To Lack Imaginative Thought

I'm walking a
fine line here
when I suggest part
of the problem most
people have is that
they lack
imaginative thought,

because it's
a difficult
thing to
qualify.

How to put it?

Most people,
when faced with
a problem,
think first
and only
of the worst
possible outcome,
as if that's
all that's really
possible, and
because it's
so common,
you can't really
fault them for it.

This isn't to say
that they can't be
creative, but that
their imagination
can't support the
possibility that
people are better
than they seem,

and so most people
are content to act
worse than they
really are, not
because they're
bad people but
because they act
only as they
expect others
to think of them.

That's why I
consider America
to be a Peter Pan
nation, where we
believe in a Dream,
which is something
children usually
hold onto, something
to snap out of
or find unobtainable
in adulthood because
that's when we must
own up to Responsibility.

It's the most childlike
adults who succeed best.

But we are constantly
taught, despite what
we preach, that only
what must be done
is important, the rules
that are ruthless,

and while we do so,
we find ourselves
lacking in
imaginative thought,
so some choose to
escape into
entertainment

not for answers
but just to escape

into dreams.