Destroyer of worlds
As humans we are capable of complex thinking and in our mind we can come up with very intricate things.
We use our minds to solve problems through the science and technology. We have used our minds to come up with the notion of science and technology (and much more).
There is also another kind of thinking that we are capable of – imagination. Visualising things that we have not and might never see. Of course it could be argued that the whole field of science came to be thanks to this, but right now I want to focus on a different aspect.
With our imagination we not only can plan a path from A to B. It is possible to build a scaffolding for something greater – the whole world.
JRR Tolkien is a great example of this, but there are many others. He created a whole world with its rules, people and locations. One could argue that it is rather generic in a sense that it is very similar to our world. However, what I want to point out with this example is the intricacy and scope with which he described it.
Coming up with languages, motivations, complex relationships – all of which never happened in real life.
The greatest thing about this is that everyone is capable of this, really. Everyone is capable of deep and wide imagination. Of course that might not always be a fantasy world. For instance it is much easier for me to imagine new solutions to the practical problems or implementation details. I bet Tolkien didn’t fantasise about deploy a cluster of Linux servers.
What I am trying to say is that everyone is capable of imagination if it truly resonates with them.
And this is the world I refer to in the title of this post. Who is the destroyer then?
Well, in order to enable such imagination we must get somewhat disconnected from the reality. Soar high above in a way. And for this we need focus.
Focus to calm down and think. Focus to feel. Focus to get deep into that world we just started to create. It is like a painter who paints the picture from within the painting.
But can we focus, really?
When pretty much daily we get almost pulled by the sleeve by an attention demanding device in our desk. What’s worse is that we have another device in our pocket that will promptly notify us about something really important – like a 5% off of really fancy noodles this weekend only.
If we succumb to this and then succumb to the algorithm which is designed to bring us back again and again, then our worlds can be deemed destroyed right that very moment.