To dream or not to dream...

Before you read this post, make sure you get a little context by reading the latest Pascal quote that I've been thinking on lately. Also the movie Vanilla Sky may come to mind if you've ever seen it.

The question at hand relates to our insatiable desire to always want to be somewhere else, to do something else with our lives, something bigger, something better. We dream...and we're far better off for it, I do believe. What greatness would ever be achieved if we didn't dream? I resonate with George Mallory who, in response to the question "Why climb Everest?" replied, "Because it's there." It called out a challenge to him. It gave him a dream. Dreams are about being involved in something bigger than yourself. Something bigger than average, better than normal. Have you ever awoken from a dream only to wish you could fall back asleep because you quite enjoyed it there? It was much more enjoyable and satisfying than the reality you wake up to. That present reality, which we all live in, is far to real, with all it's pains, frustrations, annoyances, interruptions, discontentment. So we dream. Yet dreams are merely a hope, a favorable expectation of a future that may or may not ever exist. But in contrast to this present reality, we dream in perfect color, the way things could be. So we're lead to the question, if our dreams are so great, why don't we drop everything and pursue them with abandon? What is it that keeps us from following our dreams? Fear perhaps. Fear of the unknown. Fear that if we pursue our dream into the present then it may not be as perfect as we imagined it to be. Fear that if it doesn't work out then we'll have nothing to fall back on. And so we remain in discontented reality...with our dreams. But what of those who do follow their dreams? Those who give up average for the hope of fulfillment? When they get there, is it all they imagined it to be? Or do they only find another dream, like climbing to the top of a mountain only to find another mountain on the other side of the valley? So ultimately we've come to the question, is it possible to live your dream? Does anyone ever really honestly say I wouldn't rather be doing anything else than what I'm doing right now, I wouldn't rather be anywhere else than where I am right now? Is that true contentment? Is that life fulfillment?

I'm not totally convinced. Like Pascal says, we can't go on living in times that are not our own (ie, the future, our dreams). The only time we have to live is the present. So does that devalue our dreams? On the contrary, I think it revalues the in-betweens. Follow your dreams, but live the journey. Climb your Everest, but find joy in the climb, not just the summit. Maybe in the end dreams aren't really a place to be, or something to do, but a joy to hold. To hold that joy in this present reality, in the everyday, that's contentment, that's the dream.

So we continue to dream...and are much better off for it, I do believe.

Concerning fear, love, and loss

So I was just watching one of my favorite movies, Good Will Hunting, and I was struck by a conversation that paralleled some things that have recently been stirring my thinking. In a conversation between Will, an emotionally detached, young genius, and Sean, his shrink, Will asks if Sean ever wondered what his life would be like if he had never married his wife, who had died of cancer two years earlier. Sean goes on to reply that he never regretted the years of joy because of the years of pain, but he would've regretted seeing this girl in a bar and never knowing what would've happened if he had only talked with her. Meanwhile, Will doesn't want to give his heart to this girl, Skylar, because he's afraid that if she finds out about all his imperfections then she'll leave. He's not convinced the potential joy is worth the hypothetical loss.

That reminds me of these words I recently wrote to a friend:

Why is it that love always has to end in loss? Truly the tragic curse of the soul, our greatest hurt bound intimately with our greatest joy. But I suppose it's destined to work out that way. So then we're left with "it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." I guess I can accept that.

This goes right along with that quote from Pascal [reference earlier post]. If we constantly fear the pain of loss destined in the future then we will never experience the joy of love in the present. Or on the other hand, as with my friend and I, if we cling to our grief, remembering past loves, we miss those opportunities of new loves right in front of us. Or as Sean, the shrink, would say, it's time to put your money back on the table and see what kind of cards you get.

We never keep to the present.

"We never keep to the present. We . . . anticipate the future as if we found it too slow in coming and were trying to hurry it up, or we recall the past as if to stay its too rapid flight. We are so unwise that we wander about in times that do not belong to us and do not think of the only one that does; so vain that we dream of times that are not and blindly flee the only one that is . . . [We] think of how we are going to arrange things over which we have no control for a time we can never be sure of reaching . . . Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so." ~Blaise Pascal

I've quite enjoyed meditating on that quote recently and don't have much commentary that could add to it, so I'll just let it speak for itself.