“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” Albert Einstein
Well, this is a first for me. I have wanted to share a story with you, but I couldn’t come up with a way of doing it. To me, it is the biggest story there is right now. It is huge, beyond my ability to do it justice. Honestly, I never imagined I’d even be thinking this. What I am talking about is a crisis of extraordinary proportion, a science fiction, flight of fancy, not all that long ago.
It has taken thousands and thousands of years, actually millions. This unique planet earth, has a galactic karma. It was born into a kind of fertility, hosting a nearly infinite number of life forms. It has endured countless natural traumas, freezing and flooding, burning and blowing, and throughout its metamorphoses, life has lived here, amoeba to Arnold!
It also seems there has been a progression to more complicated life forms, while our host planet has continually adapted to intrusions, scarring its perfection. For some reason, the desire for dominance over all living things, including each other, infected this species by the name of Homo Sapien. Like the choice between the apple and nirvana, we went for the low hanging fruit, guaranteeing near term satisfaction. The lazy consequences of the short term, have slowly assassinated any possibility for the long game.
Christ, a couple of hours earlier, I was thinking about how incredibly unattractive a story would be about this guy, haranguing how awful things are and his inability to do anything about it all. You have no idea how easy it would be to run through a litany of all that is wrong at this moment in the life of every single sentient being on earth. The facts are terrifying and the looming consequences of this timeless behavior of ours are undeniable.
I want to make up a story with you, one with a happy ending, probably not the one with the fruit, which isn’t a fruit anyway. Let’s say, it is this story, the one I am telling you right now, the one I want to imagine.
I am this guy, living on Kauai, who seems to have the habit of writing a story every week and sharing it with a fairly limited universe. He believes passionately in the things he writes about. He let his mind wander to an entertaining fiction, what would happen if his thoughts about all sorts of things became a powerful force in the universe? How he got there is too long a story for this purpose.
What would happen if he had the ability to begin reshaping the world in a way he wanted? He spends his time writing about the deep shit we are all in, not envisioning a happy ending. Then, completely out of nowhere, he imagined if he had the power to create a whole other story, what would it be?
So, the story goes, somehow and we’re not sure how, millions of people began following his writing. He becomes this kind of oracle, with people actually doing what he tells them to do. The very first wish is to eliminate starvation anywhere in the world. It is first, because until we take care of each other, we will never take care of this planet, at least that’s what he says.
There will always be advantaged and disadvantaged, or whatever words you want to use for inequality. People followed this guy, because he claimed he had the power to steer the world away from its Titanic future. it wasn’t really complicated, as long as you start with the idea that no one should be made to suffer at the hand of another.
You know, if you had the power to change the world, what would you do? This takes us back to the beginning of this word circle of mine Every great myth has a dragon and a guy with a Swiss knife, who slays the beast. He said we are the monster, but have the power to change. This guy from Kauai was inspiring people all over the world.
Whatever he imagined, somehow materialized. The world was being rebuilt right under everyone’s feet. Even the word, enemy, disappeared from dictionaries in every language. He made sure that indigenous people needed no proof of their existence, because they just wouldn’t lie.
His biggest accomplishment was getting every single nation on this planet to sign an agreement that addressed the responsibility each one had in fueling the climate catastrophe and exactly how they were going to mitigate the consequences of not doing a goddamn thing about it.
I prefer the make believe story, because I like happy endings. Then, I started thinking, which is never a good sign. What would happen if millions of people started treating each other with respect and compassion? The possibilities are infinite, when we can step far, far back and see this place as one, not some shattered-glass accident.
I am not exactly sure what happens to our mythical hero at this fictional juncture. Wait, I know, he appears with Dave Chapelle in a Netflix special. Get this, he is even asked to address the UN General Assembly! I shit you not.
It’s me, I am back to being me and I’ve let the dream drop for the moment. I look at where we are on so many levels right now and I’d be a moron to see daylight anywhere at all and that’s the damn truth!
Every morning, I wake up and sit on my cushion. It’s dark or near dawn, no matter. I sometimes feel like I am this lone lunatic, who thinks we are doing most everything wrong, no matter where you look, big or small. I am pretty sure it’s true, but when I think about actually doing something about it, it feels like fiction.
Oh, we just did that. What would happen if we became, who we imagined? There’s a story in there, I know it.