LJ Idol, Topic 27: "Once Upon a Dream"
Once upon a time, there was a little boy who believed in magic, and miracles, and dreams, and the great mysteries of life. He spent his time with his head in the clouds, dwelling amidst castles of ivory, flights of dragons and other wonders, each more fantastic than the last.
Once upon a time, there was a little boy who believed in nothing at all unless it was something that could be measured, understood, quantified. He spent his time forever analyzing the world around him, readjusting his viewpoint based on the new evidence he saw, viewing everything through the cold light of a microscope.
Once upon a time, these two little boys were actually the same little boy.
I'm often asked how it is that I can be so interested in animated movies, fantasy stories, fairy tales, dreams and myths and other flights of fancy, and still reconcile that with my firmly skeptical, pragmatic worldview. The answer is multifaceted; just like a lot of life's questions, it's not an easy one to address (and where would the fun be if all of those difficult questions had quick, pat answers, anyway?).
I analyze and question and reevaluate my worldview because I have to. I am constructed in such a way that I accept nothing at face value -- not a friendship, not the law of gravity, not a politician's promise, not the color blue -- without exploring it, seeking its truth, weighing the evidence, applying the principles of scientific observation to it. I see the firmness of the bedrock on the mountain under my foot, and am reassured. I read with mounting dismay the evidence suggesting that Peak Oil is an armageddon that may be upon us within a decade or two. I watch data stream through my broadband lines to provide me with high-speed digital downloads, and bless the electrical and technological advances that made it possible. I receive a phone call from a friend and my heart leaps with gladness because I've known him for more than twenty years and he's been there for me repeatedly, through the good times and the bad. I live my life from day to day from a rational perspective, weighing evidence, discarding or rejecting faulty viewpoints, tentatively accepting new views, continually reevaluating the way I look at things through these camera lenses I call eyes. I am comforted by the familiar, the usual, the things I know that are steady and unchanging, but am equally comforted when I discover new information about something that causes me to change my mind or shift my point of view.
And yet......
In spare moments, my mind breaks free and flies high. I dream of worlds unvisited, of ancient cities long gone in faraway places. I dream of people I've never known, but who seem as real as the person sitting next to me. I dream of fantastic creatures never seen in our zoology, their glistening metallic scales glinting in the dying rays of a strange sun. I witness wars that span eons, voyages that span enormous gulfs in the depths of space, unleashed forces whose power and majesty dwarf anything I've seen on earth. I imagine things that should not be, things that never were, things that may be only, things that cannot possibly be -- and yet are.
Sometimes I think my love of mystery and magic and fantasy is a reaction to my strongly pragmatic nature -- that my mind is too repressed by rationalism and humanism and other "isms", and needs an outlet. That I dream and imagine fantastic beasts and objects and people because it acts as a safety valve -- preventing me from blowing up when the pressure gets too great. This isn't something I really believe, though.
Sometimes I think of these two natures as two sides of the same coin, similar to the Yin/Yang philosophy. Darkness can't exist without light. If you push down on a bicycle's pedal, the other pedal will rise. Might it not be the same with a belief in the rational and a belief in the magical? Maybe you can't dream of the skies without having your feet firmly rooted on the ground. But this too seems overly simplistic to me -- I know people who are only pragmatic and skeptical and have no truck with imagination of any kind. They can't even imagine that the sun will come up tomorrow until they see it rising over the horizon, despite the mountains of evidence. Likewise, I know plenty of people who spend all of their time dreaming and drifting, with no kind of connection to reality, no tether to the earth. They too have taken it too far to one extreme, as far as I'm concerned.
Me, I'm quite content feeding both halves of my personality. I form my philosophies, my personal beliefs, my worldview, my personality traits, my friendships, my life, from both of these extremes. It's my rational self that keeps me grounded when I'm confronted with ridiculous nonsense like "psychic" Sylvia Browne. It's my rational self that keeps me cautious, accepting nothing until I have firm evidence and observable, quantifiable data. Yet it's my dreaming self that exults with a child's joy as I watch Iron Man soar through the clouds in The Avengers, or rejoices at Sauron's destruction in The Lord of the Rings. Rationally, I know these places, these things, don't exist, but I don't care. They entertain me. They nourish me. They set my spirit afire and my imagination alight. Dreams and magic, mystery and enchantment, things beyond belief -- I believe in them all, and I think my life would be much poorer without these phantasms, as gossamer as they may be.
Because although I'm grounded firmly in the "real" world, I know in my secret heart that dreams, too, are real. Imagination is the most powerful tool human beings have. All of the great advances we've made since we crawled out of our caves eons ago have been made because of imagination. We dreamed it, we saw it, we worked for it, and then we created it. Where would we be without imagination and ingenuity? Without longing for a better world, for something more fantastic than what we have? I'm of the opinion that the fire of imagination, a really good imagination, is the real force that drives our entire race. Sure, some historical figures have used their imagination to find new and different ways to hold us back, to repress us and cause setbacks to progress, but by and large we use our imaginations, or dreams, to make the world a more interesting, colorful, useful, fantastic and awesome place to be.
Besides, I wouldn't be a true rationalist if I didn't reconsider everything based on evidence. I see plenty of strange things every day that can't be explained. Maybe one day we'll understand them enough to realize why, and they can be quantified and pinned down like the other building blocks that make up my worldview. Maybe one day we'll discover that elves and dragons can be found if you know where to look, that magic is real, and psychic phenomena do exist. But for now, I'm content to keep my feet on the ground, and my head in the clouds, and enjoy to the fullest the time I spend in both worlds.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
-- William Shakespeare
[This has been my entry for Week 27 of LJ Idol, for which the topic was "Once Upon a Time". I hope you enjoyed my efforts this week! Please check out the other participants' entries and show them some love as well.]
Once upon a time, there was a little boy who believed in nothing at all unless it was something that could be measured, understood, quantified. He spent his time forever analyzing the world around him, readjusting his viewpoint based on the new evidence he saw, viewing everything through the cold light of a microscope.
Once upon a time, these two little boys were actually the same little boy.
I'm often asked how it is that I can be so interested in animated movies, fantasy stories, fairy tales, dreams and myths and other flights of fancy, and still reconcile that with my firmly skeptical, pragmatic worldview. The answer is multifaceted; just like a lot of life's questions, it's not an easy one to address (and where would the fun be if all of those difficult questions had quick, pat answers, anyway?).
I analyze and question and reevaluate my worldview because I have to. I am constructed in such a way that I accept nothing at face value -- not a friendship, not the law of gravity, not a politician's promise, not the color blue -- without exploring it, seeking its truth, weighing the evidence, applying the principles of scientific observation to it. I see the firmness of the bedrock on the mountain under my foot, and am reassured. I read with mounting dismay the evidence suggesting that Peak Oil is an armageddon that may be upon us within a decade or two. I watch data stream through my broadband lines to provide me with high-speed digital downloads, and bless the electrical and technological advances that made it possible. I receive a phone call from a friend and my heart leaps with gladness because I've known him for more than twenty years and he's been there for me repeatedly, through the good times and the bad. I live my life from day to day from a rational perspective, weighing evidence, discarding or rejecting faulty viewpoints, tentatively accepting new views, continually reevaluating the way I look at things through these camera lenses I call eyes. I am comforted by the familiar, the usual, the things I know that are steady and unchanging, but am equally comforted when I discover new information about something that causes me to change my mind or shift my point of view.
And yet......
In spare moments, my mind breaks free and flies high. I dream of worlds unvisited, of ancient cities long gone in faraway places. I dream of people I've never known, but who seem as real as the person sitting next to me. I dream of fantastic creatures never seen in our zoology, their glistening metallic scales glinting in the dying rays of a strange sun. I witness wars that span eons, voyages that span enormous gulfs in the depths of space, unleashed forces whose power and majesty dwarf anything I've seen on earth. I imagine things that should not be, things that never were, things that may be only, things that cannot possibly be -- and yet are.
Sometimes I think my love of mystery and magic and fantasy is a reaction to my strongly pragmatic nature -- that my mind is too repressed by rationalism and humanism and other "isms", and needs an outlet. That I dream and imagine fantastic beasts and objects and people because it acts as a safety valve -- preventing me from blowing up when the pressure gets too great. This isn't something I really believe, though.
Sometimes I think of these two natures as two sides of the same coin, similar to the Yin/Yang philosophy. Darkness can't exist without light. If you push down on a bicycle's pedal, the other pedal will rise. Might it not be the same with a belief in the rational and a belief in the magical? Maybe you can't dream of the skies without having your feet firmly rooted on the ground. But this too seems overly simplistic to me -- I know people who are only pragmatic and skeptical and have no truck with imagination of any kind. They can't even imagine that the sun will come up tomorrow until they see it rising over the horizon, despite the mountains of evidence. Likewise, I know plenty of people who spend all of their time dreaming and drifting, with no kind of connection to reality, no tether to the earth. They too have taken it too far to one extreme, as far as I'm concerned.
Me, I'm quite content feeding both halves of my personality. I form my philosophies, my personal beliefs, my worldview, my personality traits, my friendships, my life, from both of these extremes. It's my rational self that keeps me grounded when I'm confronted with ridiculous nonsense like "psychic" Sylvia Browne. It's my rational self that keeps me cautious, accepting nothing until I have firm evidence and observable, quantifiable data. Yet it's my dreaming self that exults with a child's joy as I watch Iron Man soar through the clouds in The Avengers, or rejoices at Sauron's destruction in The Lord of the Rings. Rationally, I know these places, these things, don't exist, but I don't care. They entertain me. They nourish me. They set my spirit afire and my imagination alight. Dreams and magic, mystery and enchantment, things beyond belief -- I believe in them all, and I think my life would be much poorer without these phantasms, as gossamer as they may be.
Because although I'm grounded firmly in the "real" world, I know in my secret heart that dreams, too, are real. Imagination is the most powerful tool human beings have. All of the great advances we've made since we crawled out of our caves eons ago have been made because of imagination. We dreamed it, we saw it, we worked for it, and then we created it. Where would we be without imagination and ingenuity? Without longing for a better world, for something more fantastic than what we have? I'm of the opinion that the fire of imagination, a really good imagination, is the real force that drives our entire race. Sure, some historical figures have used their imagination to find new and different ways to hold us back, to repress us and cause setbacks to progress, but by and large we use our imaginations, or dreams, to make the world a more interesting, colorful, useful, fantastic and awesome place to be.
Besides, I wouldn't be a true rationalist if I didn't reconsider everything based on evidence. I see plenty of strange things every day that can't be explained. Maybe one day we'll understand them enough to realize why, and they can be quantified and pinned down like the other building blocks that make up my worldview. Maybe one day we'll discover that elves and dragons can be found if you know where to look, that magic is real, and psychic phenomena do exist. But for now, I'm content to keep my feet on the ground, and my head in the clouds, and enjoy to the fullest the time I spend in both worlds.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
-- William Shakespeare
[This has been my entry for Week 27 of LJ Idol, for which the topic was "Once Upon a Time". I hope you enjoyed my efforts this week! Please check out the other participants' entries and show them some love as well.]