If we shadows have offended,
think but this and all is mended,
that you have but slumbered here,
While these visions did appear.
The Faerie ‘Puck’ in William Shakespeare’s ‘Midsummer Nights Dream’
The greatest mistake a human can make, in my view, is to not treat imagination as real. This does not mean that what we call ‘reality’, is unreal. Reality and imagination both have a vital role to play in our lives.
The character of Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, had to learn this lesson three times in order to understand himself better. Three ‘spirits’ took him on three journeys into his own past, present and future. From objectively viewing his own character weaknesses, his false pride was beaten into submission and he learnt the most valuable life lesson of all – unconditional love. These ‘imaginary’ journeys and the lessons overpowered the lonely ‘refority’ he had built for himself.
All of us encounter these three ‘spirits’ in our lives, if we can make a leap of faith and objectify our ‘imaginary’ selves as ‘real’.
The first such spirit we encounter is in our childhood when we understand very little about the real workings of life. Rather, we ‘act out’ roles that our imaginary selves would like to be in the future…our ‘Christmas yet to come.’ The dressing up box is a most useful item, enabling children to assume wildly fanciful roles as magicians, dentists, racing drivers, astronauts and so on. The most ordinary prop fulfils the need for an exact semblance of physical reality in their imaginary world. Watching children at play is a most rewarding way to understand our own susceptibility to imaginary states of mind. When we are children, fantasy often overwhelms what we feel is our ‘objective self’ and teases us with pleasures and torments, in a safe way. But, like Peter Pan, some children refuse to ‘grow up’ into an adult. The world of frigates, flying and fairies is far too much fun to frizzle away.
The character of Walter Mitty is a literary example of how there can be a child in an adult’s body. Mitty lived in an absorbing ‘dream world’ with flights of fancy that would replay dreams with himself in the lead role. He would encounter a situation the real Walter Mitty would be completely unable to deal with, and compensate with his imagination; such as flying a plane or conducting an orchestra. This is the ‘ghost of Christmas present’ where as individuals we have moved on the adulthood, but in a failed way. Unlike Walter Mitty, most people engage with the ‘hum drum real world’ and it’s seemingly endless burdens and chores, punctuated by few delights. Remember the character played by Tom Hanks; Forest Gump? For this character, a string of exciting situations were both wild and implausible enough to be fantasy and yet were firmly, real. Forest, in contrast to Walter Mitty, had mastered the most important challenge of all; to successfully merge imagination with reality.
Our most important decision is to find what people call our ‘destiny’, but this often sounds rather a vague destination. Even the decision to find a career is an extremely difficult one for a young person. From the view of an elder, I would define ‘destiny’ as simply following the people and things that you love. Although this sounds simple it is of course much harder that it sounds, as there are often obstacles to our dreams. As a child my dream was to be an Admiral but when the time came, my eyesight was not good enough. Watching Lionel Andres Messi play football for Argentina in the 2022 World Cup, is to see a man fulfill his destiny as a footballer. Those who purchased his No.10 shirt and wore it to the match were merely living the dream of a third partie’s achievements, a dead end path to their own destiny.
When we follow and act out an overwhelming excitement to do something, this is our own dream becoming true. Unfortunately, it is a sad fact that less than 4% of Western Europeans are in what they would call ‘their dream job’. The rest find themselves working in order to earn money and have no dream. The servers in the restaurants in Hollywood are often ‘wannabe’ film stars. The lucky minority who are ‘successful’, appear on our television screens.
As well as finding the employment that makes us fulfilled, we must find a partner who fits our ‘imaginary ideal’ of a partner. This again is a huge challenge as the ‘ideal’ man or woman is rarely found and if found; is available and inclined to reciprocate those feelings. If the latter does happen, as in the fairy story of the prince and princess falling in love for ever and ever, then blue birds will sing among the pink clouds and the castle turrets will tower over the cheering crowds at their wedding. Walt Disney has relived this imaginary moment for millions of children and adults and I would argue it is not wrong to dream. Through all these types of stories, whether in ancient myths and legends or on soap TV and radio, we learn to match objectively, our imaginations with reality. It is like two QR codes marked on two sheets of glass. When they slide over each other, the two appear to be identical. The worlds of imagination and physicality are just as unique and, when blue birds start flying around your head for real, they are in perfect harmony.
To return to our Christmas Carol theme, we enter the final stage of life. The woman or man lose their beauty as their body withers with age but their mind is usually disproportionately active and many older people will give you their ‘feeling age’ as their early twenties. When you engage them in conversation, they will recount their times of ‘Christmas past’ when significant moments fulfilled them. These will be substantially real but also coloured by imagination. Like old black and white films that have been digitally ‘colourised’, life becomes a series of memories which are a mixture of physical reality and imagination. The best are of course, those moments when our ‘dreams come true’.
Memories are valuable, but we should not forget that our true self is always in the present.
For this reason we cannot compare ourselves with others and form judgements.
We can only use the ‘guiding spirit’ (who taps on the frozen window pane of our own self pity one night) to remind us of who we might be and that we are not that person yet. The Dickens story recounts how it is never too late to learn how to become better. It is never too late to live the dream that you always wished for. It is never too late, unless you are one of those people who refuses to be motivated by your own imagination; to follow your own ‘yellow brick road’ that leads to the encounter with the Wizard of Oz or purchase the ‘giant Christmas turkey’ that with unconditional love, fills the bellies of all, including Tiny Tim.
What Mr. Scrooge had learnt was that living the present moment is the ultimate present to oneself and those around you.
Matters Blog 