always imagine

beauty beckons | Visby, Sweden 2012

 

"More and more the things we could experience are lost to us, banished by our failure to imagine them."

# Rilke

Whew. So it’s October 29th and the last time I posted was July 23rd. No apologies, just a few questions in no particular order:

• Why do we encourage children to dream & imagine,
  but tell adults to live in ‘the real world’?
• Why does ‘the real world’ have to mean mundane & difficult?
  Why is duty relegated to things we don’t want to do?
• Why does it seem more ‘adult’ to be worried & anxious,
  rather than hopeful & adventurous?

These questions have been secretly swirling in my head these past months, though I have only just discovered them these past few days. Today, I’d like to posit a few answers:

• Imagination & dreams increase in importance. As we grow older, our dreams should grow with us…or, rather, beyond us. And I would add to the adage ‘never stop learning’ — never stop imagining.

Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.”

# Arthur Conan Doyle

• The real world is an amazing place. We only need the eyes to see it. Wonder is not always easy to find, but it is there to find if you are but willing. As for ‘duty,’ I think we have maligned that word far too much; that we have piled onto it unnecessarily. I actually wonder if our duties are far fewer than we think, and far simpler — like being kind, for example.
• I am often confused by what it means to be an adult; the ways I have heard it described generally make me want to steer well-clear of it. But perhaps it is a common misperception. From henceforth I would like to consider becoming an adult to mean becoming more & more yourself — the you that learns to open more and more to the world and people around you in that way that is uniquely yours.

Oh, hopeful adventure!

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Comments:

shelly says: amen. the first and third bullet points have always perplexed me. we praise and encourage children being children (which Jesus did too!) but it feels irresponsible to act that way now. thanks for putting those thoughts into words. [29-Oct-12 at 15:24]

bet replied: exactly, shell. and that’s another word that is too often misused: irresponsible. [29-Oct-12 at 18:03] 

 

Melody says: I just heard a life changing word from someone that heard a sermon last week – convoluted how I got it, but brilliant. And that is; whenever those niggling thoughts of self-doubt, self-loathing, or just plain fear, come into your head, instead of trying to refute these thoughts (“No, I AM a good artist because… I sing good” “No, I know I Made the right decision because it felt like the right decision” etc.), come back at these thoughts with a “what if…?” Example: I was talking to a friend who used to play with me in a band, and I was thinking of asking him if he would like to collaborate one day. My censor piped up immediately with “He is a big musician now, he wouldn’t want to do anything with someone like me”, at that point I said “Wait, what if…? What if he really enjoyed working with me? What if he’s been looking for a female partner to collaborate with? What if this would open doors for me?”

By the way, what if works for when you’re really mad at your husband and fear creeps in “what if we are perfect for each other…?”. When my friend told me this, I cried. I needed this little dose of, what is really, dreaming, in every day life.

Here’s to remembering our dreamer selves! [29-Oct-12 at 17:38]

bet replied: to our dreamer selves! 😁 excellent thoughts, mel. that “what if” question sent me on a completely different adventure a few years back. it’s a surprisingly power-packed phrase for its size. [29-Oct-12 at 18:05]