The wild imagination —don’t lose touch with the child inside.

“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservation, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future.” — Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

If you’ve ever visited a wilderness you’ll understand the impulse to let go of all adult conservatism and embrace the naïveté of the childhood imagination. It’s like a forced meditative practice. You’ll hear a voice from deep within: go, get out of the car, walk into the wild. You won’t choose to hear it. It will force itself on you. And this voice, so full of playful intensity and honest excitement, will remind you of the way you looked and saw the world when you were a child.

On your return to ordinary life, the voice will echo in your mind until it becomes a fixture in your imagination. It will work to subtly steer and mediate your interaction with the world, persistently drawing your mind into the subtle images and narratives of your most joyous memories.

Sometimes you might fail to hear it above the clamor and noise of day-to-day living— its intensity and excitement will recede and transfigure into a white noise on the background of your being. While not directly audible, it will nevertheless remain a component of your subconscious intelligence, gently shaping the ways in which you experience the world.

When you least expect it, however, the voice will return with an insistent and immediate intensity, demanding your utmost attention and reestablishing a longing for the experience that gave it life. It won’t care where you are or what you’ve busied yourself with — cooking, cleaning, working or eating. You will be called back and thrown (always regretfully) into the joyful memory of heightened experience and intense emotion.

At this point, you will be tempted, as all people are, to subdue it, to beat it down and tame it. The sober voice of adultish conservatism will rise and drive your heart and mind towards a narrow pragmatism, championing comfort and security over recklessness and adventure.

Don’t listen to the adult voice. Embrace the wild imagination.

The wild imagination is our connection to the naïveté and carelessness at the heart of creativity and innovation. It’s our inner child speaking to us. Any attempt to silence it is, indirectly, an attempt to alienate ourselves from the imaginative and emotional processes of exploration and invention.

Go. Leave the confines of your safety and security. Explore. Discover. Live.

Afterthought:

Through the many centuries of the planet’s humanization, the wild has become an imaginatively impermissible space — we’re encouraged not to go there and play it safe.

Impermissibility, however, is a potent driver of imagination. When we are told not to do something, an impulse will immediately emerge to do precisely that which we’ve been told not to do.

The greatest risk is that, by acknowledging impermissibility, we will become resentful voyeurs (or watchers). If this happens, our lives will become the object of our resentment.