April 2, 2024

A fig in winter

As we grow from children to adults, we learn things. We learn what’s possible and not possible in the world. We learn that there’s no such thing as invisibility. We learn that animals can’t talk to us as humans can talk to one another. We learn that humans can’t breathe underwater. We learn medicine works better than magic when we’re sick. That certain fruits and vegetables only grow at certain times of a year.

These are all useful things for survival, but not so great for imagining new and different things. Is it a coincidence that adults often refer to children as ‘having imagination’, but often never say the same thing of another adult?

Perhaps imagination is not some gift that only lasts for as long as childhood. Perhaps it’s possible to cultivate it in ourselves by retraining how strictly we accept how the world works as we age. In fact, some of the most ‘imaginative’ stories that exist in our culture seem to be proof. In these stories, there is invisibility, animals can talk, humans can breathe underwater, and magic works better than medicine to cure sickness.

This is not some call-to-arms to let misinformation about the world proliferate in a post-truth era, it’s simply a reminder to myself – perhaps the way to more imaginative storytelling is to think about the rules of the world and then think, what if it wasn’t like that? What if, on a snowy walk one day, I found a fig in winter?


This post was inspired by a quite from Epictetus which reads, “What you love is nothing of your own: it has been given to you for the present, not that it should not be taken from you, nor has it been given to you for all time, but as a fig is given to you or a bunch of grapes at the appointed season of the year. But if you wish for these things in winter, you are a fool.” And while Epictetus was talking about our false sense of ownership over the world and how little we control, the idea of a fig in winter, as foolish as it sounds, feels exactly the sort of ‘nonsense’ we need to embrace a little more in order to fire up our imaginations and create a world of possible in our writing.

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