The early days
I’m a dreamer. I’ve always been one. I can remember, when I was a kid, I would play in the woods with a friend of mine. We imagined that it was an ancient dark forest with all sorts of otherworldly creatures lurking in the dark awaiting to be slain by our skillful hands holding self-made wooden swords. After a day playing outside we rode off into the sunset on our magic bikes, back in time for dinner. Oh yes, there was something called “school”, but we did that on the side so to speak. That was something your parents put a lot of emphasis on for some reason or another. But aside from that, it was a great time. The world was full of adventure. You just had to look and pretend it was there.
Somewhere along the line we seem to loose this ability. When you grow up, the world is slowly revealing itself for what it is. Before you know it, we are stuck with the mundane reality. “Keeping you’re head in the clouds is not good for you”, my father used to say. Somehow you are implicitly expected to leave that magical world behind. Fantasies are not serious and it’s a serious world out there. I had to prepare for the future. So eventually play made way for work, career, mortgage, responsibility, a pension, etc.
Present day
So where are we now? We are living for the most part in a demystified world. But that’s not because there’s no mystery left. It’s because we don’t allow ourselves to see it. We have replaced it by a 24 hour economy. You see, we live pretty comfortable lives. But in order to do so we have to be productive. At least 40 hours a week and probably more. Our economy is based on growth. This means that in order to grow, our society needs to work harder. We have to be more efficient and systematic. Therefore the pace of life speeds up tremendously. It’s a pretty demanding force. So here we are, running around like crazy. Consuming like there’s no tomorrow. But eventually somethings gotta give.
De-rationalize yourself
Somewhere deep inside there’s a voice. It’s very weak at first, almost inaudible. I didn’t realize it was there and it took me a while to be aware of that voice. But when you really listen it’s starts to grow. Louder and louder. Until you cannot ignore it any longer. This voice is saying that there is something missing. That there’s no room for wonder and amazement anymore. It is confined to the realm of childhood. Myths and legends belong to the past. You can blame society and progress, but it starts within ourselves. With a different way of looking. Perhaps a different way of experiencing. In a way you have to “de-rationalize” yourself. Stop running around and stop consuming to fill that hole. It starts with getting in touch with that ability that we have lost.
So that’s what I’m doing. I have a dream. I have many dreams in fact. I haven’t forgotten. I can see them as clear as day. I don’t know where it is taking me. But I have to ‘catch’ these images and show them. Hopefully people will stop for a little while with their hectic lives and perhaps I can make them remember too.
I’m a dreamer, I’ve always been one………and always will be.
Bold and true. Sounds like an artistic statement to me!
You know, there was a hypothesis by Freud which claimed that those parts of the psyche (also: neurobiologically speaking, those parts of the ‘brain’) responsible for dreaming never stop working during the waking hours. In fact, we live in a constant state of dreaming – timeless. It is rather the rational ego that fogs the picture, tricks us into thinking we are fully awake.
This does not mean automatically that reality is not real. But our perception of reality is, in a way, less complete – until we realize.
Of course, it’s just a hypothesis and it’s subjective, like everything in life. But funnily enough, it goes along the same lines as both platonism and buddhism.
I think that ‘reality’ is an interresting philosophical subject. In the west, we think that science has brought as reality. We don’t have the need for gods anymore. But although we think we don’t need them anymore in our day to day live, I believe we actually do.
I’ve just read Pirsig’s book: “The Art Motorcycle Maintenance” that has some interresting views on Platonism and Buddhism. Pirsig states that there’s something as the ‘conceptually unknown’.
I translate that as ‘a big Mysterie’. If you take rational thought to it’s extreme (as science does), there will always be that thing you cannot put your finger on. That you cannot understand really.
For me that’s a sign. We have mystery, we just think it’s not there anymore.