Misuse of imagination

The only thing that separates us from animals is imagination, not reason, but imagination. Watch an apex predator hunt, and you can see reason and even deductive logic at work. I’ve seen a monkey use a rock as a hammer, making it more mechanically inclined than my dad ever was. Imagination, however, is limit-less. It has allowed us to build great-big-ungodly things. Imagination is at the center of every crowning achievement of mankind; it was, after all, imagination that allowed us to slip the surly bonds of earth and touch the face of God when we dared to explore space. 

It was none other than Einstein who noted imagination is more important than knowledge, knowledge is limited, but imagination encircles the world. But it is a double edged sword; or sticking with an Einstein theme, imagination has its own anti-matter.  Anxiety. Worry is a misuse of imagination. I read that a few days ago and have not been able to let go of the powerful brilliance in that simple sentence. Worry is misuse of imagination.

I get anxiety. Literally. I am not simply saying I get it as in I understand it and sympathize, but that I have had anxiety attacks myself and am able to empathize. One of the biggest challenges with this misuse of imagination is nobody else can see it; it’s something underneath my skin. Anxiety is like a thunderstorm,  but I mean a real fuckin thunder storm, not a New England one.... one from tornado alley. It comes out of nowhere and builds up to terrific violence without warning. Immediately you're painfully aware that you're not in Kansas anymore, and though you yearn for the peace and serenity of the plains you're trapped in a swirling vortex of entropy. Your heart rate accelerates from 0-ludicrous speed in the blink of an eye;  your mind races along at 3.0x10^8 meters/second, yet ironically comes to a complete stop, a paradox that only complicates things further until the mind fuck is complete. You feel completely and utterly alone.It hurts just to breathe. You want to ask for help, but can’t get enough air to utter those four simple letters. H-E-L-P. Suffocating under a burden that can be neither seen nor understood, everything goes dark. Your imagination crosses over the event horizon and light (hope) can no longer be seen. Cornered. You can feel the walls closing in until you’re trapped in a six inch prison between your ears. Reason and rational thought left this place a long time ago. Darkness and demons remain; they feed off of the self doubt, becoming stronger with each negative thought.

What makes anxiety even more difficult to battle is the fact that modern society exacerbates this misuse of imagination. As Sebastian Junger noted in his book Tribe, in tribal/primitive societies suicide was nonexistent. However, in today’s world one can go through an entire day of life essentially alone. That’s hard on our psyche. No primate, no matter how evolved or primal, survives alone. In that truth lies the only remedy. The realization that we aren’t alone or meant to be. In today’s world where it’s possible to go days or weeks without any real human interaction it’s easy to forget that fact. Ironically, it’s been well documented that as affluence goes up, so does the rate of depression and anxiety. The socioeconomic groups with the highest rates of depression and anxiety are also the most affluent and least likely to be a victims of violent crime. Modern society hasn’t created more free time but rather a cycle of work, financial obligations and more work. Affluence, material possessions and even “safety” are not good trades for freedom – free time, and because of this we’ve learned to misuse imagination.

Perhaps if we came to the realization that at the end of life what really matters is not what we bought but what we built. Not what we got but what we shared. Not our competence but our character. Not our material success but our significance. We need to live a life that matters. A life of love. We are not here to survive; god don’t live the same year 88 times and call it a life. Live a life on fire, going mad with desire. Try not to misuse imagination. Find every reason something will work, instead of listing the reasons it won’t. As my favorite movie character ever, Maximus Decimus Meridius, said “imagine where you will be and it will be so”.

When all else fails, on particularly rough days when I am sure I can’t possibly endure, I like to remind myself that my track record for getting through bad days so far is 100%......and that’s pretty good. After all as Buddha noted “A man who conquers himself is greater than one who conquers a thousand men in battle.”.