february: work
monthly theme: [imagination]
One time a customer came into the coffee shop I work at and asked if we thought the moon landing was real. I was just sort of like “yes…?” And they continued to explain how our phones are more advanced computers than we had back in 1969. To which, there are many logical responses but I don’t know this person and details often evade me when I need them most–so I just said, “Well, I like to believe in human beings. I hope that we can figure out what we need to figure out so that we can accomplish what we’ve set out to do. I believe in us. I believe we can do what we need to do.”
It’s the idea that “planes fly because we believe they can,” sort of mantra. When I went to research this phrase, however, the results were vast and daunting. So although I don’t understand the phenomena or the scientific meaning behind it, I like to interpret it as: “we as humans decided to pursue flight because we believed we could do it. Now we have planes, helicopters, and the like because we believed they could exist so therefore we spoke/believed/imagined them into existence.” It’s equal parts manifestation and simply the way that inventions come about–we have an idea and then we play around until it comes about.
There’s often a large planning, thinking, researching, or incubation phase to start pursuing our dreams. Such great feats that become easy to forget as it is nearly invisible or simply not as sexy as the steps that come after. But sitting down just to think and dream has always been a vital part of how we create new worlds, new inventions.
Imagination is such beautiful work. It can be still and silent, like nothing but a dream. Or it can be as demanding and painful as pulling teeth. Hopefully last week we were all able to reflect a bit on our personal processes of imagination–what they might typically look like and when they often change or arise. And yet just because we have some notion of the way our mind shifts shapes, doesn’t mean we allow it to run free…
How often do you stop yourself before letting a thought fully run its course? Are there any dreams to which you shake your head in disbelief before you can even breach the subject of “happily ever after”? Does it feel dangerous to imagine harmoniously aligned futures for fear of reality never quite matching up?
Yeah, ouch…that last question came to me out of nowhere and knocked me out too. Because that’s exactly it for me–it can be so hard to not only imagine, but also accept the possibility of something so good and wonderful happening to me or to the world. Unfortunately the best antidote I have to that is simply: “well, why not?”
If good things are happening to other people, why not you? If you can dream of a future where everyone’s needs are met; resources are distributed equitably and efficiently; and there’s no need for cops to exist, then why does it hurt to sit in that dream for too long…? What could we possibly be afraid of?
I’ve sat my ass in some fairly “radical” circles of “friends” who interrogated me about such utopic dreams. I shared the hope that everyone’s hearts could be cracked open and we could care for each other with ease because we knew (and practiced) how to care for ourselves. Maybe I used too many religious words at the time, or maybe these folks prided themselves on pessimism disguised as “realism.”
But I would argue that optimism is the most realistic approach that we can have. Optimism understands its place in the world whose only constant is change. That change is not separate from us or our decisions (collective and personal). What we decide to do influences the changes yet to come. Realistically, we can’t foresee just exactly how all of this will play out, but it seems much safer to accept a fuller responsibility than to cynically conclude that the future has nothing to do with how we currently spend our time, money, and energy.
Of course, there are other contemplative approaches that are vital to this work of imagination–like fully understanding who has power, why, for what, and what they will most likely do with it as the climate crisis continues to unfurl. This truth has a lot of emotions tied to it in a dizzying package called “grief.” Allowing ourselves to feel the full weight of it all not only gives us better questions to ask, but also more imaginative and holistic answers as well.
The webs of power and destruction are vast and terrifying, which is why it was (and is) so much easier for these “radical friends” of mine to scoff at my imagined future of love and interdependence ~ even though it is what they wanted as well. Optimistic imagination is dangerous because it believes and acts on this belief that we are powerful, creative, and expansive enough to radically alter the course of our future toward an arch of goodness and care.
Why sell ourselves out to be anything less? Why stifle our imagination to factor out “miracles”? And yes, maybe it is my Catholic upbringing that allows me to not only hope, but believe that the best is yet to come. That anything is possible through love. But that’s just me and my imagination – what’s the most feral pipe dream in your mind?
The work of imagination is to let it fucking RUN, baby! Run, run, and don’t stop. There are already enough restrictions, borders, and policing in this world; your dream life, your inner world should be the first place we practice abolishing those inherited and restrictive habits (arguably, generational curses). Such freedom, acceptance, and lawlessness can be terrifying since it’s often the opposite of what we’ve experienced. In fact, such a pure form of imagination often directly contradicts what we were told was “safe.”
Imagination is dangerous to those who fear change. When we can look to the unmade future and dare mold it into something never before seen, we use the most human muscle we have–our free will. Imagination is the human instinct, inherent to our survival, and vital for our evolution. But imagination also frees us up from reactionary instincts. We can stop and dream. And we really should be doing that much more often, allowing ourselves to get lost in beautiful futures to such a degree that they become our lived reality.
