A child’s imagination has no bounds. Some may discard it as foolish or immature, even unrealistic but what makes it infinitely beautiful is that it does not have any patience for reality. It can soar through the skies without having its wings sheared by the blade of boundaries. Maybe it can’t come true, so what of it? The child dares to dream and in this daring itself, there is more than one kind of beauty rooted.
Who are we to say that the imagination of the child is not true? Who gives us the authority to say it’s not real? Who gave us that monopoly over fact and fiction? Why are we so obsessed with definitions? Why do we learn and observe merely to cage our observation within the walls of the Norma. The Norma was created by us, then why can’t we broaden it to encompass our imaginations? The Norma must adjust for human imagination, not the human imagination for the Norma.
That’s the beauty I see in a child’s imagination. It knows no boundaries, it is not rooted in the Norma and it has the elasticity to let itself soar. A child imagines a bountiful number of realities that may not come to true realization in the material, practical world that we are cursed to live and die in. But he dared to imagine, he dared to dream and within the ponderous humanity of his soul and spirit, each and every one of those realities are true. The moment he imagined it, the moment he dreamed it, it has already become a fact. As far as the child is concerned, it is already a reality. It may be abstract for the world, but for him, it’s his concrete. In his mind’s eye he has seen it happen and thus, it has already come to surface. What right do we then, have to say that it’s farcical?
The problem with growing up is that we are told of limitations. “Be practical,” they say. “Be realistic” they demean you. They pressure you to be analytic, logical, to be calculative and to always weigh your resources, even before you dream. Why do we crush dreams before they begin? What if a child who wants to soar through the clouds, never can in this world? Let her at the least dream, let her think of possibilities? One of the world’s oldest cliches is one of the wisest sayings I've ever known. “Reach for the moon” it says. “So what if you can’t grasp the moon? Maybe you will catch a handful of stars”
The problem of limiting, someone’s imagination is a far more multifaceted and multiple beaked hawk monster than we can comprehend. When a young girl of age 6 or 7, has more boy playmates than girls, wears jerseys and shorts, spends the whole day in the sun; flinging from coconut palm trees, swimming till her arms are sore, her skin tanned black; we pull her aside, put a silver tiara on her hair and fit her beautifully in a frilly pink striped straight jacket and teach her to sit eloquently and raise her fingers to her mouth in shame at the slightest deviance from the Norma.
We stop her from playing basketball or swimming and buy her a set of plastic dolls to dress up and with proud gleaming eyes witness as she herself, transform into one of those plastic dolls. We buy her a doll house and ask her to play mother bear and make the business of dressing and taking care of those dolls higher priority than any other talent she can ever hope to pursue. In a couple of years, when she shows up at your door in a less frilly, but a similar straight jacket to the one that you first shackled her in, when she falls on your doormat, talent-less with a failed leaving certificate in her hand and failed dreams under her feet, you lift her up and you say, “Don’t worry, we will get you married to a rich one track man with one track dreams” and then you watch her live her one track life with a dozen one track kids.
And never, not even for a second do you think, what about her imagination? Maybe, if you hadn't reminded her of her boundaries, of her limitations when she hadn't even experienced the world for more than a decade, she might still not have lived the world of her imaginations and dreams in its exact sense. She might not have obtained the moon, but for all you know, she might still have gotten that handful of stars. Then, what part of your norm laced shackles and tender brain washing makes you proud, oh dear society?
May you find happiness, whatever path you choose to take in your life.The person you were, the person who you are still lives on because you dared to dream, once.