S T A T E M E N T
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Wednesday, February 23, 2022 — 7
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MichiganDaily.com
When you are young, anything
is
possible.
Princesses
fly
on
magic carpets, fairies lurk in the
depths of every forest and animals
seem to always seem to be able to
speak fluently. There is no greater
liberation than being a child, mind
open to the possibility of anything
and everything. Pure, (literally)
unadulterated
imagination.
Freedom.
Any day my Hogwarts letter would
come, or I’d find the fifth Golden
Ticket, surely to be whisked away to
the wonderland I always envisioned
for myself. A vivid imagination, in
awe of every tree and cloud and Polly
Pocket doll in all their other-worldly
wonders.
I don’t know when I lost that
imagination, but I mourn it every time
I sit down to write. At some point, the
creative person I considered myself
to be changed, presumably from a
child to an adult. The girl who once
spent recess writing a short story
about a koala ballerina from space
now cannot produce a 100 word
poem for class without restlessly
searching her brain for something
exciting.
But how did this happen? Not just
to me, but to many, both “creative”
types and not? How do we lose our
childlike magic, and where does it
go? Does it fade into the sky, leaving
us bare?
Losing our imagination begins
with the psychological changes that
underscore the shift from childhood
to adulthood. In our younger days, the
mind is effortlessly transformative.
University
Professor
Frederick
Amrine gives the mundane example
of a saucepan, which children can
interpret as virtually anything they
desire.
“The young child is just so
wonderful,” he explained. “Take
a saucepan. Well, you know, the
saucepan isn’t just a saucepan, it’s
a boat, it’s a hat. It’s fungible; the
young child weaves a sort of magical
aura around this saucepan, and it can
become almost anything.”
Gradually, Amrine explained, the
child sees its caretaker use a saucepan
over and over and over again in the
exact same way. Place it on the stove,
let the flame blaze and serve up your
creation. Eventually, the child is
gradually induced into ditching the
saucepan’s metamorphic potential
and simply seeing the object for its
practical function.
Through
a
combination
of
psychological
processes,
social
learning and cultural expectations,
we slowly grow accustomed to what
exactly it means to be a child; we
learn where the line of “growing up”
is drawn.
Through the process of social
learning, we are conditioned into
the confinements of our decided
age group. As we move out of
childhood (roughly ages 0-12) and
into adolescence (roughly ages
13-19), we learn what is deemed
socially acceptable for our particular
age range and are encouraged to
act accordingly. And at one point or
another, the majority of us are told
to put down the Legos and crayons
in search of more “mature” pursuits;
rather, those that fit our perceived
expectations for adulthood.
And growing into adolescence
typically
means
developing
an
acutely
controlling
self-
consciousness. We start to notice
what makes us feel different from
others, whether it be our bodies,
hobbies or our perceived social
statuses. Our insecurities take center
stage, leaving our imaginations to
wait in the lobby, sell snacks during
intermission and commiserate.
Rather than continue to create
worlds of our own, we become
preoccupied with the one in front of
us: namely, the social spheres under
which we operate. The “imaginary
audience,” defined as the adolescent
belief that others are constantly
focusing on them, pushes us to
conform to the world around us to
prevent embarrassment or shame.
Hence
why,
according
to
Psychology Professor Daniel Keating,
abandoning the liberal individuality
of childhood is often inherent to the
nature of adolescent insecurity.
“(Adolescence) is a psychosocial
thing. It’s what you’re thinking about
yourself, and what others think of
you,” Keating said in an interview
with the Daily. “The adolescent peer
experience, with all of its dominance
hierarchies
and
struggles
with
popularity, sharpens what one would
imagine one’s ideal self to be and
what the world is going to accept.”
It’s a tale as old as time: a wide-
eyed child who loves to play make
believe subconsciously transforms
into a teen who would rather stay
quiet in an unfamiliar circle of peers.
Take
Ohio
State
University
freshman Talia Moses’s experience,
for example: “[When I was little], I
had notebooks on notebooks of plays
and stories that I wrote. I was super
into theater, which really allowed me
to express myself,” she said.
But coming into middle school,
discomfort around her peers led her
to abandon what had once been her
primary creative outlet.
“I think that as I got older, I
thought I would get judged for being
a theater kid or something like that,”
Talia described. “And because of that
I didn’t want to be associated with
that or have people know what I was
doing so I just let it go.”
LSA sophomore Lilah Shandel
shared a similar sentiment.
An avid reader and writer as
a child, Lilah actively hid her
imaginative side once she entered
high school in an effort to better ‘fit’
into her social environment.
“Honestly, when I was in middle
school, my friends made fun of me a
lot. Because I liked (books and that)
kind of stuff. And in high school I
saw a way to reinvent myself a little
bit,” she said. “So I was like, ‘Oh,
maybe I won’t be that girl who reads
under her desk all the time when the
teacher is teaching.’ I’m just gonna
keep my head down and do what
everyone else is doing. And maybe
I’ll have friends that way.”
The adolescent experiences of
Talia, Lilah and others like them
are positioned in a society that sees
imagination as something to grow
out of. Beyond the more concrete
neuroscience behind “growing up,”
societal notions of what exactly being
a child means impact our connection
with the imaginations we were once
closely in touch with. Through our
experiences with others, we begin
to internalize these expectations and
allow our imaginations to fall to the
backburner of our ever-busy minds.
***
Working as a camp counselor
for a group of 10-year-olds this past
summer, I had the opportunity to
watch “growing up” in action. For
some, the age of 10 was just another
year of experimental play and
creativity. The “mature” 10-year-
olds might have crushes on the
older boys and test out every curse
word. Among lifeguards, counselors
and head staff, the latter campers
were the center of attention in
conversation, showered with praise
for their “adultlike” personalities.
The former went unnoticed.
My campers were not alone in
being encouraged to participate
in the activity of “growing up:”
becoming familiar with the “real
world” and its consequences and
complexities.
Wanting to be an astronaut is a cute
ambition when you’re in elementary
school. Yet suddenly, 10 years later,
you are being encouraged to use your
scientific skills to go through medical
school instead. It’s practical; it makes
logical sense for establishing a stable
income and daily life. Or, that’s what
we’re told.
***
Like Lilah and Talia, I, too, ditched
my notebooks filled with bizarre
short stories to engage with the ups
and downs of middle school social
life. Almost a decade later, exiting
late adolescence and moving into
young adulthood, I find myself
yearning for the simplicity of my
childhood, cursing my insecure
middle school self for minimizing
the magic with which I once saw the
world. But slowly, I have discovered
that imagination is not gone forever.
Instead, it is lost — waiting to be
found again.
And life’s only a matter of how we
go about finding it.
Lilah, having gotten back in
touch with her love for fantasy in
college, explains that a supportive
environment has provided her with
the space to do so.
“I was so lucky last year to meet
the people that I met,” she said. “And
people who really pushed me to do
what I wanted to do and not what
other people like, or what I thought
other people wanted me to do.”
As a naturally exploratory life
stage, young adulthood (roughly
ages 18-25), provides us with the
opportunity to find the communities
that best serve our most authentic
selves. Additionally, it gives us the
space to engage with the ideas that
intrigue and excite us, especially
those we may have thrown to the
wayside during a more uniformed
adolescence. To Amrine, regaining
our imagination is an active process,
one to be taken on with love and
patience.
“The world is imaginative and (a)
young child sort of imbibes that. But
then the adult actually has to develop
imagination from the inside out,”
Amrine explained. “So they have to
actually expand once faculties again
and make them more mobile.”
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EMILY BLUMBERG
Statement Correspondent
Design by Grace Aretakis
Page Design by Sarah Chung