An Absence of Sequential Thought

“Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow, don’t stop, it’ll soon be here, It’ll be here, better than before, yesterday’s gone, yesterday’s gone...” Fleetwood Mac

Imprisoned by programmed habits, most Americans above the age of 12 suffer a serious lack of imagination and instinctive capacities…Lost, bargained away day by day by an insidious creeping of governmental and societal objectivity, political correctness and dependence upon “predictable” systems—almost robotic we’ve become.

You know it’s true…look at yourself, see the habits you indulge in, the dependence on predictability. Have our senses, once so alive, become empty husks of intuitive and imaginative possibilities? Or at least crippled them to where Square One cannot be found? Are we so ruled with fear that faith finds no room in the inn?

The man sat reading the paper, specifically Tuesday’s foreclosure section. “Hey,” he said aloud to no one really, “So and so told me just last week he was flush…now look, he occupies 3 pages of Notice of Sale Under Power ads.”

“Let’s go to the beach and build a fort,” the boy said. “Not now,” the man said, “I’m reading about someone’s pain and reawakening into unpredictability. Read your book.”

“But we can have fun building a sand fort, and my GI Joes can defend it. “ The boy, pleading now.

“In a little while,” the man said, “I’m still reading about things that go wrong in the ‘real world.’” (Familiar?)

“Oh, get up, go build the fort with the boy,” the woman said, “the real world has lost its bearings, maybe you can find some of those you have lost.” He hated that she was always right.

Reluctantly he did, and with a shovel in hand, the pair, an 11 year old boy and a man near his twilight, departed and prepared to fortify the beach with a sand fort.

“What will it look like?” the boy asked, his eyes wild with excitement. “Oh, I don’t know, you’re the architect, son. Make it look like you want it to. Just draw it out on the sand, and build it like you see it. But remember, tomorrow the tide will wash it away,“ the man intoned.

“I know, but we’ll have a great time building it, won’t we?” the boy said, “and we can build another one tomorrow, can’t we?” The man agreed, “Yes, we can.”

The silver spade glinted in the sunlight as the boy dug manically with the energy and enthusiasm of a child at play. The fort rose from the sand with each scoop according to the very pattern created out of pure ether by the child.

But forts need armaments and weapons for defensive means. And since their imaginations, governed by the total absence of sequential thought, had now infected the man as well as the boy, the two became scavengers. They combed the beach for castaway materiel, battlements and other supplies to adequately defend the position. Of course, without “real-world” constraints, and entering the world where “all things are possible,” imaginations discovered the necessary material for the sand fort.

It soon became a citadel for all unfortunate castaways, and a stronghold of fortification against all enemies, foreign and domestic. In the exercise of his active imagination the “little man” had become a mighty engineer and general, protector against all intruders. Once again, the ethereal dreams of a boy supplanted the realities of life.

It had been a good day for the boy and the man. They left their mighty edifice and headed home for well-deserved snacks. The man decided to forego the pain and suffering in the newsprint, and the Monopoly game was renewed from the evening last.

On an early morning walk the following day the man the boy passed the sand fort, now reduced by the tides to its original state…sand. Only the wall’s remnants remained. It brought to mind Shelley’s ancient verse, quoted aloud by the man to the boy and the empty ocean:

“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away.”

“Let’s rebuild it,” the boy said. “We will, yes, we will,” the man responded, thinking, it’s just not that hard to be born again!

Nothing remains the same. But with an absence of sequential thought, laced with a healthy dose of imagination, a new world can be created. And, the man thought, it will…tomorrow!


Bud Hearn
July 9, 2009