Imagine this !!!

People always ask me why I love science fiction. To them science fiction and fantasy (did I forget to mention that in the first sentence?) means kid's stuff. Child's play. Immature indulgences of a feeble mind which is entertained by incredulous concoctions of someone else's imaginations.

Science fiction and fantasy to me bring about the limits of human imagination. They of course are NOT the limits of human imagination. Nothing in the world today can be the limit of human imagination. The world today is not that...Utopian...for the lack of a better - and non debatable - word.

Why DO I love sci-fi and fantasy then? For one thing, I find reading about things that are real and have happenned already, only mildly amusing and that too for a certain amount of time. I mean, news is fine. It's what keeps you aware as to what's happenning to your world. But history and biographies and how things happenned a hundred years ago???...Well..ummmm..only sometimes. Most of the times, I hate reading biographies and the histories of things. People love reading about things that have happenned, and things that are and have been....and so on. I love reading about things that COULD be or could NEVER be...at least not now...at least not what those other people can imagine.

It has been a passion since I was very young and inspite of that the realization struck me late. Pretty late.

Why do I love fantastical stuff?? Why do I love things, things that people scoff at when I read them...or watch them...or hear about them or discuss them? Well, simply put, I love to see where the mind can take one person when he's imaginative enough. And, sadly (not to mention modestly) I'm nowhere near as imaginative as the worst of those.

People say it's kid's stuff...I say that is the best compliment people can give you. A child's mind is undoubtedly the most imaginative thing in the living world. And an imaginative mind is the most precious entity as human existence has shown us. A child can imagine things, for better or for worse, that adults can only laugh and snicker and scoff at.

As I said, and as people don't realize often, imagination is the gift existence gave us when humans evolved. I hate bringing God into this, because I am at a place in my life where I am stuck between wanting to believe in god and doubting his existence. But I know this much...whatever or whoever brought us to this place, we currently inhabit..wanted us to have imagination. Imagination was never phased out by evolution or by the (debatable) God.

Imagination is what gave birth to the greatest theories and inventions of human civilization, remember (by the way, talk about imagination...beat that!!! Civilization!!!) ??

Imagination is what brought us from four legged monkeys to two legged humans for all we know!!!

But I've digressed enough. Why do you think kid's shiyat like those fantasy and sci-fi books and stories have been around and flourishing?? Imagination is the key, isn't it? It's the imagination of a child. Only a child's imagination can bring you to these realms of wonder. And when an adult does it and writes it down, or narrates it or puts it forth to the rest of us..it stays on for ages.

I've seen adults engrossed in Harry Potter books in recent times (sometimes when looking in a mirror actually!!!). Does it make them snicker and snigger on every page? Does it make them feel proud that they can't stoop to that level of thinking?? Or is it something a bit more...umm simpler?? Maybe they see a world they have all but lost when their childhood waved a reluctant sad goodbye to them.

I'm not saying magic exists...but I'm saying why can't it!!!

I'm not saying people would be able to reach out to the galaxies in a spoon shaped starship to meet and fight other people (aliens?)..but I'm saying why not!!

Why do humans as a rule have to discount things that they can't fathom? It has happenned scores of times since the times of a supposedly flat earth, to date. And humans don't seem to embrace the concept of incredulous imagination and giving the unbelievable a chance.

There are limits as always. I am not suggesting that people abandon sanity and start living incredibly eccentric lives. I am merely suggesting people keep their minds open. I am suggesting people believe that the unbelievable can and sometimes WILL happen.

I am not suggesting people live Star Trek or Harry Potter, or any other "kiddy fodder"...I am saying people love the spirit behind them..(not the marketing but the spirit...big difference by the way...whole another blog for that one).

I am saying people learn to listen to the ever present, if often subdued, children in themselves...

Anyone can live the life someone else has already lived...very few people can even imagine a life no one has ever lived.