I was chatting with a friend the other day and he was telling me how he nearly went crazy when he couldn’t find his 5 year old daughter a couple of months ago. Turns out she was hiding under the bed in a game of “hide and seek” but neglected to inform him that he was “it”… or there was even a game going on. He rattled off the many possible scenarios that flashed through his mind within a 15 minute period… and frankly they were all pretty horrendous. After which he looked at me and said, “I know… I need to stop watching so many horror movies.”
The imagination gone wild (at least the sort described above) is an all too common affliction. Just about everyone of us has experienced it in one way or another. Mostly triggered by situations such as… the cryptic “emergency” phone message… the lover/spouse being late and not calling in… business woes, etc. I find it curious though that when it does get triggered almost all the scenarios that arise are dire and/or highly negative.
The playwright in me was musing last night about using that state of panic to craft a script or 5. If you think about it, in a (perceived) dire circumstance the mind is capable of creating not only plots but also a certain simple logic as to why it is playing out. Seriously, think about the last one you had… as horrendous as it might have been, didn’t it all make total sense? It is those clear “through lines” that many in the creative field have the most challenge with.
Perhaps I should mine these scenerios from friends and start a production company called “Panic Pictures”.