Imagining vs. Reality

Today's Apple: A Gala

Image 'n' text courtesy o' the fine
 folks at All About Apples

Gala

(Also known as: Royal Gala)
Parentage / Origin: Kidd's Orange Red x Golden Delicious; New Zealand, 1934
View list of Gala sport varieties
Harvest / Season: Harvest: October, Season: October-January
Description: Excellent for fresh eating. A very pretty, medium size, conical to round fruit with yellow skin patterned with bright orange-red. Firm, juicy, fine textured, yellow white flesh. Sweet slightly tart flavor. Hangs well on tree.
Tree Characteristics: Compact growth habit, prolific bearer. Needs heavy thinning to maintain fruit size and prevent biennial bearing




'Nother thing that fire I was talking 'bout yeste'day got me to thinking 'bout was what would I do if I ever did get home some day to find that there weren't no home there no more? I think I could handle it pret' well, 'cept fer the part 'bout having to find somewhere to stay while ever'thing got sorted out. The one part I couldn't handle, though, would be coming home to find the three little charred bodies of our dead cats in amongst the rubble. That'd be hard.

Then I got to thinking, since I seem to be tending towards the morbid the past day er two (I'll blame it on the fact that Halloween is coming up in a couple days), which'ld be worse: coming home to find three little charred bodies of our dead cats in amongst the rubble, er coming home to find the charred bodies of one er more o the cats that wasn't quite dead yet? Which would be the hardest to cope with? Would I rather they was already dead 'n' torture myself with what kind o' agonies they must o' gone through, er find one er more of 'em alive 'n' have to witness firsthand the agonies they was going through?

You always hear folks talking 'bout how the great old horror movies were much more frightening 'cause they left so much o' the horror to your imagination. These folks say that what you can imagine happening is always much more horrific and terrifying than anything anyone could put up on a movie screen. You hear the same kinds o' remarks from folks who prefer books over movies, of any kind, not just the horror genre, that the images their imagination creates from the words are far better than anything Hollywood could ever do.

But does that hold true fer real life, as well? Which o' the two is worse - imagining some traumatic experience er actu'ly living through the traumatic experience? Is reality better at coming up with scenes of horror than our imaginations? 'N' which would you rather do, if given the choice? Would you rather actu'ly be there, experiencing the last moments o' someone you loved, no matter how bad er painful those moments were, er avoid that trauma 'n' spend the rest o' your life just imagining what they must o' gone through er what it must have been like fer 'em?

Personally, I think I'd opt fer the former. By actu'ly going through the experience, you get the benefit o' having a beginning 'n' an ending to the whole thing. (And don't nobody dare say anything 'bout "closure". I hate that word 'n' the way it's been so overused.) By actu'ly going throught the experience, you know what was what 'n' what happened 'n' how it ended. With your imagination, there don't seem to be any ending to it. You just keep replaying what it might have been like over 'n' over again, trying out differ'nt scenarios, possibly even coming up with worse imaginings that you did the last time you mentally chewed it over. Me, I'd rather know the worst than imagine something worse than that.
Now, that I've thoroughly depressed ever'one, including myself, I'll leave you for the weekend on a slightly happier note. What about the flip side o' the coin? When it comes to good er happy experiences, which is better - imagination er reality? Before you answer that, though, think about it a bit. Have you ever been giddily in love, er even just infatuated with, someone 'n' imagined how great it would be to be with 'em? How did that turn out? How many times, not just in personal relationships, did the reality o' something not live up to the hype o' what your imagination was building you up fer? If a bad reality is better than a bad imagination, does that necessarily mean that a good reality is better than a good imagination?