Here be dragons!!
A reply of sorts to a good friend, also of stroked brain.
This here is a rough draft of the strange thoughts that a stroked brain such as mine has encountered and turned over.
Please do not take this too seriously, but on the other hand, study it carefully and compare with you and yourself, remembering all the time that I am me and you are you.
I would say cosmic consciousness, magic, religion and science, are all forms, particles even, of human thought. In my opinion despite their assertions, self importance and relevance, none grasp the whole. To do so could well be impossible.
Like Sir Arthur Conan DāOyle, I believe in fairies.
Like him Iām probably risking my credibility by making such a statement.
While I am here Iāll also admit to believing in Doctor Watson, Sherlock Holmes and quite an array of other fictional characters.
Imagination creates people, places and events, that we can meet, visit and experience. In order to participate we need need to allow a little freedom to our own imagination. This is not for everyone, I hasten to add.
These experiences are a relevant part of life. We share them and and from an early age we have enriched our existence by participating in much that is arguably unreal.
As a small boy, a lot of years ago, I used to enjoy performing magic. The aim was not so much to trick as to entertain. No one was hurt by my activities, nor did I use it to take advantage of another. I hope that is also true of my present day writing.
We live in a world defined by what our senses bring to our attention. It serves us well to realise that our physical senses do not apprehend everything. There is far more out there than our limited view of things shows us. This means that the thing we experience as ārealityā is perhaps a bit more complex, different even, from that which our totally sensible senses tell us.
Our senses ālearnā the world around us. A table, a dog, a supermarket, are all collections of impressions from our encounters as we live and move about.
When I was that young lad doing conjuring tricks, there was no space rocket, no supermarket, no motorway. In fact much of todayās real world did not exist. The tracks around where I lived were rough, pot holed and not surfaced. There were fields and hedges everywhere. Now houses and surfaced roads have taken their place.
Such modern things did exist in the imagination of some and were shared as fantasy stories, plans for a new world and so on. Over time much of this was actually brought into being.
You could say these things are now real. I believe they were real when they were first conceived, when they were just ideas, they did not need to become apparent to our senses to achieve reality. In fact maybe they existed before any human being on planet Earth had an inkling of what or when these things were or what would become so.
In other words it is possible, likely even, that we do not perceive everything, as there are limitations to our senses and to our imagination as well.
As a young one I was also fascinated by the archaeological. This represented what had been through this whole process, reached an end point and more or less disappeared, leaving behind the traces, the ghosts of what was once solid, real and indisputable.
What we imagine, what we experience as real is only a tiny slice of a much broader, wider and more comprehensive whole.
What is important here is that using and being open to imagination, manipulating the impossible, can open up a whole gamut of real possibility for us.
At one time expressing thoughts of this nature was a quick path to public execution, to the noose or burning at the stake. Only those in power were considered fit to propose such and to make a counter claim was simply anathema.
In this enlightened age it is still possible to convey something that makes those in authority feel uncomfortable, thereby incurring a swift and unpleasant response.
Galileo learned that discovering truth and speaking it caused those who wielded power to censor him. His life was never comfortable after that but, despite their efforts, the truth was not concealed.
An old saying warns that wisdom is knowing when to keep things to yourself, but at times the truth must be spoken.
Please forgive the presumption of this frail old stroked brain and may the force be with you.
keep on keepinā on
(ironically this was written a day early or I could have used the deep and historic phrase āMay the Fourth be with Youā. )
Ken Russell said, āReality is a dirty word for me. I know it isnāt for most people, but I am not interested. Thereās too much of it about.ā. Iāve always felt attuned to this credo, whenever I write, I write to escape reality. I couldnāt write about myself or the world around me, I can weave it implicitly within but not lay it out in its bare bones. When I was a small boy, I wanted to be a spy. Not the James Bond kind of spy but a master of disguise, going to exotic locations in character. Of course, this is about the extent of what I knew secret agents did, but in my head it seemed like the most exciting thing to continuously play make-believe. When I was even younger, I thought that a career was just a big chest full of costumes you could don and become that thing. So, if I wanted to be a doctor, I just had to don a doctorās coat and stethoscope and away I went. If I wanted to be a pirate, I could just dress up like one, and I was a pirate. I always thought like this as a young lad and often would escape to my imagination, thatās why I am very comfortable on my own. That simulacrum is a well established part of my brain. Such fun.
