daydreams
We punish ourselves and others so often for daydreaming. Get your head out of the clouds, Mom says. Be practical, Dad says. Daydreaming is antithetical to industry, production, waking life in the western world.
I suspect there are many kinds of animals that daydream, but there are only two I'm certain of: humans and cats. I've known many crazy cats, but the worst of them have always been the ones who have truly lost their minds – they cry all the time, need lots of attention, are afraid of everything or angry at everything. The surest way to make a cat this way is to lock it in a room with no view. Cats need a view of the outside world – they need to see birds, squirrels, people passing, clouds drifting by. Later, when they go after that piece of string, they can play at the notion that this string is actually that bird, or that squirrel. To the cat without a view, a string is just a string.
Every string contains a bird, every mind contains a daydream, every person contains a multitude. They are facts as certain and constant as gravity. You may have gotten your head out of the clouds, but look: the clouds are still there. Imagination, like faith, is never lost – but with hard work, it can be abandoned.