Imagination and its Enemies

You Will Not Take My Heart Alive

Here we are. Three months later. Three months after I arrived in Europe. My Visa is about to expire. It's time to go home.

The visit has been dense. A total of four countries, five major cities, two islands, multiple museums, multiple churches, multiple beaches, multiple Radlers, a lot of writing, and multiple monuments — ancient and modern. A two-week conference, dozens of lectures and dozens of new friends and colleagues. Many parties, also. Some of the best I've ever been to. On rooftops, in basements, across streets, and at swanky apartments. Practice in eight — eight — languages. Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Arabic, German, French, and Croatian. And just one me who experienced all of it.

Many North Americans go to Europe to find themselves. It's a common narrative that to the cynical among us has been squeezed of meaning and rendered into cringey trope. But I reject this interpretation. For me, my time in Europe has been deeply meaningful, especially in the wake of what was a difficult past two years. Difficult because of the pandemic, difficult because of a goodbye, difficult because of friends going through villain arcs. In Europe, I experienced an explosion of intrepidness, as if as a release of all of my bottled energy. I became the human embodiment of curiosity, exploring every poignant area in the city of Athens, in addition to my cross-continental travels.

I had a lot of time to reflect on the forces that brought me here. At no other time in my life have I embodied my vision as clearly as I do now. At no other time has the world reciprocated my professional desires as it does now. Yet, at no other time have I received as incisive attacks from people who — let's say — don't feel the same way about my situation as I do. I have postulated explanations as to why, arriving at a couple of reasonable answers, but none that land with much satisfaction, because I am realizing the process inevitably involves an eternal return to the same hurt, like picking a scab over and over, never allowing it to heal naturally, with time and outside of my attention. Instead, I accept that I will always have more questions than answers. In the form of a principle, I have reaffirmed my Buddhist inspired belief that ambiguity is the dominant phenomenological condition of existence, not clarity. The inverse effect is that I hold the clarity of truth in great esteem. I am deferential to both knowledge and emotions, insofar as their content is meaningful.

Perhaps this was my personality condition that triggered the anger of my past villains. In comparison to others, perhaps I am more willing to stand as a witness to life's chaos as opposed to a participant. That, given meaning's fragility, I am patient to transform an emotion or belief into an action, or to render a judgment about a person or situation lest I miss-understand. The inverse effect is likely equally as enraging — that I am capable of standing firm in my emotions, convictions, and self-worth when I am certain of their meaningfulness. And not only that I stand in these constructs, but that I even think they exist. That I even attribute existence to emotions, convictions, and my self-worth. But I do. I do indeed. Both of which are constructs that require an ability to think in metaphysical terms. An ability to think beyond the realms of the immediate physical. Some call it imagination. If it is, I say it's imagination done right.

Perhaps it's for these reasons the villains do what they do. Perhaps where they conceded, I didn’t. I really don't know. What I do know is that my imagination still works, and that there is no part of me that intends on giving it up. It's through my imagination that I am able to render the impossible possible — professionally, personally, spiritually, and in my travels. It's through my imagination that I've been able to suspend my humanity in the face of cruelty, as well as my faith in the face of fear. I still believe in love and kindness, through my imagination. There have been those in my past who have tried to kill it.

No, my imagination is not dead. My imagination is alive. My imagination is the reason I am alive.