I often wonder what is just around the corner. I don't mean the future, I mean literally, what is behind the 90 degree bend in the wall. If I cannot see around the corner, then I cannot know what is truly there. I know what is most likely to be there: a door, a table and lamp, but what if there is something else? I could get up and check, but that will only tell me what is there now, not what was around the corner when I initially asked the question.
I would put forth an idea. Those of the creative arts, whose actions in even an infinitesimal way creates something new with some small thought to form or aesthetics, has a part of them that believes in something more than what can be seen and touched. A vivid imagination is tied directly to the ability to wonder and to question. We daydream and fantasize, write stories, plays and music (the latter is, to say the least – a story told in emotions) – to what purpose? Disney, for all of its massive conglomeration, spurs children to wonder and for a few moments shows them magic. Hell, I even get caught up sometimes, enjoying the ride of music and lights and giant sprays of water.
Even our dreams (at night), which can be solely ascribed to a jumble of our waking experiences, is assembled into that strange-yet-familiar mix in a place in our heads that we cannot willingly or consciously touch. A part of our own, personal life is out of our control. REM can be disrupted or lucid dreaming can be reached occasionally but there are parts of our own body and mind, which is out of reach. If our own bodies leave places of mystery what does that leave open for the rest of the universe?
Are we the only ones with the power of creation?
This allows room to wonder. I couldn't write, couldn't dream if some small part of me did not believe, or at least accept that the supernatural has not been disproved. I will quickly add that does not prove its existence. Some have used the lack of evidence to prove an intangible thing and, sorry, that just doesn't fly. However, it does leave the possibility open.
Now there is a distinction to be made. There are those who believe in something (God, goddess, nirvana – come as you are, magic, angels, ghosts, aliens), those who do not, those who hold themselves open to the possibility and I think another group – those who want to believe. Maybe they have a feeling there is something beyond the mere physical, but cannot prove it and so cannot accept it. There is no repeated-trial physical evidence, and yet, they want to believe it is there. Life is richer, fantasies a little less out of reach, hope a little stronger, if they can watch the edge of the wall and imagine there is something just around the corner.
"We are meant to be here. We step from one piece of holy ground, to the next, under stars that ask "Imagine for one second you could drop in on a past life. What would charm you, what would make you proud?" Ask yourself that and the question of what to do in this life becomes so simple it's terrifying. Just do the thing that charms you, that would make you say, "Yes, this is the real me." Do that, and you're alive. Alex Ventoux "Millennium" Luminary