A while back, I found some soaking wet socks in my son's bathroom. A few days later, I found six soaking wet socks hidden in his bedroom. I asked him what was going on. "I had a dream once about a monster attacking people. I've been showering in my socks so that I can throw them at him to chase him off." Of course, my response to this was, "Son, you are ruining your socks because of an imaginary situation that is never going to happen." At least, that was what I said out loud. In my mind, I was thinking How can I possibly incorporate this into my next book?
On any given day, my cat goes also-freaking-lutely insane. For no apparent reason, she will run sprints all throughout the house. She seems to be attacking bugs that no one else can see. She howls late at night at nothing. She figures out precisely where you intend to sit and decides that is the very place that she intends to nap. I suppose that it shouldn't surprise me that my son loves the cat almost to the point of obsession.
The thing about both of these individuals, my son and the cat, is that they live a lot of their lives in their own imaginations. It's something that can make each day very difficult for those around them as people that don't live in their worlds try to figure out what is going on. However, for my son and the cat, it is a perfectly equitable arrangement, and why shouldn't it be? They might live in their own worlds, but everyone there knows them. The imagination is where they find peace, joy, excitement, and whatever else they are seeking at the moment. Who should deny that?
The truth is that I tend to benefit from it as well. Of course I work to make certain that my son can interact and function in the world. That is my job as his father. However, he as well as the cat, remind me how to make use of my own imagination. They help remind me how to find some of the more simple joys in life that cannot be discovered on a television screen or computer monitor. As a teacher, he reminds me of the youth that I interact with daily, even if that youth left me (chronologically) a while ago. As a writer, he brings me to a place in my imagination that helps me to create the universes needed for a good story to be told.
If you are a writer, or someone that just needs a smile, consider things from the point of view of a child, or even look at the world as a cat. If neither are an option, then think of the last time that you wanted to say, "What the crap was that?" You would be amazed at the direction that this can lead you in.