The Key to My Imagination

I have not written anything at all today, mainly because I slept in. Everything seems to be closing in around me. I have two essays to write, a test on Monday, so many history books that I need to read. I need to learn the first three Crusades, and all the evidence I’ve found about the fall of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem is contradictory. I suppose it’s a subject in which there is no mid ground. I am undeniably biased towards the Ibelins, thanks to the movie. They don’t seem that bad, compared with all these other people whom I have read about. I certainly prefer the ‘Dove’ faction to the ‘Hawks’. The Doves seemed smarter, and they cared about the state of the Kingdom. I’m not fond of crusaders, but movies do influence me a lot and I like Balian of Ibelin, real or fictional.

I’m in university again, class starts in 25 minutes. So far, I have resisted my desire for coffee, since the vending machine swallowed up my two dollars yesterday and didn’t give me my M ‘n’ M’s, and I’m hoping to make up for that stupid incident by saving up the dollar sixty, which is how much a coffee costs. Besides, this class isn’t one which needs a caffeine boost. I’ll be having one tomorrow though, because of this boring boring compulsory class in which the lecturer cannot even speak properly.

I know I should be working or reading history books in preparation for the exams, but I’m really not in the mood. The library is so hot and stuffy, and I need to see Kingdom of Heaven; It’s a ‘desperate and unyielding need’, if I may quote Jack Sparrow from Pirates. I don’t know why I’m being so slack this year. All right, I was slack last year as well, but at least I knew what I was doing last year. This year, I have no idea where I’m going, and it’s actually important. I need the good grades to be accepted into the first professional year for Speech and Language Therapy training. They only take a small percentage of people, and not many make it out successfully as Speech and Language Pathologists/Therapists.

I have texts which I need to read, but they’re at home, and I really can’t be bothered reading more academic language for the week. I need to read some good fiction, preferably lighthearted and silly.

In this prison I sit

surrounded by books

Their pages muffle the noises outside

 

Words entrap me

coming out of pages

Winding themselves about my head

 

I’ve had enough, I say,

I need to be free

to feel and hear and breathe

 

And in the darkness I grope

for a way out of prison.

What’s this? A chink, a ray of light

seeps into the murky gloom

 

My fingers scrabble.

I find a pen,

and an open door on blank pages

 

The pen is a key.

I open the door,

and step into my imagination.

 

Yeah, that’s my bad poetry. I can’t write poetry — I only muck around with it when I’m insanely bored.

 

 

 

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.