I haven't spoken much in this space about dreams. I've mentioned them obliquely, and you can catch hints and glimpses of their shapes in some of the darker corners of the blog, but as an overt subject? Nothing. How can that be? Dreams are so fundamental, so foundational, such a firm indicator of who we are.
When I started learning Japanese, one of the first things that amazed me was the fact that the Japanese word for dream, 夢 (yume), shares its double meaning with the word 'dream' in English: it can refer to either the visions we receive at night, or our most powerful goals and ambitions. I was floored that these two languages which had nothing whatsoever in common in their formation or history, which in fact lacked a common context, had nevertheless arrived at a similar conclusion. I'm not sure if any other languages share that dual meaning, although I'm sure some must. It's no surprise that there's something inseparable about the things we see in our sleep and our deepest desires; still, to equate the two linguistically is very powerful.
Of course, English goes a step beyond Japanese in this regard. There is a verbal difference in how you relate to dreams in Japanese; to see something in your sleep is to see a dream, and to possess a goal is to have a dream. In English, we have a dream either way.
This next point touches directly on a point I hit a few times in some of my plays; it's the question of "what do I do next?" I was talking with a friend today and she confessed to me that she's battled a vague, unanticipated sense of dissatisfaction ever since she achieved the greatest goal she had ever set for herself. After surmounting a seemingly insurmountable obstacle, she's left to wonder what her next goal should be. I understand that feeling all too well. I have met every major goal I have set for myself in life, and accomplishing each just made me happy for a little bit before I regressed to looking forward to the next.
Not everyone needs to be driven to extreme goals. But that's the funny thing about climbing steep hills -- the shallow slopes no longer seem as appealing as they once may have. After all, you think, I am capable of so much more. But it's much easier to realize that fact than it is to settle on the next hill you'll climb.
As far back as I can remember, I have been greatly distrustful of things that come too easily. I remember, when I was six years old, remarking that I would never trust anybody who had absolute, 100% confidence in his own rightness -- such a person was certain to be fooling himself. That sort of total and complete faith is just too easy to be real, too good to be true. The same goes for all things that might fall into my lap. I am compelled to fight for things, or I cannot value them. Some people say "just sit back and enjoy!" And it seems that it is possible to do so; that for many, life will provide. But I reject that simplicity of pleasure, that paucity of experience, that embrace of mediocrity! No food tastes so sweet as that which you brought into reality through the sheer force of your own will. Nothing you watch will ever hold a candle to what you do.
If I can identify a dream, if I hold any such, it is this: to never rest content in what life hands me, and to always push for more. Let me create ten times what I consume; let me love a hundred times more than I am loved; let me search for all that which lies beyond sight, and connect in darkness with the grasping fingers of all those similarly disposed to myself! I will stand tall above the greatest mountains, never accept that I can be less, and if I fall, I will do so as satisfied in my own course as I have been all along.
That's a big dream. It may be unattainable. But if you must choose a dream that can never be fully satisfied, let it be one as wildly ambitious as possible. You never know.
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