How many years between the discovery of fire and its practical explanation?
Many, surely. But the number pales when compared to the interval between the discovery and understanding of imagination.
To their creators, both concepts were called magic. Fire from the gods. Imagination from the soul. Else, they were the marriage of circumstance and physics. Friction and fuel. Intention and grit.
Why was imagination, then, for so long thought to be innate? Why was fire from outside the self and imagination from inside? Why did we call one 'other' and the other 'of ourselves'?
When we understood, finally, what forces had been at work to run humankind's collective engine, it made sense. Of course it made sense. That didn't stop the wave of nausea that spread around the globe.
Overnight, legislation was drafted to stall creative efforts. The measures were rejected just as quickly. The population's sympathy were with the laws' drafters, but their own practical needs came first.
For a while, people kept right on imagining. They didn't like it. They just couldn't help it. Kink went up and a general malaise settled over most cultural epicenters. Humanity wasn't dying, but it was lapsing into a deep depression.
We were brought back by the Bolarite. That wonderful, magical community hidden in the Everglades became the saviors of human spirit.
We never were able to overcome our revulsion. Imagination would forever be a lewd, bent and sordid subject.
But the Bolarite taught us to love what disgusted us.
And that was enough.
Just enough.
