Waning Imagination

When we're kids we have amazing imaginations. Every moment of our lives is filled with creativity. I remember kindergarten recess when my friend, Eddie, shouted to me from the monkey bars, "Hey, look at this." He then held up the "OK" sign: To which I replied, "The Eye." (Now you see the connection to the blog, right?) This continued to evolve into a game we played for years, at least until we went to middle school, where we were much too cool to play "The Eye." But the point is, as six year old, we took something rather mundane and created an odd universe, making up rules and characters on the fly.

Later in elementary school my teacher read the poem "The Spangled Pandemonium" by Palmer Brown. One of our tasks was to draw a picture of the spangled pandemonium. What were its features? Long fangs? Claws? What about its hide? Was it furry? Rough? Did it have paws or fins? And what color was it? If I still had my creation, I'd post it here now. But take a moment, read that poem, get out your crayons, and draw a spangled pandemonium. Done? Now get an eight year old to do the same thing. Which one's more realistic? I guess that depends on your state of mind as well as the kid, but perhaps you get my point. Do the same thing with MadLibs, but keep it clean if kids are around.

Kids also create words and phrases, usually based on sound. I recently read a book about trucks to a child I know. When we came to the page with the pickup truck, he said, "Pickup truck? It should be a hiccup truck." That's just silly and definitely not something I would have generated on my own. Another child I know recently coined the phrase "Slop choppy." When asked what this means, he replied, "It means when you have to go the bathroom a lot. You get slop choppy."

So what happens to our imagination? Where have they gone? I won't offer a pacifist view (like Pete Seeger in "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?") But I will pin it on growing older.

I've spent the majority of my adult years working with teenagers, who are notorious for becoming jaded starting shortly before their age ends in "teen." In fact, I've forced many of them to read The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. For those of you who have forgotten the book, the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, is generally antsy about growing up. In fact, during a telling conversation with his younger sister, HC comments that all he really wants to be is the "Catcher in the Rye," a guy who stands at the edge of a cliff and keeps kids from falling to their doom. Upon further examination, the metaphor is clear: Holden wants to protect children from the cruelties of the adult world. I haven't lost you, have I?

But that's what happens to us. As we age, we see the ugliness of the world around us, that the recent bumper sticker is right: Mean People Suck. Yet we realize that, in fact, lots of people are mean. So we protect ourselves from this meanness by stifling our silliness, our creativity, our fun mode. Most adults look at creativity (and serious art, for that matter) as frivolous, like we don't have time for these things because we have to work, pay taxes, choose the right cell phone (and plan), mow the lawn, hire a pool guy, wax the car, buy a new car, watch television, check our email, keep up with which celebrity is marrying/divorcing/going to prison/having whose baby/smoking whose crack, et cetera, et cetera. The average American clings to and cares about celebrities in order to forget about these same realities. Speaking of which, Major League Baseball Hall of Famer Goose Gossage recently said about America's obsession with celebrities' lives, "Get a life, America." (I love Goose...and his mustache.)

And so I implore you, dear reader, to reacquaint yourself with your imagination. Perhaps this is what Bob Dylan meant when he wrote "Forever Young."

"May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung...
May your heart always be joyful,
May your song always be sung,
And may you stay forever young."