flights of fancy

I’ve been thinking a great deal lately about writing — mostly because I’ve been doing so much of it over the past few weeks — and imagination, and the idea of “craziness” and how it fits into the world.

It is a cowardly assumption to make that the presence of imagination, of deep feeling, of being subsumed by idealistic thoughts is somehow crazy. Certainly I am more prone than most people I know to flights of fancy, and I don’t pretend to prescribe this method of dealing with the world to everyone I know. And certainly I am prone to letting myself be ruled by these things, which is absolutely not a viable method of dealing with the world.

But to all those cynical, bitter people I find myself interacting with and, moreover, justifying my actions to, I have to ask: can you prove to me that your way is better? Can you prove to me that you somehow have a better experience of life, of your friends and your career and your aspirations by being so thoroughly tired of it all?

I would posit that while my way isn’t the best way, it is a way, and it is my way. For too long I’ve given up too much of myself to fit in with people who considered me somehow less of a person because of these flights. People have considered me “crazy” and I don’t buy it anymore. I don’t schedule my emotions, and I don’t negate the existence of random bursts of imagination. Although I am working very hard to resolve destructive patterns in my behavior, I do not pretend that the destructive impulse does not exist, and for good reason. After all, without destruction, how inimitable could creation ever be?

There are so many bored and boring people in this City, so many people who see the world as a system of economic exchanges and not much else, who use their capital to buy brief respites from their overarching dissatisfaction. It is a coward’s way out to see the world only as it is, not how it could be. Potential is the mother of hope; without hope, I’m not sure what there would be to life.

The next time you consider someone “crazy”, the next time you meet someone or merely pass someone on the street who is doing her own thing, ask yourself: is what she sees less relevant than what I see? Is there such thing as objective truth? Or are we all figuring out our own truths in our own ways?

And isn’t it better, instead of clipping their wings, to let those with flights of fancy simply fly away?