A Polar Bear and Past Imagination

A polar bear is watching me. They're always really curious. They're also pretty aggressive. I have to get away, is the first thought that comes to my mind after the brief moment of fascination I have. This is where I start running (which I later found out was a stupid idea; you're not supposed to run away from polar bears but fight them with your bear hands ya know?) through the snow back to our camp. It's safe there. I look behind me (something you should never do in life - metaphorically, of course) and notice he hasn't moved. Did you know that when they stand on their hindfeet, polar bears can reach more than 3m (10ft)? Majestic, yes, but also scary as hell. Those are brutally adorable beasts that get their white fur covered with blood when eating and that looks absolutely metal. Don't google it, I'm warning you!

I got a new jacket, black, wool, warm, for the winter. It gets pretty cold up here at university. This is how that jacket made me feel looking down at Sariyer and the strait flowing into the Black Sea. At this time of the year, the water looks cold and light blue which really makes you feel the chill in your bones. If you put your mind to it, you can see the polar bear curiously eying you from the top of the hill. If you put your mind to it, you find yourself suddenly in the Arctic surrounded by snow with your campsite not too far behind you. If you put your mind to it, you can be anywhere and do anything.

Ten years ago, imagination used to play a big role in my life. My little sister and I would sit there in my room and play out entire magical and imaginative stories in our heads together. We'd describe what we're seeing and add on to each other's imagination to create fantasy movies. Movies only we would be able to see. We'd be sitting in the living room with the rest of the family, signal each other that it's time, and then sneak away to my room to start playing (sounds almost Black Mirror-y if you imagine the little kids sitting there and just playing a whole game in their heads; we didn't have chips in our heads back then though).

That was ten years ago, around the time when I was ten and she was eight. Today, that was the first bit of imagination I had in a while. An old souvenir from the past. And wearing that winter jacket brought me there. How strange is that? All it takes is a smell, a touch, a sound; a key to the past, something that takes you all the way back and brings up all the memories you thought long forgotten. Here's something for you to think about: There is probably a person right now you completely forgot about, but no matter how hard you remember, you cannot know who it is.

Do this, do that. Don't do this, don't do that. Think of your career and work towards your future. If you stop a second and look around, this world we are in can become very dull if we don't pay attention and get carried away with everything we "must" do. Imagination and creativity are really important in my opinion. It's like adding color to a white canvas (now you may bring up how Robert Ryman had a white-on-white painting sold for 15 million USD a couple of years back, yes, but that's beside the point). Add some color to your life and start imagining a bit. Better yet, imagine a new color!