Humans and Fantasy (recovered post)

How we strive to break away from what we see as the 'Older Generation'! We see ourselves as somehow, in some mystic way, better than those who went before us. We like to belive that we are better, smarter, and more mature than our forebears were at our age.

But are we right? I do not think so.

Children often find it hard to believe that their parents could have had a love-lfe before they married. And the thought that something like that still continues, is "Eww!!!! Gross!!!!".

Funny. Really funny. Because when these children grow up, they do exactly the same things. That is how the human race proliferates. Social mores are constantly being churned, to create a dynamic environment, so as to not allow ennui to set in. If that happens, the younger generation will probably be the last.

Imagine, if the world wasn't the way about morality the way it is. Not just about sexual mores, though they are a good example. We decry the lack of proper sexaual education to the generation growing up, and cry that they may be influenced by
'undesirable elements' in this age of instant information access.

Even leaving aside the fact that this hullaboo is nothing but an attempt to shift responsibility, let us try to imagine how life would be if there WAS proper sex-ed, involving both emotional and physical issues.

We would be taught about love, sex, happiness, relationships, and marriage (among much else). We would sit in a classroom listening to lectures. Do you think it would be fun, if the subject wasn't taboo otherwise in society?

Mathematics is almost as integral to human existence as sex, (although in an obviously different way, despite the objections of some mathematicians to the contrary) yet are we all enthusiastic about Calculus - II, whispering and exchanging sly grins amongst ourselves when the professor has his back to us?

Of course not.

Yet make mathematical knowledge the stronghold of a select few, and the society will change. Mathematicians will be revered as long as they keep their secrets to themselves.

What is commonplace inevitably acquires the tag of 'worthless' to growing minds. What is routine rarely, if ever, holds their imaginations enthralled. This is the way we humans work, how our minds function.

And this is not relegated to the teenagers alone. The immense industry dedicated to producing juicy Tabloids lays rest to that misconception. All of us like the uncommon. The spicy, the unusual, the unexperienced. We like to dream, to fantasise about what we have no idea about. I hardly think Angelina Jolie sees herself the way the hordes of Papparazzi and the Tabloid readers do...


This is what we are, who we are. Fantasy is part of our humanity. For what is a man without imagination?