Ding Dong, the specter of memory

I watched Inside Out with my oldest niece and her friend the other day.

I have to say, that movie was simply delightful. I was entertained, amused, and moved, all in the same movie. The movie looked good, and felt good.

The movie had a lot of heart, which is something I sometime struggle with in my own work.

For those of you who don't know, the movie is about the mind basically. It follows the personified emotions of a little girl, as they go about the business of being emotions and driving the actions of the little girl.

That in and of itself is a subject worthy of philosophical discussion. Maybe later. The is a lot I could pick at about this movie, but for now, one major thing for me.

In the movie you meet an imaginary friend. A fellow by the name of Bing Bong. Anyway, for reasons of her growing up, he doesn't see much of the little girl anymore. This kind of tweaked at me.

I began to think about the things that sat in my own mind when I was younger.

I don't remember any specific imaginary friends, no purple dragons or magic cats, but I did have an Imagination friend, as in a person who I used to play in my, and his, imagination with.

That person was my older brother. Warren and I, when the chance arose, would exist in a world which we had built up over months and years of shared interaction. When we drove to town on errands, we'd play in the world. When we had nothing to do at home, we'd play in the world. When we had a new thought, we'd play in the world.

But it wasn't just a world. It was an empire, a universe. We were leaders, builders, protectors, the marshals of an entire galaxy. We would construct amusement parks that spanned planets, so people could have fun. We'd assemble fleets of power ships to fight off great evils threatening the worlds we protected. We'd invent new technologies to better serve our worlds.

In short, we meant something.

As I watched the movie, I remembered this. Broken snippets of what used to be grandiose whole. Scattered memories of what once was entire worlds full of people, places and things.

Now that I think of it, I realize, I'm still playing with pieces of those old worlds. The framework of long lost civilizations which mean nothing to anyone except me and my brother, have become the pieces on which I build new worlds.

The tragedy is, my brother has difficulty with his eyes when it comes to reading. Reading is a painful chore to him. The new worlds I'm making, which our play had such a part of making, are hard for him to experience.

That's a very good reason for me to make audio books too.

But anyway, that's my thoughts for the night.