Imagine

Imagine

“Be your own self. Love what YOU love.”

There is a story about him that illustrates him.

No, it isn’t one of thousands of his stories.

It is short story illustrating his enthusiasm for the future, and his celebration of the accomplishments of man.

For he was “himself” and he loved what he loved, until the day he died.

Imagine, a man on the moon.

Actually most people don’t have to imagine it, most just visualize it.  It happened in 1969, but some of us, including Ray Bradbury had been imagining it before that.

Many people are too young to have experienced Armstrong’s “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” first hand.  At the time it was incredibly inspiring, to some, but not all.  For the first time since 4.3 billion years of life beginning, life from Earth had set foot on another heavenly body.  Ray loved it. Ray Bradbury was inspired by the possibilities.  He wrote stories about the future.

You see, Ray Bradbury, was a Champion Idealist, who dreamed about the future.

But on that day, Ray Bradbury was scheduled to go on David Frost‘s show for the first moon landing. However, he became disgusted by the selection of “guests” before him, Engelbert Humperdinck (a singer) and Sammy Davis, Jr., (entertainer) which had nothing to do with the landing on the moon. He, on the other hand, saw the moon landing as a monumental moment in the history of mankind, not to be lightly regarded with “mere” entertainers. He left, and went over to Walter Cronkite‘s show and waxed poetic of the importance of the moment.   Imagine it.

Champions have a wide range and variety of emotions, and a great passion for novelty. They see life as an exciting drama, pregnant with possibilities for both good and evil, and they want to experience all the meaningful events and fascinating people in the world. The most outgoing of the Idealists, Champions often can’t wait to tell others of their extraordinary experiences. Champions can be tireless in talking with others, like fountains that bubble and splash, spilling over their own words to get it all out. [Please Understand Me II]

Imagine. Ray Bradbury is considered one of the most important science fiction writers of the 20th century.

“Science fiction is the fiction of ideas. Ideas excite me, and as soon as I get excited, the adrenaline gets going and the next thing I know I’m borrowing energy from the ideas themselves. Science fiction is any idea that occurs in the head and doesn’t exist yet, but soon will, and will change everything for everybody, and nothing will ever be the same again. As soon as you have an idea that changes some small part of the world you are writing science fiction. It is always the art of the possible, never the impossible.”

“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there.”

Ray Bradbury left his short stories, poems, and books, at least.  But more importantly he left the results of his incredible imagination.

Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.  — Ray Bradbury

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