“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.”

― Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince

Although I used to associate this quotation with Victor Hugo, it is one of my favorite sayings. I used to shorten and paraphrase it a bit for my students, but however one expresses it, the message is clear: There is power in imagination.

The next point of contemplation is: Have we lost that power? Many just want a clear, paved path to success. Many just want to know the answer, eschewing the source for expediency. Many have allowed their imagination to wither on the vine.

We had this awesome video game when I was growing up. No, not Pong. Pong sucked. It was called OUTSIDE. I know that times change, and there are many more dangers both real and imagined for today’s kids, but when I was young, we stayed out from the time we got home from school until the darkness forced us off the streets. We invented new games, new wrinkles on old games, and created stories and scenarios that allowed us to become heroes and villains, at least for a little while. In this way, our ideas caught fire like dry straw. Outside was everything we wanted it to be, and for the most part, everything we needed.

It taught us socialization, compromise. It taught us how to win and to learn from losing. It taught us to dream. The best part is that this creativity did not cease when I went indoors. I owned almost every action figure I could get my hands on, and they all came with their own story, but by mixing them and adding a little creative juice the stories were endless. I had soldiers defending the fort (my windowsill) from invaders. I had soldiers on a secret mission to destroy a machine capable of stealing oxygen (my standing fan), and almost weekly, I would event new origins of how the “teams” came together.

I collected trading cards, and played with them as well. I put my sports trading cards into as many different piles as I could muster, and I even invented a game to play with my baseball cards using dice. I kept statistics for the games and even played a midseason all-star game. I participated in many activities, but even when I was alone, I was never bored.

I enjoy video games, don’t get me wrong, but there allure is troubling. We played Tecmo Bowl in college, but we also played rod hockey. We finished Contra, but we also invented hallway games and TEG WAR (The easy game without any rules) to liven up a dull party. Like everything else, video games are fine in moderation, but they are becoming addictive and insular. The people creating them have a keen imagination, but those who play them, not so much.

I see this lack of imagination not just in teenagers, but in adult behavior as well, especially in our storytellers. Movie sequels borrowing on stale tropes. Studios fearing the novel, the unsafe, the nuance. Die Hard is a great movie-not a Christmas movie, but great. How many times can they move this stellar film to a different setting and call it something else? Willis was perfect. Rickman a revelation. Every character had presence. Lighting in a bottle. The lightning comes from the storm of creative contemplation not the stale petrichor of surety.

Two more quick examples, one from sport and the other from the stand-up stage. How many times do you see an offensive coordinator in football call a one- on- one fade near the goal line? How many times have you seen it called multiple times in a row? A lack of imagination. Andy Reid took some flak for his carousel huddle, but, at least, he is thinking outside the box. Risk, chance, and innovation are what made this country great, and we are sorely in need of a lot more of it.

Unfortunately, this lack of imagination has bitten one of my favorite writers, thinkers and public speakers. I love Jim Gaffigan’s comedy. I find his humor candid and well-thought with some flashes of absolute brilliance. He does a bit on whales that is top notch. EWWWW. (Whale sound). The other day, I had some time to kill, so I put on his latest special, Dark Pale. This was an appropriate title. The material was dark and the humor was a pale imitation of his previous work. I watched the first 25 minutes or so, and the show was just not funny. Adding insult to injury, even his segues and voices seemed robotic and staged. I understand how artists can run out of fodder, out of inspiration (I struggle sometimes just writing this blog), but his job is to observe life and comment on it in an engaging and revelatory way. I wish him a tremendous comeback.

John Lennon wrote Imagine, in which he imagined a world without many of the problems that plague it. Currently, we need to imagine a world without creative thought, without an outlet for our wildest notions. I am not sold on this world. I want to live in the world of Saint-Exupery’s Little Prince, where a rock pile is more than just a rock pile because we see its infinite potential.

Love, laughter, and dreams

P.