.
The greatest risk, then, is that once we make something tangible, it becomes the limit of our vision. It shifts our creative focus from “What could be?” to “How can we perfect what already is?” Imagination, once set free, can easily become chained to its first iteration.
Often, the acceleration of imagination is not infinite. It is going to run out, and often that comes sooner than we think.
In this way, tangibility is both a blessing and a curse. It pushes us to act but simultaneously traps us in the reality once we have created that something. Tangibility becomes a benchmark. This limits imagination by suggesting that anything beyond them is unnecessary.
It’s the reason why, after the invention of the automobile, we didn’t question whether cars were the ultimate form of transportation; we just kept making better cars.
It is not a bad thing. But it also shows how the acceleration has a limited life.
As ideas become real, they accelerate imagination. But they also create limits. Tangibility drives us to refine and improve, but it can trap us in a cycle of iteration instead of reinvention.
The real danger lies in mistaking the finished product for the final possibility. Maybe the uncomfortable truth is that progress, for all its excitement, can also be a prison.
Where to from here? Well, if you have an idea, start. Start and make it tangible. There, you’ll speed up the imagination. And when it becomes real, note that the acceleration will slow down. Which is perfectly fine, as a new idea will come forward.
Just like how I feel about my book.
