Imagine a delicious glass of summer iced tea. Take a long cool sip. Listen to the ice crackle and clink. Is the glass part full or part empty? Take another sip. And now?

What we need in fantasy is the sudden balm of clarity - a temporary reprieve from life's white noise and clamor of pain, a kind of time-out. Such clarity, a new perspective, is made possible by fantastic metaphor.

A boomerang returns back to the person who throws it. But first, while moving in a circle, it hits its target. So does gossip.

In the plains the grass grows tall, since there is no one to cut it. There is no one to water it either.

True balm [of fantasy] takes away the painful irritation of life and simply heals, allowing one to begin anew. And that is what fantasy can do for us.

Here is where I like to burst in as a writer, to take one strong sensory detail or image and instead of enhancing it or directing attention to it by shouting about it, I simply take it away.

An optimist is neither naive, nor blind to the facts, nor in denial of grim reality. An optimist believes in the optimal usage of all options available, no matter how limited. As such, an optimist always sees the big picture. How else to keep track of all that’s out there? An optimist is simply a proactive realist.