Originally appeared on Have A Little Humor on November 5, 2015:
I haven’t had the chance to blog in a few weeks, so I have numerous pent up ideas. And when that happens, I end up writing about none of them. Instead, I’m going to introduce you to one of the many reasons I write (and concurrently remind myself why I need to write more often).
So without further ado, let us pull back the curtains to Megan’s Reasons for Writing.
Act I: I’m Still A Kid
Think back to your preschool and kindergarten days. Do you remember coming home from your seven or so hours of Play-Doh-rolling and bead-stringing, feeling like you accomplished something larger than life? Back then, whenever someone asked what you wanted to be when you grew up, you would reach outside of your brain and grab words like “superstar” or “dentist” or “astronaut.” But you couldn’t yet sense a connection to these titles or fathom what working meant. In your mind, you were already doing what you wanted to be doing for the rest of your life – playing.
In a child’s mind, the seven square inches of Velcro-ed fabric adorning her Barbie doll is an elegant gown that, when paired with the perfect pair of plastic shoes, manifests an extravagant ballroom around her, filled with party guests and lively music. And the race-car-shaped piece of plastic with wobbly wheels is refueled by a young boy, but driven by a world record holder who has designed his car to fly over other race-cars!
How can this be, unless visual input is a lie and the laws of physics do not apply?
It seems that, for children, the physical world elicits the same response that a blank canvas may for a prodigious artist (or silence may for a prodigious musician); they simply bestow their eyes (or ears) upon it and suddenly reality is altered – the canvas becomes saturated in imagination, revealing far more vibrant and elaborate versions of reality. And this, if I may pull you into my claim, is why we (read: adults) are often nostalgic of our childhood or envious of the pure lives children around us lead.
Sadly, I don’t have the unhindered-by-the-stresses-of-adulthood imagination that I did as a child, but my mind refuses to accept reality as something plain. I like to think that a tree is more than a photosynthetic staple in our environment, that the feeling of joy is not simply a shift of chemicals in the brain, that a smile is greater than the sum of a few dozen muscle movements… (unless I’m tired, then everything is just something I wish were coffee).
Imagination, in any capacity, drives our ability to connect the seemingly unconnected, see color on a blank canvas, hear music in moments of silence, or express ourselves in a way that inspires creativity in others. Sometimes I can even go so far as to imagine interesting posts in my Facebook newsfeed.
I see that the curtains are beginning to close… so I will say this: at my age, the dolls and race-cars are long passed on or packed away, but now I get to play with words and the fun is born in sharing the extravagant, nature-defying world I see.
Chronicles of Marveling 