May all your dreams come true...

...Talk about a horrible curse.


I mean (forgetting for a moment that some folks have very unpleasant dreams) doesn't this wish really point to a lack of understanding as to the purpose of our dreams?


Ok, ok, I know that you're probably thinking something like "It's not meant to be taken literally dumbass, it's just a simpler way of saying 'I hope you get what you desire, or may your future live up to your hopes'", but bear with me.


It seems to me that the real value of dreams (as in 'a strongly desired goal or purpose', rather than 'a state of sleep that recurs cyclically several times during a normal period of sleep and that is characterized especially by increased neuronal activity of the fore brain and mid brain, depressed muscle tone, and rapid eye movements') is that they give us something to strive toward, to hope for, or to focus on when we are in danger of being overwhelmed by the tedium and unpleasantness of daily existence.


I'll give you an example.


I knew a lady a couple of jobs ago who was working nights because the three children she had raised alone and supplied her with five grandchildren who she was also raising alone. Her dream was to win the lottery and have a nice clean little house on a bluff overlooking the ocean, where she could be alone, and relax, and teach herself how to paint or write (it changed depending on her mood). She would be the first to admit that such an existence (if it were a reality) would be nice for a day or two, but not for a lifetime. She would also be the first to admit that the likelihood of her actually achieving this dream was somewhere on the far side of zero, but that's not the point.


The point is that the dream itself (the improbable fantasy, the impossible goal) was a part of what kept her going, even when everything else in her life seemed to be going wrong.


I'll give you another example (one that's almost universal).


Have you ever known someone who's grandest dreams were easily obtainable (like "I wanna get knocked up", or "I wanna get married", or "I wanna own a really nice car")?


Have you noticed how, once the dream is fulfilled, it is never quite what they expected?


Have you noticed how this realization seems, if only for a short time, to suck the life right out of them?


The power of the dream is its ability to inspire hope. Once the dream is realized it becomes powerless.


So, it is with this in mind that I say to you (the few truly bored individuals who have read this far) that I hope all your dreams don't come true. I hope you can manage to dream so big and so often that you will be able to spend a lifetime working towards them, hoping towards them, and pouring yourself into them. I hope that you dream to the point of distraction, and all sorts of other happy horseshit.


I hope that you can hold on to your dreams, that you can protect them from the prying eyes of those who would use them to control you, that you fulfill only a few of them, and that you never let anyone else take them away from you.


Well, it's probably past your bedtime.


Sweet dreams...

Objectivity.

Looks like I finally managed to regain my objectivity.

Just in time for the new year.



Fuck 'em-for the lies that were told, the games that were played, and the choices they made.

Fuck me-for being dumb enough to think that things could ever have been different.

Fever Dreams, Pathetic Schemes, Things Going Bump in the Night.

So I don't know what bug I managed to contract a few weeks ago, but if I could culture it and breed out some of the more unpleasant side effects, I bet I could sell it to all those folks in the tie-dye shirts that I see wandering around.



I think (I hope) that my fever broke about half an hour ago, but I've been pretty much bed ridden since four thirty this afternoon.


It's amazing what just ten short hours of delirium can do to a person. I feel the need to write it all down before I go back to sleep, but I can't seem to get my fingers to work fast enough. Sort of like that first moment of waking, when the wonderful terrible dreams of the previous night are still almost real. Or that occasional lucid moment that comes unbidden and strips the paint off the world, leaving it crisp and pristine for eyes unclouded by the effluvia of human emotion. Like that fleeting moment of self realization that follows situations of extreme happiness, or extreme terror. The warped and dissolute clarity that, in generations past, was sought in the hermit cabins and sweat lodges, in long days and nights of starvation, thirst, flagellation, or in the heart of one or another of the numerous "holy" plants.



Finally I understand, it all makes sense. The uncertainty and anxiety and happiness and hopelessness. The truth of my life and of all life, of my personal failings and the failings of us all. Of the immutable insignificance of even the most grandiose acts, the sum absurdity of our species. All the mixed joy and sorrow, the sweat and toil, the relentless grinding of a world caught between gears, not knowing weather to surge forward or fall back, hinging either on divine intervention or the best intentions of fools and criminals.


Against this backdrop my pathetic lack of ability appears as a painting on crushed velvet in dripping subjective idealism. George Berkeley crooks a bony finger in my direction, laughing at me from the cold halls of Christ Church Cathedral, and I realize for the first time what I have always known.



My neighbor slams the door, the thermostat clicks over just enough to release a jet of natural gas below the pilot light of my heater.



The gas ignites with a reverberating thump which shakes the crystalline silence.


The moment has passed.



The clarity is gone.


I'm left where I started, shivering and sweating under the blankets, wondering what's real.



Fuck it, I need to get some sleep.


Good Night.