Adam Gopnik's Bumping Into Mr. Ravioli

Imagination grants us the ability to explore and discover new meanings surrounding our environment. This form of creative thinking is developed through our interactions with others. Although interactions can allow our imagination to flourish, our limited environment can cause us to feel disgust, thus demonstrating that we must look at our environment through new lens. In the article, “Bumping into Mr. Ravioli”, Adam Gopnik observes his daughter’s developing imagination, which he surprisingly discovers is based on the busy lifestyle of New Yorker residents. Olivia, Gopnik’s daughter, creates an imaginary friend, Charlie Ravioli, who is seemingly too busy to find the time to play with her. According to Gopnik, Ravioli’s constantly being busy
De Botton informs on how he adopted the “grid of interest” into his life after reading a book about the traveling mindset. He adds, “I had imposed a grid interest on the street, my walks along the street had been excised of any attentiveness to beauty, of any associative thoughts, any sense of wonder or gratitude, any philosophical digressions sparked by visual elements” (De Botton 63). He realized that these everyday objects, such as a rusty green lamp post, serve no purpose in a person’s path; it is generally considered that paying attention to them is absurd and a waste of time mostly because the mind of the individual isn’t capable of noticing the surroundings when they are distracted. His inability to imagine the experience as new and refreshing limits his perspective. Daily routines are ineradicable in a person’s mind where they impede their imagination. Similarly, Adam Gopnik applies the “grid of interest” concept into “Bumping into Mr. Ravioli.” Gopnik uses the unique, though fictitious, friendship of a little girl and her imaginary friend to mock the intense daily habits that adults have used to take over their imagination. Gopnik writes about the effect of business in that it has dominated people’s lives, “Busyness is felt so intently here because we are both crowded and overloaded” (Gopnik 158). The people of New York are “crowded” to the point where there are so many people in the city that they are not able to focus on their environment because of the plethora of people commuting on a daily basis. Considering that New Yorkers do not even reserve a small interval of time to take in their surroundings, it is obvious that they lack the ability to build a relationship. The daily rush to get business done takes away the emotional aspects of life that require imagination. Without time and perspective, people lose sight of themselves and let life pass