UNREACHABLE TRUTH

My friend Jean says, “life is ridiculous!” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would have advised her to “abandon the search for truth; settle for a good fantasy.” I have always thought that reality and fantasy are two sides of the same coin.

When my son, Josh was four-years-old, he wanted to fly. He convinced himself that if he flapped his arms fast enough he could soar above the clouds. I told him to keep trying, but the rule was that he had to keep his feet on terra firma, and was not allowed to go onto the garage roof. After several attempts, gravity finally won out, and he stopped the arm flapping. However, when he grew up, he earned his pilot’s license and realized his dream.

JM Barrie was right. “The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.” The writers of science fiction entertain us with their imaginations. Past fantasies such as rocket ships flying to the moon and other planets have become reality, although we have yet to encounter little green men. Why are they always green? Transplanting organs, co-existing with robots and having a conversation with your wristwatch---all come from the imaginations of science fiction writers.

Fairy tales gave us fantasies such as beautiful faces forever frozen in youth. Now the poison Botox does it for us. In a fairy tale, a princess can kiss a frog and get a prince. In reality some women kiss a prince and end up with a frog. In real life,

When my brother, David was eleven-years-old, we attended a family celebration at the home of our grandparents. Our grandfather was having such a good time that he quaffed several glasses of wine, and my little brother enjoyed drinking the left-over ambrosia from other guests cups. Suddenly, my grandmother discovered her tipsy husband and grandson, and banished them both outside to take a long walk around the block. Grandpa protested that it wasn’t the wine that had affected them, but that old Mrs. Finkelstein had given them the “evil eye.”

Sometimes you just don’t like someone else’s reality. That’s why Pablo Picasso rationalized that “everything you can imagine is real.” After all, weren’t those angular, many-faceted forms and planes the essence of women?

There has to be a healthy balance between reality and fantasy. A magician knows the difference. If he really sawed a woman in half, he’d have a one-act very messy career, and a very memorable lawsuit.  Albert Einstein said it best; “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.”

Esther Blumenfeld (“Reality leaves a lot to the imagination”) John Lennon