photo #8744228

05 AM. Every morning. Same time. Kids across the street at the elementary school playground. Swinging. Climbing. Play-acting. No phones—can't have them at school. And there's always one kid. By the fence. Lost in his imagination. Building castles nobody asked for. Slaying dragons nobody's watching. Saving kingdoms nobody will like or share. He's free. Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka said it: "There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination. Living there, you'll be free if you truly wish to be." That kid by the fence? He's living there. The adults walking past him—heads down, scrolling, faces lit by blue light—aren't. Pure imagination vs. vain imagination. One creates worlds. The other curates feeds. One builds for the joy of building. The other performs for approval. "Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened." Romans 1:21. KJV. Paul saw it 2,000 years ago. We're drowning in it now. We didn't lose imagination because screens exist. We lost it because we chose performance over play. Approval over creation. Algorithms over wonder. And now we're teaching our kids to do the same. The kid by the fence will grow up. He'll get a phone. A feed. An algorithm. And one day he'll stand where I'm standing. Coffee in hand. 7:05 AM. Watching some other kid by the fence. And he'll grieve too. Unless we stop the cycle. So here's what I'm doing: Every morning at 7:05, I put the phone down. I watch the kid by the fence. I remember what I lost. And I grieve. Not for him. He's free. I grieve for us. The dads scrolling Instagram while their sons play alone. The moms curating lives instead of living them. The church leaders performing faith instead of embodying it. We were that kid once. Before the metrics. Before the performance. Before we traded pure imagination for vain imaginations. You want your kids to be free? Stop performing. Stop curating. Stop measuring your worth by engagement rates. Go build something nobody asked for. Paint. Write. Play. Create. Not for likes. Not for shares. For the joy of living in pure imagination again. The kid by the fence knows this. Do you?