A jet pack can take you to the skies but only your imagination can take you to the stars.

This is this week’s Ollieism.

The advice as written is perfect for the budding minds of children.  Adults, being all grown up and wrapped in the grip of the Really-Reals ignore it.  The adult-mind wheelhouse is already full of Official Adulty Thoughts about life, work, success and the prickly grapple with happiness.

Somewhere in that wheelhouse is some tired adult with a life preserver around their neck wishing for a time when life was as simple as an imaginative romp through a fantasy landscape where everything was still possible.

Children need to be encouraged.  Adults need to be reminded.

Do not be fooled, dear friends, the message is for everyone.  The message is for You.

Some of us are lucky enough to be living the life we always pictured in our heads while the rest of us only watch that life unfold on the movie screen of the mind.

What went wrong?  Is it too late to fix it?  I don’t know and no, it’s not too late.

Life is a roaring train that can be derailed by a single penny.

While a penny can’t actually derail a train, you get the idea.  You make your plans for your fabulous life and something comes a long a screws ’em up.  Could be an event.  Could be you were just ill-prepared. The life you dream of returns to the Realm of Dreams also known as The Land of Impossible-Impossibles.

This is where your imagination comes in.  If you can imagine yourself being whatever glorious fabulous version of you there is, then it’s not too late.  The vision exits and persists for a reason.  Your higher self (yes, you have one of those) is trying to tell you something.  It’s trying to tell you your mission isn’t accomplished.  It’s telling you that no matter how improbable, it’s not impossible.

You have work to do.  Tune into your imagination.  It’s giving you clues.  Listen and see with the ears and eyes of a child.  No adult encumbrances.  Think about the message delivered.  Take steps to make the movie real.  Listen, perseverate, act.  It’s the only way.

The writing is on the wall.  So how ’bout you actually read it.

Oliver Bug is an adventurer, detective, inventor and gourmet chef residing in Moonwater Meadow.  He can often be found in his workshop putting out small unintentional fires.

Tom Serafini is Ollie’s official biographer, illustrator and a sometime stand-up comedian residing in Brooklyn, New York.  He has an affinity for banana pudding.  His first illustrated picture book, Ollie Bug and the Icky Sticky Thing From Space, will be funded through a Kicktarter crowdfunding campaign coming this summer.

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