Practicality vs. Imagination

Ah, it is a bad start to a new term. I fell asleep in Linguistics for the second day in a row. Okay, I know I can catch up with the work by just reading the text book, so why do I even bother turning up to class? Still, maybe I should make it a rule to have coffee before Linguistics.

I feel like writing something. To tell the truth, blogging is becoming addictive. I hardly ever used my blog for the first couple of months, but now, I do it every day of the week. Perhaps it’s the lack of real life friends, but I find it hard to find acquaintances who share my interests. I love discussing the implications of religion and history on people. I talk more about theories and fiction than I do about who’s going out with who and that sort of gossip. I’m not what they call a people person.

Fiction does seem a lot more interesting than real life, and more free. I make my own rules, and everything that’s supposedly impossible becomes possible. I suppose that’s what drew me to it in the first place. I’ve always been accused of being a daydreamer, and I’m proud of it in some ways. Dreaming helps me to stay young, and to not lose trust in life. I love my life, even though there are those occasional down moments.

I should be studying History at the moment. I’m trying to learn the first three crusades, and then there’s so much other stuff like starting on my essays or studying for my tests. But I’m just not in the mood. I wonder what is better; to be governed by the heart or by the mind. The heart, even if it does not make the most sensible choices, is the more free of the two. The mind has logic, but it is limited to what we are certain of. That has its uses, but it is very boring, in my book. What is life without imagination? We might as well be robots if we are always stuck in reality. Robots are realistic, grounded, sensible, efficient. But without imagination, who would be thinking up new designs for robots, or even the idea of a robot?

Science is governed by logic, but science itself was discovered through the imagination, and asking questions that no one else has ever asked before. I’m sure the people who invented wheel, the chariot, the stirrup, gunpowder, the cannon, and all those other things, both wonderful and not-so-wonderful, had loads of imagination. It takes innovation to make something new. Being a daydreamer isn’t necessarily a bad thing, even though my thoroughly grounded father makes it sound like a sin. I guess that’s the problem with modern urban society. Everything is based on production, on efficiency and mostly on money. Money is a means to life, but not the meaning of life.

Doing what you want because you want it.

As a student of history, I often get asked about why I decided to take a subject which seems to have very little to do with ‘practical real life’. Perhaps it is my nationality, but almost every person looks at me strangely when I tell them that I do history because I like it, simple as that. Usually, their response goes something along the lines of “History? It’s pretty useless, isn’t it?” to which I reply “No, history is not useless. It teaches you to look at the world from different angles and analyze situations. History shows me how to think, and besides, I love it.” I’m not sure whether they understood most of my lyrical rhetoric.

In our day and age, everything seems to need a solid practical reason. “Just because I like it” is no longer a valid reason for doing something. It seems to me that doing things for enjoyment is something we should feel guilty about. But that in itself is a misconception. Science, finance, practicalities — those are the means to life. But the meaning of life, well, that’s harder to define, isn’t it? Let’s face it. We only get to live once. Our lives could just end tomorrow. Why not enjoy life while we can?

Not everything is about money. I write, not because I want to be a famous author and get rich (although that would be nice) but because I like the act of creating a coherent story, and I like being able to show my readers another world, and other possibilities. I hope that when they read my stories, that they will for a moment glimpse another world, and enjoy themselves. I want to make them laugh, and imagine what life would be like if all impossibilities were made possible. It’s not practical, but those little laughs, those moments of spiritual satisfaction; they make life worth living.