This morning I went to the local shop just across the street to fetch some oranges in order to start yet another writing day. Then a weird moment occurred; I found myself standing at the crossroad and noticed the complete silence around me. Ok, it was Saturday morning which means less traffic, but it was not that early (8.00 AM), yet the silence was intense and complete enough to make me stop and have a questioning look around. There was no cars and no people to be seen. Everything was motionless, not even one car, not even one pedestrian, not one cyclist… Nothing. After observing this amazing complete stillness of the normally fairly busy crossroad for a few seconds, I finally crossed the street and, approaching the shop also started to notice other people, hear cars approaching from the distance. OK, the flu hasn’t finished off everybody yet, but I was, apparently by sheer coincidence, reminded of the favourite fantasy from my childhood.
You see, from the age of about 8 to something like 14 I enjoyed getting lost in the fantasy which always started off by everybody on the planet dropping dead. Perhaps of some epidemic deadly disease (hm, speaking of swine flu…) or some other mysterious reasons, my fantasy always began with waking up one morning just to realize that everybody was dead and that I was most probably alone in the world. From this point on it developed to the complex survival strategies; where to get a real good car that would not break down, some weapons to be protected from hungry and wild animals, a huge stack of food that would keep me fed for at least a year, then drive down to the Adriatic coast, find a safe and an easy-to-operate boat to get myself with all the food and equipment to a small island (damn, is this why I like retreating to islands so much?) where I would wait so that all the dead bodies on the mainland rot down to the bones, the smell and germs disappear…. Then came strategies about how to check out whether there was a nice girl alive on the planet, without exposing myself to risks of meeting any sort of bad guys… I am just giving you some basics here, but I went deep into it, I assure you, and strategies I developed were really complex and precise. 
This fantasy of mine got even further stimulated after seeing the movie Omega Man. If you haven’t seen it, it is more or less the same thing as the late I am Legend with Will Smith (which you – of course – have seen) – I believe they are both made after the same book by Richard Matheson.
Anyway, when I now think back about this fantasy, I wonder why did I like to take refuge in it so much? I guess because with being alone in the world I would be finally free of all pressures, all the relationships I had to deal with and did not know how, I would be free of all the shoulds and shouldn’ts in my young life. Yeah, I would be completely free, independent, autonomous. I guess these needs were those that were being neglected and unmet the most.
Yes, it is not so easy to be a child.
Not so long ago I read somebody saying that this was also his favourite childhood fantasy and that he believes this is the most popular one. Is this really so? Then we are even more similar then I had thought.
I also had the same fantasy as a child.
Perhaps it’s a common fantasy for kids because they’re always being told what to do and if there was no one else in the world they could do what ever they want. I also think that it’s manifestation of children’s inherent self absorption and selfishness in that they (or myself as a child) don’t think about having someone to share the fantasy with. Kids just want the whole world for themselves.
I’ve thought about this fantasy a few times as an adult and what has struck me about it is that I’d hate to live in a world with nobody else in it, now that I’m older. Sharing experiences with friends is one of my greatest joys. Yet, when I was a kid I thought it would’ve been fantastic fun, without any thought about sharing anything with anybody.
So many people romanticize about children’s imaginations. In actual fact I don’t think an undeveloped brain has as much capacity to imagine and think things through as an adult brain.
Comment by razzbuffnik — July 26, 2009 @ 2:28 pm
Hm. My what-would-I-do fantasy is sort of parallel to yours but not the same. Yes with the world changing disaster. (Zombies!) Yes with the survival. Not so much with the alone-ness, though. More like small roving communities of badass people!
But it’s a challenging way to live that would pretty much eliminate complacency and would reorder our value system.
Comment by Hayden Tompkins — July 26, 2009 @ 5:10 pm
You said, “…where I would wait so that all the dead bodies on the mainland rot down to the bones, the smell and germs disappear….”
I was reading intently along and related to a lot of this and then I got to this line about the dead bodies and I BURST OUT LOUD laughing my face off!!!!! You are sooooooo funny and the way you told this is SO like a little boy. I’ve told you this before: But that little boy on the bench with the bunny is STILL very much alive in you and I love that it is. Oh Robert, you are a gem.
This was so my fantasy that I did take off and live in the wild far away from, as you say: “…I would be finally free of all pressures, all the relationships I had to deal with and did not know how, I would be free of all the shoulds and shouldn’ts in my young life. Yeah, I would be completely free, independent, autonomous. I guess these needs were those that were being neglected and unmet the most.”
Getting to finally live this in the wild completely changed my whole world view. I no longer believe in shoulds or shouldn’ts or good or bad or right or wrong. It really shattered all the domestication, school/cultural indoctrination and social conditioning of my youth.
I wonder if there is something in many of us, maybe all of us that wants to see the world or Life in a bigger way. OR wants to form our OWN world view independent of social conditioning. I knew at a young age that I had to experience this in my lifetime or all was lost. But maybe it is not so for everyone. I guess I just sensed there was a larger universal order than what I’d grown up in in my culture. I knew I had free up my thinking and question EVERYTHING and come to my own conclusions and more importantly my own intimate relationship with Life, based on real life experience and not indoctrination.
Comment by Robin Easton — July 29, 2009 @ 11:28 pm
Razz – yeah, I agree, it really seems to be about the kids’ unmet need for autonomy, free choice, independence…
I believe that what people who, as you say, romanticize about children’s imaginations, mean is that children’s minds are not yet that much limited and squeezed into boxes by several layers of socialization and especially the schooling system which is the killer of creativity and imagination.
Hayden – so your imagination was about little communities being attacked by zombies for eternity. Sounds like a nightmare to me… Or did you discover an ultimate anti-zombie weapon?
Robin – I hear your experience of solitude and connection with the nature really shifted your perception of life, infused it with meaning and brought much peace into your being. I celebrate this with you.
Comment by Robert — August 2, 2009 @ 3:57 pm
I used to have a recurrent dream that there was a war going on around me and that I was the only survivor. I always woke up from it feeling at peace and like the natural order of things had been restored. While it is important to connect and share with other people, I think it is just as important to keep that inner child alive. Writing is certainly one thing that does it for me, and when I get deep down, I am always amazed at how the voice that speaks is that of a child, and how many facets that child has. Like you, I also used to have a complex series of mechanisms that I used to negotiate before interaction and ensure that my fantasy world was kept intact. Think I still do, and I’m 43!
Comment by Sharon — August 3, 2009 @ 12:17 pm
Not forever. Is your fantasy for “forever”?
Comment by Hayden Tompkins — August 10, 2009 @ 8:14 pm
Sharon: thanks for sharing this, really interesting and very familiarly sounding. You are 43? Is it like you were born 1966, the golden year, the year of the Fire Horse, the year that gave birth to some of the most extraordinary individuals alive today on the planet? I congratulate you on that, it a honour to get to know somebody from this golden year.
Oh, did I mention I was 43?
Hayden: are you talking present tense? Well, my fantasy was from my age 8 – 14. I don’t do the I am Legend anymore, though, sometimes, in the dark moments, well… So, anyway, tell me, what happens to the zombies after you get tired of them?
Comment by Robert — August 10, 2009 @ 9:37 pm
They die off and everyone has to start over. Band together and find their own communities!
Comment by Hayden Tompkins — August 17, 2009 @ 1:20 am