Psychosis Syndrome

When did ‘mature’ become synonymous with a lack of imagination?

As children, our imaginations run wild. We see what we want to see, we are what we want to be. We are restricted only by how far into the surreal we are willing to tread. Whatever we will, is. It’s called pretending, and it’s a phenomenon experienced only by the youth of any generation.

And as we age, we reach ‘maturity’ and ultimately adulthood, this imagination fades, and we plant ourselves more firmly into the real; into what we can see, touch, hear. We lose our links to the world of make-believe, and any chance we had at imagination. We become ‘normal’, ’sensible’, ‘rational’.

This is not new, nor is it news. It simply is. We all know it, we all accept it. And I ask you: why?

Why can an adult not pretend? Why can they not lose themselves in makeshift worlds, and for a few fleeting moments, become an astronaut, or a firefighter, or a dinosaur?

Have our brains changed? Do they lose the ability to imagine, once we reach a certain age? Are we now incapable of imagination? Of course not, the notion is ridiculous. So why, then?

Perhaps our drab and dreary lives have crushed the imagination out of us. Perhaps we are so suffocated by the repetitive, seemingly aimless existence that plagues society that we no longer have the capacity to imagine. Perhaps we now lack the open mindedness and optimism that children possess innately, and thus cannot travel as far beyond reality as they can.

Or, more likely, we have simply been socially conditioned to accept it. Adults don’t pretend; they are far too busy acting responsibly, setting a good example, making sure the world keeps spinning. They have no time for such silly and pointless antics, and an adult who dares to lose themselves in a fantasy world, and soften their knuckle-whitening grip on the truth, is immature, and irresponsible, and needs to ‘grow up’.

Because whether you see it or not, that is the mindset that blankets our society, and squeezes the imagination out of us. It starts at school; you have to act in a mature way, you need to do as your told, learn what you must, and come out at the other side reading for society. You do not create, you do not imagine. You do not live.

And then it extends to the media that inundates our lives. In every movie, every show, every book we read, the adults are mature, and the children are not. And if that is not the case, then that person is wrong, or odd; an outcast. 

It permeates every inch of our society, until we cannot think in any other way. And when we see an adult act like a ‘child’, we scorn them, shun them, disapprove. Do you not agree? Imagine yourself walking down the street, and seeing a grown man with his arms outstretched, pretending to be a plane. Can you honestly say you would think nothing of it? That you would not think it weird, odd, unusual? More likely you would assume mental disability, or more charitably, perhaps just a lack of maturity. Or perhaps an actor, where is the camera?

Maturity does, of course, have its place. As does the need for staying in the moment, to stay planted within reality. But that is not all the time, and when there is no harm in it, why should we not lose ourselves to fantasy and fiction?

We cannot break away from these entirely. We read books, we watch movies, we tune in to shows, allowing us to witness the unreal, the things we cannot have for ourselves. The desire to have more than we do, to be more than we are, is burned into us at the very core, and yet we force it from ourselves, hold it at arms length, labeling it ‘childish’.

For a person cannot be both mature, and childish. We place them together; opposite sides of a coin. And yet, they are not related, and do not belong with each other. A person could embrace both, if only they gave it a try. There is a time and a place for both, and one need not pick one or the other.

As always, I urge you to be different, to break free, and live a little.