Merinder's House

I have often asked myself why we put fairy tale characters into boxes marked “scientifically unacceptable”, “useful for teaching children,” or “to be developed as a tourist attraction”. They are synonomous with our imagination, and the more interesting side of ourselves, which has almost been relegated to a last ditch form of amusement when all else fails. We like our stories to go in straight lines.

We are apt to forget that the more memorable moments in history were not facilitated by straight lines at all, but the relatively rare occasions when something bizarre slipped through the net. Occasionally, despite our long history of attempts to bring wayward imaginations back into the fold where they could be put to good use, loopholes have appeared for the bizarre and unfathomable. They have left us with the music of Mozart, the paintings of Van Gogh and a scientific legacy of discovery generally resisted tooth and nail by those who did not discover it.

Things have not changed as much as we would like to think. We are not encouraged to be different or use our imagination outside defined limits as too much is invested in preserving the mediocre. Amongst the modern equivalents of historical folly are the probability that Mozart would have been forced into special measures for behavioural problems at secondary school and Galileo would have been ridiculed by the tabloid press under the headline, ” Environment Agency silences crackpot scientist”.

Einstein said, “I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination,” and Mark Twain finished it off with some advice: “Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.”