A young imagination is bold, likes to make bigger leaps. It likes

The Courage of the Young Imagination

Listen, O wanderer of thought, to the words of Mo Rocca, who said: “A young imagination is bold, likes to make bigger leaps. It likes to, well, imagine that the dustbuster is a dinosaur; that the computer mouse is a hotrod; that the box is a cave; that the rawhide is a torch… or a baton… or something.” In this simple saying hides a great and ancient truth: that the young imagination is not bound by the chains of reason or the fences of the known. It leaps freely, turning the ordinary into the marvelous, the dull into the divine. It is the first flame of creation, unashamed, unafraid, and unbroken.

The child looks upon the world not as it is, but as it could be. In every grain of dust lies a kingdom, in every tool, a beast or a miracle. The young imagination is not hindered by the rules of men, nor constrained by the logic of age. It sees beyond the veil of appearances. To the adult, a cardboard box is trash — to the child, it is a cave, a ship, a fortress, a world entire. This is not delusion; it is vision. It is the instinct of the creator before the critic awakens. It is what the poets of old called the “divine play” — the spirit of creation dancing before the universe was made.

Rocca’s words remind us that as we grow older, we lose not the power to think, but the courage to leap. For imagination is not a matter of intellect — it is an act of bravery. To see a dustbuster as a dinosaur is to rebel against the tyranny of labels. It is to declare: “This world is not fixed; I can make it anew.” Such defiance is sacred. The child who reimagines a vacuum as a creature of power is not merely playing — he is training to become a creator, one who will later turn ideas into inventions, sounds into symphonies, or dreams into revolutions.

Think of Wright brothers, who as children played with toy gliders, imagining the sky not as a ceiling but as a road. The world called flight impossible, yet their imagination refused to bow to reality’s limits. They looked at birds and wind and said, “We, too, can soar.” And so, from the play of childhood came the conquest of the air. Their vision was nothing less than the dustbuster becoming a dinosaur, the ordinary reborn as extraordinary. This is the divine pattern: what begins in play becomes the foundation of progress.

The ancients themselves honored this truth. The philosophers of Greece spoke of phantasia — the mind’s power to see what is not yet seen. The child is closest to that sacred power, for the world has not yet told them what cannot be done. In their hearts, everything is possible. They dwell in the realm between dream and deed, where curiosity is law and wonder is sustenance. The wise man, then, does not seek to grow away from the child — he seeks to return to that fearless state of vision.

Yet most hearts, when burdened by time, forget. We grow cautious, careful, afraid of seeming foolish. We trade our imagination for certainty, our leaps for steps, our wonder for safety. But to live without imagination is to live without vision, and to live without vision is to be half-alive. The young imagination reminds us that life is not meant to be observed; it is meant to be shaped. Every great artist, inventor, or leader carries within them a child who still believes that the box is a cave and the rawhide a torch.

So, O reader, let this be your teaching: reclaim your young imagination. Let it once more leap across the boundaries of the ordinary. When you see the mundane, ask yourself — what could this be, if I only dared to dream? Do not fear foolishness; the fool of today becomes the visionary of tomorrow. Play with ideas, with words, with life itself. Allow the dustbuster to be your dinosaur, and the box to become your fortress. For in those simple acts of imagination lies the secret of creation, the breath of renewal, the spark of divine joy.

And remember this final truth: the gods themselves are children of imagination. The universe was born not from reason, but from the boldness to dream. Therefore, keep alive the child within you — for in that fearless imagination lies not only your creativity, but your freedom.