“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
— Albert Einstein
How shortsighted of you, Dr. Einstein, as imagination encircles the cosmos! Actually, Einstein had more to say about imagination.
“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination.”
That boosts my ego, because my imagination is over the top. I had thought to start this “Imagination Formation” series as a way to get started blogging on Goodreads, which I’ve shamefully forsaken, but as I finally found the path to linking my Goodreads blog to my RSS feed, I guess I’ll just start it here.
The first in the series: what if we had tails?
The Shura from Dream of Mirror Online (the best MMORPG EVER!) have tails. But they’re not human. Notice that head hair and tail hair don’t match.
Sure, you know the obvious. We’d need a way to get the tail out through our pants or skirts, except that Victorian women probably would have tied them to their legs so people wouldn’t know they had one. Notches in chair backs so you can slide in without having to poke your tail through a hole in back or sit on it, though engineering dictates a notch on only one side (unless made with Korishini technology using exophase matter). Would it be the right or left side? Left-handed tails? Car seats?
What about the less obvious things? Humans have invented dozens of ways to feel superior to other humans, so it’s only natural to think that such ape-like attitudes would extend to tails. “Your tail is too bushy, you must be an uncivilized clout.” “Your tail is too thin, baldy!” “What a rat’s nest! Do you ever comb it?” (Nose in the air): “A golden tail is a sign of true blue blood.” “His eyes are too close together, and his tail is tail is too short. I wouldn’t hang around him.” “Look! He’s growing pubes on his tail!” Of course, all of this can be fixed at the nearest tail salon.
Would men and women have different kinds of tails? Suppose men had tails like lions and women had tails like horses. For transgender people, that would mean more surgery. I wonder if little girls would wear three pretty matching ribbons in their hair: two on their ponytails and one on their pony tail. Speaking of kids, you know they’ll pick on each other. Boys will be pulling girls’ tails and if the girls don’t have tail holes in their dresses, you know they’ll be lifting up on their tails to see what they can get a peek of. Even as children, they may have an inkling of the erotic potential of a tail, but I’ll leave that to your imagination.
So that’s it. There is nothing deeply philosophical or technical about this series; it is just to throw out ideas to get the creative juices flowing. Yours, and maybe mine. Ideas are the stock in trade of any writer, but even more so for those of us who dare venture into science fiction and fantasy, where there are no bounds to where imagination can lead.
Einstein took it pretty far. I wouldn’t be surprised if he could be found wrapped in his oversize sweater in his armchair in Princeton reading The Lord of the Rings.
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