Imagination was crucial to everyday living when I was a kid, growing up during the 1980s. Things were considerably different than they are now. In this golden age of technology, 1980 to 1989 was the last decade to maintain a very original era, and I feel pretty damn special and very blessed to have been able to experience it…to be a part of it.

“The world of reality has it’s limits; the world of imagination is boundless.” ~Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Although unorthadox to the present way of life, it was a basic and simple time that was genuinely interactive, austere, implicit, prudent, interpersonal, banausic, radical, and whimsical. The 80s were a sincerely humble time, and I miss everything about them. I even miss the things about the 80s that are unfavored by todays crowd–the colours, the shapes, the hair, the clothes, the music, and even the pattern print. I miss that lifetime without internet. I miss walking barefoot on the earth. I miss dancing in the rain. And I miss covering myself from head to toe in mud. Without internet, we utilized our imagination with the earth, in the rain and in the mud, to entertain ourself as children.

“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” ~Albert Einstein

For so long I lived in my mind’s imagination, spending all of my time daydreaming and imagining beautiful, borderline cinematic scenarios, so much that it’s difficult for me as an adult to emerge from the depths of my dream world to convey the real world. Quite often, the fantasy world I’ve always imagined bleeds into my reality. I tend to expect that things in the real world should work out, be like, and happen like they do in the fantasy world. For staunch realists, and those really close to me, it’s a highly frustrating characteristic.

“Fantasy is the essence of reality.” ~Fyodor Dostoevsky

I am an escapist, forever getting lost in my own mind and imagination, which also keeps me from experiencing the real world with everyone else. As I try to find the balance between the rosy make-believe world in my mind and the real world we live in, my soul wanders for the lust of artistic beauty, and I’m always getting swept away by the colour of my surroundings. I have trouble distinquishing reality from fantasy.

Oneirataxia

(n.) pronunciation: oh-NEER-ah-taks-ee-ah | the inability to differentiate between dreams and fantasy and reality. Etymology: Derived from the Greek word “oneiros” which means “to dream” and “taxis” which means “to arrange or order”.

From my perspective, seeing the world through rose-tinted glasses, my reality is just as beautiful as my imagination, if not more beautiful because of my imagination. No canvas or negative film can represent my life in the way I see it.

“Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It’s a way of understanding it.” ~ Lloyd Alexander