That I worship Bill Watterson and simply adore Calvin & Hobbes is not a secret. In fact, it mostly irritates people when i quote from that unique mix of humour/sarcasm/wit and profundity. But no, this is not a gushing post. A few days back, when a friend was talking about her kids, I told her to be thankful that they weren’t like Calvin. She said one of them does have imaginary friends. I am not sure about kids these days, but I simply cannot remember any imaginary friends I might have had in my childhood. To be very fair to everyone concerned, I am quite befuddled even when it comes to recognising real friends of that era and erm, a few eras later too.
But I wonder about the character of these childhood imaginary friends, and why they exist. Is it loneliness? Considering the minimal baggage that we have at that young age, are they confidants of doubts and thoughts that we think we can’t share with others, even if they are of the same age? Calvin has his club, theories about society and education, ‘scientific experiments’ etc which he shared with Hobbes. Is it because he felt that he would be laughed at, if he shared them with others? Hobbes usually attempts to give him a more mature perspective on all the stuff he discusses. I’d like to ask the kids with imaginary friends about the conversations. 🙂
Maybe, as we grow up, our baggage grows and as we conform to the norms around us, we figure out that imaginary friends have to go? Or it is perhaps a need that gets filled or forgotten about amongst other priorities, as we acquire new real people – friends, relatives or any other relationships along the way, and maybe figure out that we can share different things with different people, and not have to reveal ourselves totally to everyone? And that takes away the reason for having an imaginary friend to whom we confide all?
Real people bring their own baggage, they perhaps shield us a bit, and tell us things that we want to hear. They perhaps validate our beliefs and thoughts and inferences, either because they don’t want to be the people who deliver the bad news or they don’t care enough. Of course, I am not taking away anything from the good friends that we manage to get, if we are lucky enough – the conscience keepers. But they’re human too, and their objectivity would waver, they’d have their biases. Perhaps, we should build an imaginary friend all over again, our own objective self, one which can show our own prejudices without fear of retribution.
until next time, object of my imaginary attention 🙂
i had a completely imaginary alter-life – uhm, way after i was a kid come to think of it. I think its a phenomena of shy people – I know iwas painfully, chronically shy – so much easier to have make-believe people in your life than dealing with real life people who dont behave the way they are supposed to. I think it was also ( at least in my case) escapism – there were things happening in life which i couldnt deal with very well – so that provided the relief. When does it stop? When real life infringes into the consciousness – when you need to earn, be responsible, be adult. then that becomes a luxury.
i think it could be a whole lot of reasons, from what i read in other comments, though i also subscribed to that ‘shy person’ thought… in many ways, purely virtual friends are imaginary too?
truly said! Purely Virtual friends ARE imaginary.
I guess as long as you know which is which?
Not having had the benefit of imaginary friends, can’t comment.
And of course there are distances with real people, no matter how close.
real people, across distances, and then time, would be imaginary in way too?
…now its a different version of same solace…a virtual world and virtual friends!
true, in many ways 🙂
I have been a chatterbox with a lot of freudian slips and a lot of friends. never needed an alter ego.
some friends do claim that their kids have imaginary friends. must be a fad these days for parents to believe. 🙂
need not be a fad, check later comments.. there are sometimes real reasons for imaginary friends 🙂
I am also fan of Calvin and Hobbes; Hobbes more than calvin 🙂 😀 some of the conversations are hilarious like ““Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.”” “History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction.”; “If you do the job badly enough, sometimes you don’t get asked to do it again.”; “Reality continues to ruin my life.”
I think shy kids are likely to have ‘imaginary’ friends and it is perfectly normal and much common than we would like to think.
like i said in a previous comment, i thought it was purely ‘shy kids’ territory, but apparently its not so..
I was never a shy child. I was endlessly curious and talkative. The adults and kids around me could not always keep up so I had (to invent) a coterie of imaginary friends with whom I talked for hours. My dad has captured in photos various themes in my “conversations” with these “friends”. I even dressed up and played different voices. Sometimes we had milk and biscuits. Sometimes we discussed homework. Or ran spelling competitions (pause for a second to think about the profundity of competing with only oneself and nobody else!). And if you think calvin is evil, spare a thought for my dad who had to deal with me. I was sometimes given instant coffee and sugar to beat to a white mix, for many adults, just to keep me busy on days when it was too hot to let me to keep going downstairs and back up again, or to let me sit on the guava tree in my step-grandparents’ house. Most of the real people turn out to be so unidimensional and boring. And imaginary friends are no different from characters in a book with whom we have a private dialogue when we immerse ourselves in a book.
Heh. Calvin has huge benchmarks as far as evil goes, so I wont compare 🙂
hmm, have never tried that in a book, but no, i dont think it’d work for me..
some real people are unidimensional and boring in some company, i like to believe that they haven’t yet found the things that gets them impassioned, or the conversation was not about those things 🙂
amazing stuff you shared though, thanks for sharing 🙂
My daughter Pranati turned 4 today. She found an imaginary friend Surag when she was two. Surag’s mother’s name was Sudha ( i used to to talk from home to a lady in Pune who wrote content for us). As parents, we took Surag very seriously. Once while on our way to Linking road she had placed surag on my lap in the rick. A few minutes later when she was sleepy i asked her to put her head on my lap-“arre” she reacted “surag is already sleeping there na.”! Surag quietly disappeared until last November when our second child Dhyan came home. Now Surag had a baby sister too! With the ebbing of sibling rivalry, Surag too doesnt feature in the conversation so much. But childhood is a surreal and a real experience–the characters in my stories are given names by her from some strange ancient sounding language. Malati and I recognize our own creative childhood and attempts to come to terms with the big bad world. And we are happy to hold her hand through it:-)
I can’t wait to introduce Calvin to her. Will probably steal her copies (or will it be e-books on netbooks for her?:-)
Surag, its not a common name? where did she get it from? its truly surreal, but its good that you guys understand.. i wonder whether all parents do, and if so, how they deal with it… thanks for sharing.. 🙂
I, for one, won’t blame you for stealing calvin stuff :]