When imagination is not being used as a means for the creative solution of problems, in most cases it substitutes for the capacity to process present experience.  You can avoid what is in front of you by existing somewhere else.  The problem is that if you never “are”, you can never become.
 
I had in mind here comic books, and dungeons and dragons, and science fiction and fantasy; but this applies equally to leftwing utopianism.  They don’t count death as real.  They don’t count suffering as real.  They don’t count people as real, and they don’t count themselves as real.

Edit: I would actually add some forms of “right wing” utopianism.  In principle, is John Galt’s mountain hideout that different that varying iterations of a society founded on “reason”, or “science”, which is the claim made for Marxism?

This is an oldie but a goodie:

There are two novels that can transform a bookish
14-year-kid’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a
childish daydream that can lead to an emotionally stunted, socially
crippled adulthood in which large chunks of the day are spent inventing
ways to make real life more like a fantasy novel. The other is a book
about orcs.  Raj Patel (who based on the title of the book where this quote apparently occurred, is likely a leftist despite the 50 year failure of socialism in India.)

Be here, now.  Solve problems here, now.  If you are somewhere else, until you come back, no one needs you.