So come with me, where dreams are born, and time is never planned. Just think of happy things and your heart will fly on wings, forever, in Never Never Land.
So come with me, where dreams are born, and time is never planned. Just think of happy things and your heart will fly on wings, forever, in Never Never Land.
J. M. BARRIE
Do you disappear into a fantasy land?
I recognize the double entendre in the question, so once you get past the joke in your mind, I ask again…. Do you disappear into a fantasy land?
How expansive are your dreams? Do they lead you into worlds of imagination? Do they deliver you into a place where you know you belong?
People have taken Barrie’s work and used it to define a person who does not want to grow up as having a “peter pan complex.“
I would argue that there should be a part of everyone who does not wish to grow up. The part that stays a perpetual child deep within us and fills us with a continuous sense of wonder and triggers our imagination to deliver us into worlds we might never otherwise experience.
One of the great joys of being a child is not having a clear definition of everything as it absolutely should be or as it absolutely is. The opportunity to leverage imagination and harness that imagination into opportunity is one of the most valuable qualities of being human. It is because of our imagination and our ability to communicate that we have elevated as the dominant species on the planet. In many cases that imagination is put to positive use and in other cases it gets used for negative purposes.
There are many times throughout the day in which we are dragged into circumstances that are less than desirable and forced to navigate our way through the quagmire of reality. All the more reason why each of us should find space in our mind for the fantasy of our choosing.
If any of this sounds somewhat far-fetched to you, I would remind you that the majority of humanity uses free time to escape from reality through literature and media. Why is this phenomenon so prevalent in our species?
It is not so much that everybody needs to escape so much as it is symptomatic of how important it is for our imagination to travel far beyond the boundaries of our existing reality.
Do you remember some of the first adventure stories that you read when you were a child? Do you remember some of the first movies or television shows that you absolutely treasured as a little kid? These were your first foray into an understanding of how powerful your imagination truly is. Sometimes as adults we are potentially less likely to retain our desire for experiencing these journeys, but they are ever so relevant in our mental health and physical health.
Seeing Peter Pan fly as a little child left me with a continuous desire to have that capability in life. As an adult, when Second Life came around as the first metaverse that I was able to play in, the aspect of flying through these worlds was one of the most enjoyable aspects of all of it for me and it all triggers back to Peter Pan.
We may never venture into Never Never Land in reality, but it is always valuable to recognize that it is continuously available to us with a simple change of thought.
Happy Friday!
Leave a Comment