BEING WAY OUT THERE

A master of ceremonies on a pantomime stage, sidles up to the edge of the stage wearing his top hat and tails, waves his arms, and addresses the audience: “Did you know the universe is crazier than we can imagine!” he declares…

There follows one of only two time-honored responses. The crowd shouts in unison: “OH NO IT ISN’T!”

“However,” he stage-whispers behind his hand. “It’s NOT crazier than fiction!”

The crowd booms. “OH YES IT IS!”

Like the cosmos, there are no limits to fiction. None. Nothing is too ‘OUT THERE’ or too internally, HERE.

There is no finer way to put this than by a beloved scientist who said it with style and grace:

“Imagination will often carry us
 to worlds that never were,
 but without it
 we go nowhere.” 

– CARL SAGAN

We head towards the nudge of ‘I wish’ without apology because the land of ‘I-wish-it-were-true’ is as close as close as under our skin. We never fully grow up. Why settle for anything less than wild ideas? The universe is one never-ending wild idea!

Stories of immortal beings who once walked among us, stirring the soup of fate with the thighbones of our ancestors to see what would crawl out of the swamp, is still required reading for adult humans. Fiction is the antidote for days too normal to be endured. The science-fiction of spaceships and paranormal time-travelling snaps the leg irons of earthbound 9 to 5 drudgery. Anonymous cubicles of employment, self-imposed or otherwise, are hardly final frontiers.

For relief, comedy can be lived in half-hour increments on TV. We want to laugh in spite of the relative grimness of our insignificance ‘situations’ spinning on a ‘pale blue dot’. We crave magic. But after the laugh track fades, the wildest stories follow us to bed and color our dreams. So dream big.

Enter the world of unlimited dreams. Set aside your sweatpants and slip into a long gown. Sip champagne with Jeremy Irons in a gondola, ring a bell for Carson the butler, revisit ‘Brideshead’, fit into a slinky size 5. Take tea with a mad hatter. Cast a spell where you can best nurture your inner world. Grow wings and grab a magic sword. Build Rome in a day… movie makers do it all the time. And if you’re not starring in your own movie what (do you imagine) are you doing here?

BE HERE, NOW…. IMAGINE FROM THE EDGE

BOOK a deserved trip to the far reaches of ‘out there’ or ‘trip out’ on a deserved BOOK to your innermost universe. Champion your third-childhood. If not now, when?

If we’re as savvy as Peter Pan we never grow up. It’s a promise we make to ourselves every time we open a deeply ‘curiouser’ book.

What children’s book first captured your imagination?

What new paranormal fiction will capture your shadow now?