One of my favorite stories is of a remarkable little boy being questioned by his teacher. The teacher asked the child a simple question, one that he thought he already knew the answer but the adult was in for a pleasant surprise.
“If you had a choice of watching a popular television program or reading a similar story in a book, which one would you select.” The answer, he felt, was obvious since most children liked the television optics, the fast, colorful action and dramatic presentation over reading a ‘dull’ book. It was a no-contest question.
The child did not take much time to ponder the question and his unanticipated answer was, “I would choose the story in the book.”
The teacher was reluctant to accept his sudden answer, and questioned the child more closely thinking perhaps he had misunderstood the question. “And just why would you select reading a story rather than watching a television program?”
“Oh, that is easy to answer. You see if you watch a television program you are limited only to what the program producers create for you to see; however if you read a story, you yourself are in charge of how you depict the story. You are not limited to a two dimensional television version of the story but rather you become the one in charge of how the story is presented. The action is controlled by your imagination, the characters act at your will; the scenes are more intensively vivid since they are generated in your own mind. You are the center of the action rather than being a passive television observer of another’s creativity.”
Well maybe he did not say it in those exact words, but it is what he meant. This reminds me of story told to me recently about two neighborhood children whose imaginations apparently know no boundaries.
She was busy in the kitchen when suddenly the ‘alarm bell’ went off that is, the dog loudly announced that visitors were approaching the side door.
The duo seemed unusually wound up about something they wanted to tell their friend. She noticed that each child, a boy and a girl, held something in his/her hand which seemed to be the object of their excitement. Then the news: they are come to make a ‘movie’ of their neighbor and her resident dog. Facts did not matter. Reality was not a consideration. Childhood imagination was the order of the day.
Each child held a long ago useless personal messenger but only to an outside observer. To them, using their imaginations, they were actually going to make a movie using the very same devices.
And they did except with the help of the understanding neighbor who understood the situation for what it was MEANT TO BE rather than for what it actually was.
Never been to Hawaii? Try going there on the wings of your still intact childhood imagination.
You can, at least vicariously.
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Bill Lee, PO Box 128,
Hamer, SC 29547
