Imaginary Friend

A stream-of-consciousness backstage pass into my creative process

When I begin an essay, I rarely think about what I want to write. Instead, I allow my intuition to tap into that which wants to be written. This is often a revelation for me (as it is for the reader) as the kinds of ideas or themes that come through may not be ones that I have been reflecting on. They arrive in the forms of flashes in the mind – images, energetic shifts, certain memories or a particular phrase that suddenly appears to repeat itself. And my job then involves taking these disparate and seemingly nonsensical bits of information and synthesizing them into coherent ideas. Each of these insights appears like a strand of wool from the ethers, forming a tangled mass together. And I apply myself to carefully untangle each strand, while creatively envisioning how they might fit together, before weaving the tapestry of the written piece.

For this piece, I am inspired to demonstrate to you exactly how an essay comes together for me (I’ve never done this before, so I am curious to see how it turns out). I will be describing the crafting process as I write the article, in a stream of consciousness style. Think of this as a behind-the-scenes view into how an article is written…

As I write this, I am seeing the image of a wild man with long matted hair and a scraggly beard, in my mind’s eye. For some reason the word ‘God’ has also just appeared in my consciousness (as it has quite frequently in recent weeks. I no longer seem to be allergic to the word and feel quite comfortable using it again). At the moment, I have no idea what connection these two pieces of information have, but I am not interested in making obvious connections. It will come together eventually as it always does. I know it.

I am now feeling an energy of profound loneliness around my solar plexus, and I see an image of a small child – a boy? A young girl? It’s a girl around 5 years old, sitting alone in her bedroom. There’s a tender innocence to her and a heart-wrenching loneliness. She only wants a friend. She appears to be staring into empty space as if she sees someone there…

The image of the wild man is here again, this time he looks quite clearly to be Tom Hanks from the film Castaway. Interesting…

Something I find myself reflecting on right now…when I am on long drives, my mind sometimes narrates mundane things that it sees. It talks to me about how many cows there might be grazing in the pastures I am driving past, or how nice the sun looks hitting the mountain peaks, or what a slow driver the guy in front of me is …There is no point to its commentary. Half the time I’m not even paying attention to it. It acts like white noise – like a radio in the background…

Which reminds me now of those ‘white noise’ machines parents use for their infants to help them fall asleep. We had one when our oldest was born. It simulated the sounds of the womb and really helped her sleep restfully…

Perhaps, that is what my mind does through its commentary on those long drives – simulating the ‘sounds of life’ in order to soothe me…?

I am suddenly reminded of why I smoked cigarettes for 20 years. I never felt alone when I had a cigarette in my hand. It was my best friend, my most trusted companion. It shared moments of deep grief with me, moments of high anxiety, as well as moments of great elation. In fact, the cigarette made all those moments “better”. It soothed, it enhanced, it gave me companionship…

Sure, it might have given me cancer had I kept smoking. It certainly made my asthma worse. So, I don’t regret quitting smoking. But perhaps that is what the ego does as well…

I see Tom Hanks on the beach talking to his volleyball. He’s given it a name – Wilson. As I think about it now, it was his relationship with the volleyball that kept him sane through all those years of being marooned on the island. He wasn’t delusional. He knew the volleyball wasn’t actually a person. But he personified it in order to experience companionship…

Why does God need a universe?

Why does being require consciousness?

Could it be that the burden of being alone (ALL-ONE) is too much to bear?

The 5-year-old girl is sitting in her room, and she is staring at the corner of the room. She sees someone there. Or perhaps she imagines someone there. It makes no difference. For her, seeing is imagining and imagining is seeing. It’s a boy around her age. He is like her in some ways but also different in ways that she wishes she were different…

They love playing together! With him, the options for play are endless. But when he leaves, the play ends. And she sits quietly on her bed waiting for him to reappear…

What is my ego but my imaginary friend? What is the universe, but God’s imaginary friend? What was Wilson, but Tom Hanks’ imaginary friend?

Without imagination there can be no play… And life is fundamentally a playful act.

As I wrote that last statement there was a sudden euphoric sensation in my body as if the whole of my being began resounding, “Yes!” Images of daisies dancing in the sun, bees buzzing around a hive, the two otters I saw slip in and out of the frozen creek last week are making a reappearance in my memory bank again, the girl in her bedroom is squealing with peals of delight as her friend acts the fool for her…

Ah, how I had misunderstood my own ego, once upon a time! Believing it to be some demon or some unwanted parasite. Perhaps, it was because our friendship had turned sour. Perhaps, it was because it couldn’t protect me from the vicissitudes of life and felt shame that it had let me down. Perhaps, it became critical of me because it believed I needed to change to survive in this world.

Whatever the reason, friendships sometimes grow estranged. Friends sometimes grow apart. The innocent bonds of youth are taken over by the weeds of mistrust and self-interest. For many years, my ego and I were at war with one another. Then there followed a period of frosty silence during which I could barely detect its existence and yet it sabotaged me surreptitiously every chance it got, even while I planned and connived, through meditation and spiritual practice, to rid myself of it once and for all.

But now at the midpoint of my life, the old rascal and I have reconciled. We may not always see ‘I-to-I’, but he is one loyal sonofabitch. Together we have learned to play again. And life has become what it was always meant to be – a playful act. All the world’s a stage and we are merely players…

I speak of my ego in such a way that might give the impression that he is real. He is my “Wilson”.

And while he may be an imaginary friend, what emerges through our dynamic is the very essence of life.

It is the essence of the dancing daisies… It is the essence of the buzzing bees... It is the essence of the swimming otters…

Play.

Consciousness is the imagination of God.

And we are God’s imaginary friends.

We exist so that being can play.

Now I see why the ancients call the world Maya (imagination). And the purpose of this world as Lila (play).

The myriad strands are woven. The tapestry is clear to me now.