Imagination Circuits

Growing up, I made my own toys with household junk and invented imaginary playmates. I could completely immerse myself in the atmosphere of a book I was reading - an unfamiliar zeitgeist posed no problem in being able to do that.

That was the power of imagination, extrapolation of familiar experience to what was not. Kurt Vonnegut talks about what the loss of the ability to imagine means.

In my somewhat reactionary style of raising J without any intrusion of media, I am trying to build what Vonnegut calls the "imagination circuit" in her head. I am convinced it is a thing of lasting value, that the body of her life would be significantly diminished without it.

I would like her to read a story in a face and not merely see a face. "Those of us who had imagination circuits built can look in someone's face and see stories there; to everyone else, a face will just be a face."