Jk Rowling The Fringe Benefits Of Failure Essay

The year 2008 had major changes, such as the election of Obama, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and a political change in Russia. During this time J.K. Rowling, author of the well known series Harry Potter, gave a speech that changed 20 thousand people’s view on the world and is still impacting people as of today. In The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination, J. K. Rowling speaks to Harvard graduates about the ideas of failure and how critical individual imagination is from her first hand experiences that allows her to connect with her audience.
While most graduates at Harvard may have slight atychiphobia, the fear of failure, J.K. Rowling explains to them that they should not be scared of failure because sometimes that's the way to
Rowling went through a time of failure, she never lost her sense of imagination. From her point of view of imagination is defined as, “the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not”. During her time of failure, Rowling knew that she had the ability to imagine anything she wanted, and she could use her creativity as an outlet. To explain what she was trying to describe imagination as, she uses an analogy to magic: “We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better”. In her analogy she explains how people cannot use what is already existing, people have to use the ideas in their mind to get the best outcome. Rowling tells the graduates this because imagination is probably one of the most important skills people need to utilize, hence why her speech is titled ...the Importance of Imagination. To relate, and keep her audience engaged, Rowling uses her imagination to make jokes to ensure that they can understand her point completely. Even though Rowling believes the best way someone can use imagination is through writing, she does recognize that everyone uses their imagination in vastly different