The Mind of a Creative Thinker

Mercer hosted a movie showing of The Neverending Story at Tatnall Park. Speaking very broadly, the movie is about a young boy who finds himself in an old bookstore in his attempt to hide from bullies. The boy is introduced to a book entitled The Neverending Story, in which he is instructed not to read, but the boy ends up stealing or borrowing the book without asking. The owner warned the boy that this particular book was not like an ordinary book; that it is possible to become trapped in the story of his imagination. In reading the book, the boy experienced this other world, yet of course he was still apart of the physical world. Further details of the movie is not relevant in this discussion. I want to examine the idea of the imagination.

In an essay by Sigmund Freud entitled Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming, Freud writes, "The creative writer does the same as the child at play. He creates a world of phantasy which he takes very seriously--that is, which he invests with large amounts of emotion--while separating it sharply from reality." (Freud) I wonder, what happens to a creative artist that loses the child within him/her. Does he/her cease to 'create'? For, a creation is something that is new, unseen, and un-thought of. Does the artist's work then become just a piece that depicts the reflection of the ordinary world?