Imaginary
Friends
by Gil A. Waters
I was a bland
and humorless child. The causes of this
condition are legion. Start with the combed-over,
slicked-down hair, parted just above my left ear
and extending in a single horrifying mass all the
way to my right ear. Throw in debilitating
shyness, paralyzing social anxiety, and a genetic
inability to catch, hit, throw, or run while
holding a ball of any kind, and you have the
makings of one sorry specimen of American boyhood
— me. And it was all down hill as I
made my way into an awkward adolescence and
dysfunctional young adulthood: glasses with
lenses as thick as bricks, volcanic pustules of
cystic acne, and a nearly terminal case of
protracted virginity.
As if I
didn’t have enough somatic and psychological
barriers separating me from the rest of humanity,
I also had the misfortune of being born to
parents who refused to lie to me. From the
moment I was old enough to ask questions, they
heartlessly provided me with real answers. Where
do babies come from? Who puts the presents under
the Christmas tree? No stork or Santa Claus;
just sexual intercourse and rampant consumerism.
Like a little missionary, I brought my joyless
brand of objectivity to the juvenile masses. More
than a few children shed tears of disbelief as I
assured them that they were the product of
hideous fluid exchanges between their parents,
who also consumed the milk and cookies left for
jolly Saint Nick. Not surprisingly, I had few
real friends as a child, and I certainly
wasn’t about to create an imaginary one. All
I could do was bide my time until the magical day
when age and maturity would dispel the fog of
delusion from the minds of my brethren. With the
exception of a few magical epiphanies, I am still
waiting for that day to arrive.
Thankfully, I
no longer live in a world populated by Easter
Bunnies and Monsters Under The Bed. But I
have been forever ruined as a member of polite
society when it comes to the topic of “God.” No
matter how hard I try, I can never wrap my mind
around the fact that so many people I meet, even
seemingly rational and intelligent individuals,
believe that the Judeo-Christian god, or the
Islamic god, or the Hindu gods, are really real.
Why would you let go of the unseen imaginary
friend from your childhood, only to replace him
or her with another who is just as invisible?
I’ve
heard countless times that it’s a matter of
“faith,” yet that doesn’t explain
the intellectual quandary that “faith”
presents. I might have faith in my belief that
the aluminum-foil hat I wear is essential to
prevent my mind from being controlled by the
aliens who follow me around and beam telepathic
waves at my head. But that faith probably
won’t win many followers to my faith-based
belief system, and probably won’t prevent my
institutionalization in a psychiatric hospital.
All of which
is to say that the line between faith and
delusion has always seemed to be non-existent
from my perspective. If you’re going to
believe in an invisible supreme being for which
there is no evidence, why not continue to believe
in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, too? Which
gets me back to the root off my psychosocial
problem: If my parents had just let me believe in
Santa Claus as a child, maybe my mind would be
better equipped for the intellectual gymnastics
required to believe in “God” as an
adult. I’d get mad at my parents for leaving
me in my present existential predicament, but
they’re dead. Hopefully, they’re in
heaven as well, so I can give them hell in the
after-life for all the trouble they caused me in
this one.
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