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Sometimes I believe in as many as six impossible things before breakfast." Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass takes an interesting look on what we claim to be important. For most people, anything that happens before breakfast would likely need to be fueled by coffee or another substance in order to provide any ability to operate. I would assume we plan out our days or think about how we can please our peers better, or perhaps even build up the courage to face the world during a shower or any other morning routine. But to dream of something impossible, especially first thing in the morning is likely something that most people don't do.

But here's the thing, the smartest people in the world, the people who we look up to for brainiac ideas, stress the importance of imagination. You can look at some quotes by Stephen Hawking and even if he doesn't say directly about how important imagination truly is to free your mind, Einstein has a few (ironically) over-quoted sayings of how "imagination is more important than knowledge" and how "logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere." But the point is that people like to say these things without reading into them, because they like to feel special and powerful because they think they've mastered the art of smart.

No one is the master of the art of smart, thankfully. If you think you're smart and have learned everything you can, then you're wrong.

But I really want to address the question of what happens when we grow older, and our brains stop learning as easily? Rather, we know what happens due to brain plasticity - which if you're not familiar with this area of research, I would definitely suggest reading The Brain That Changes Itself as it is a life changing text - but why do we as a species say that it's okay to stop learning things as we grow into adulthood? Why do we treat that, and not say interest in sex or war, as a childish?

Why are curiousity and creativity punished?

Now hold on, I know what you're thinking. You want to say, "Now Steve, what on earth makes you think that creativity is being punished? In most professions and educations it's really encouraged!" And you're right, that's very true. However, that's culled creativity. I, as an engineer, find that my schooling wants me to focus on maths and systems, which isn't a bad thing, but when it starts to take over my life, is that still a good thing? Where is the balance found? How much focus is too much? Because of this, I find my excursions elsewhere, in art and dancing, sports and finance, flying and law.

As with any other societal punishment, there's no official order placed out by the reigning government, or even any police brutality towards it. You likely wouldn't even get a second glance from your neighbors, but rather, quite the opposite. I'd say that you would be completely normal to not be creative outside of your field, but I would also say that that is not something to be proud of.

Elite Daily wrote and article about why creativity is the most important quality to have that follows along the same ideas that this entry does; and in 1943 Lewis Padgett wrote the short story Mimsy Were The Borogroves which was later translated into the 2007 movie The Last Mimzy which explores how imagination can fuel knowledge to such a degree, that those with lesser minds, eg adults, would not be able to understand, much less use, the toys that are in play.

As one of my professors says, and as my own philosophy goes, work is play. Learning is play. Quizes and tests are games. Ideas are toys; they exist to teach us things. And so I believe that we don't exist to work or to eat or to live out specialized lives. We don't exist to berate ourselves with false news or to hurt other people. In fact, I'd say we don't exist for any real reason. But I can say that the reason we do what we do is because we want to play. Playing is learning, and learning is the only thing that will make us better.