Lost in fantasy . . .
Most of my life, I live in my head. Yeah, I admit it, fantasy is a great coping mechanism, and one that I use often. Whether I’m losing myself in a movie, or t.v. show, or book, or whether I’m pondering my day – re-creating how that conversation SHOULD have gone down, or re-imagining what I SHOULD have done instead to have made things turn out better – it’s all the same. It’s all me and my fantasy.
Have you ever wondered why God made humans with the ability to fantasize? I mean, it’s all really bizarre, really. I find myself increasingly retreating to fantasy, because it’s so much easier – so much better – than anything happening in my real life. But I can’t help but wonder if that’s really all that healthy.
It’s become a daily task to remind myself not to get too far ahead of reality – to not sink into thinking things are, when in fact they are not.
And as I fight to stay in the present – in the here and now – I ask, “God, why did you create me with this proclivity in the first place?” What’s the point of it all? Where do all of these fancy thoughts take me? Sometimes to bad places, but to good places as well. But why did He choose this way?
djfree79 
Wow…Yeah, man. Yeah. That’s pretty much exactly what my latest post is about.Why did God grace guys like you and me with such powerful imaginations… imaginations that can get us in trouble a lot of the time? Man oh man. That’s the beauty of it. With that gift, we can do so much good in the world… but only after we allow God to show us the dangers of the gift, the horrible deeds we can do with it… only after we allow God to show us how exactly not to use it… can we truly appreciate its power and learn what we can do with it to really help others.At least, that’s what I like to think.
Man you always find a vibe in me. I can truly relate, but it is a trap. You can become Peter Pan if you want, but Never Land is just never gonna happen (It didn’t even work out for Michael Jackson). The fantasy you have today won’t change anything in the real world. Fantasy flows from the Creative drive, which is also the seat of the Sex drive. In fact, the Creative drive has been misnamed the “Sex Drive”. All of the wonderful, intuitive, imaginative things that come out of us come from this place. Some of the greatest thinkers have come up with the greatest inventions while engaged in “day dreaming”. Every movie, song, painting, dance, book, and joke that you have enjoyed came from the Creative drive. Like anything else, God gave it to us to be used for His and our benefit. The fact that we use it wrong shouldn’t be an indictment against God.
I too have struggled with fantasy. But fantasy has never come close to fulfilling me. The greatest thing on earth is to pursue the passion God has placed in you. When I pursue the passion I go beyond anything I could have hoped or thought. Fantasy gets stale after awhile, because of my limitations. The passion God puts in you is a collaborative work between God, and your Creative drive. There are no limits to what can be accomplished when we pursue the passion of God in us. Unfortunately, I’m lazy or afraid sometimes, and I’ll settle for less than God’s passion.
Darren, what is the passion God is placing in you? By the way DUCK!! Capt. Hook is right behind you!!
Just Some Thoughts,
Lonnie
Oh, I found you through the Emergent Church blogring.
…it was a fun lunch! =) …reading your entry brings more clarity…
yeah recreating convo…on how it should of went…..with me getting all the good lines…..yeah i totally feel you on that…
inside voices
Kayz
I really thought nobody else struggled as much with this… honestly I thought I was a unique mind with a severe psychosis. Sometimes I don’t remember correctly if a memory is an actual event that happened, or something I imagined. I even play out conversations OUT LOUD. (I’m not schizophrenic… I know that there aren’t people in the room listening to me). I do really feel psychotic sometimes… And I drive myself crazy with “what-if” conversations playing out in my head.
Have you ever seen “The Butterfly Effect”? Yeah… my mind had an overdose of thoughts after that movie.
It is in our imagination that we are most like God. It is there that we conceive the “not yet”, the possibilities, the new, etc. It is there that creativity is seated. Creativity is not a product of instinct or rational thought. It is a function and product of our imagination. What a wonderful gift this imagination is. It is with the power of the imagination that we find hope, it is with the help of the imagination that we have faith (confidence in what we see). The imagination is a gift a sweet gift.Ah, yet the imagination like the rest of us is marred by sin. Greatly so… After eating the forbidden fruit (rebellion) Adam and Eve knew good and evil. So know our imaginations can know evil, conceive perversion, be used as a place to hide and die… as well as a place to live and create. We must come and journey having our imagination redeemed as our spirits and ultimately our flesh. And it is possible.My prayers continue to go up for you.
I just want to wish you a peaceful, joyful day for Christmas.Alison
it’s about where we take refuge…where we go when real life isn’t what we want. i find myself taking refuge in all sorts of things…music, tv, movies, my thoughts, books. things that are harmless in and of themselves, but it’s thier application in our lives that determines thier goodness or badness. i guess i’m trying to say that i’m there with you…but imagination and fantasy can be good…’delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart’ (psalm something). I believe that means He will GOVERN the desires of His child’s heart. by the way, my name is elizabeth, and i randomly came across your site. Hi.
Hope you had a very merry Christmas!
Hope you had a great Christmas. I’ve asked myself the same questions you asked here many, many times. No answers as of yet.
hey bro. . .thanks for the comment. . .
As for our ability to fantisize: I always thought of fantacy as a necessary means to escape from reality. Actually, let me reword that. . .not escape from reality, but numb it, if even just a little. In one of my psychology classes we were studying defence mechanisms that every human uses to ease the affects of reality. Of coarse as everything else. . .too much of this can be problematic ignorance, too little can lead to seriouse depression. I think that if we didn’t have any way to filter the horrid reality of this world then we’d all commit suicide. When I think about how bad some of the stuff I hear on the news is and why it doesn’t affect me as much as I think it should, I realize that it is because I cannot handle the emotional weight of such a burden. No one could.
There is also a VERY LITTLE part of me that thinks that maybe our “fantacy” is us trying to cope in our fallen state with trying to remember what it feels like to be perfect, as we once were.But unable to grasp such a concept this fantacy ends up getting distorted in many different ways.
For a 3rd theory. . .I doubt that if we did not have the ability to fantasize about objects larger than life or outside of the “norm”, then we would be able to understand the being of the Divine. Its almost like we innatly “know” that there is something out there bigger than us that cannot be tangibly real, as we know ‘real’ to be.
Doode, I just started reading B. McLaren’s book “Adventures in Missing the Point”. . .It is such affirmation as he seems to be taking everything I am thinking and validifying it. It is amazing! Plus as I read his theology on salvation for myself, I do not see him as a universalist. I read him as saying that our focus and purpose shouldn’t just be on our individual salvation, but the salvation of everyone. . .and FINNALLY FOR ONCE someone agrees with me that “salvation” is not at all the point of our existence. . .thank you thank you thank you. . .Bro if I were you, I’d constantly be picking McLarens brain ALL the time