Grieving the spirit

"The imagination can create the future only if its products are brought over into the real. The bestowal of the work completes the act of imagination. Ginsberg could have said, 'O dear, now I'm hearing voices,' and taken a sedative. But when we refuse what has been offered to the empty heart, when possible futures are given and not acted upon, then the imagination recedes. And without the imagination we can do no more than spin the future out of the logic of the present: we will never be led into new life because we can work only from the known. But Ginsberg responded as an artist responds. The artist completes the act of imagination by accepting the give and laboring to give it to the real (at which point the distinction between 'imaginary' and 'real' dissolves)."

excerpt from Lewis Hyde's phenomenal book, The Gift