A few thoughts on dreams
Television broadcasters engage in an activity referred to in the business as “dayparting”-that is, the division of the 24-hour day into blocks of programming specifically tailored to the tastes of the largest audience watching at a given time. If you’ve watched television at any point in recent memory, you’ve no doubt noticed dayparting in action. Mornings are dedicated to news of the lighter and irreverent sort-think Good Morning America-because broadcasters know that the average overworked schmoe can’t stomach the latest overseas massacre at 7:00 in the morning. When the schmoes leave for work, the morning news gives way to daytime talk shows and soap operas which appeal to the palates of the stay-at-home wives; which then give way to the evening newscast, whose overseas massacre bits, to the same average overworked schmoe, are now positively succulent; and this gives way to the primetime entertainment shows, which we can all feel good about sampling, since the day is over and there’s nothing else to do but sit back on the couch and prop up our feet.
The logic of this all seems obvious. If you’re aiming to entertain and to ram advertisements down a few throats in the process, you’re best off putting money on the most receptive audience. But it says something else as well: that television broadcasters know that modern living is so predictably cyclical that each day can be compartmentalized, sectioned, and sold to the highest bidder. To some, the wake-work-play-sleep nature of modern living is probably reassuring. To others-those first-time jobholders and a few working souls who haven’t been bludgeoned into complacent submission by the uncompromising cudgel of routine-it can be downright depressing.
I’m not the first person to think this and I won’t be the last. I’m one of those previously mentioned workaday virgins. But it’s a badge of my age. I’m twenty-two years old, not quite a year removed from college, and I can feel it coming on: the doldrums of my twentysomethings.
Twentysomething. The word is brilliant. In four syllables, it captures all the listlessness, uncertainty, and ennui of this age. It’s a word that marks the end of the simpler epochs in our lives. It’s a word that can’t even be arsed to finish itself.
But I speak from bias. There are those who glide through their twentysomethings with barely a hiccup. Perhaps it’s because they’ve been working since high school. Or perhaps it’s because they’ve entered grad school, or have landed their dream job, or are on their way to a life filled with many, many offspring. I say: good for them. This essay doesn’t concern them. This essay concerns a different population: those uncertain American college grads, rich or poor, who have a calling and are in danger of letting it go.
Now before I veer into maudlin territory, let me back up and explain what I mean by a “calling.” It’s a higher idea-a higher ideal-of ourselves. It’s what, in the end, we want out of our lives. Perhaps I’d be better off calling it a “dream.” And it doesn’t have to be outlandish, either. If you think you have no dreams just because a voice inside you isn’t screaming “I WANNA BE AN ASTRONAUT WHEN I GROW UP,” well, it’s time you pulled your head from your rectum. In all likelihood, a calling is what sent you to college in the first place. It’s what you suffered through all of grade school to do. Think about what you majored in. No, not what you switched your major to (like I did) because of some stupid extenuating circumstances. It’s all coming back now, right? Great. Keep in it mind.
Back to the present. College is over. You’ve celebrated this fact or mourned it, most likely both. You’ve decided you needed a little time off to reconsider your calling and have gotten a job in the meantime. You work and you work and you work-and perhaps you’ve discovered something a little disconcerting. Every day is starting to seem just like the next. Somehow, someway, you’ve fallen into a ho-hum but comfortable routine of your own making. And you’re actually sort of okay with this.
We are now entering the danger zone.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with routine. I repeat: there is nothing wrong with routine. And there’s nothing wrong with predictability. Probably most of the Third World would be content with a comfortable job and a comfortable home in which to wile away the rest of their lives in cheerful obscurity. So no, I don’t have a problem with routine. I do, however, have a problem with the complacency that tends to come of routine. Routine does not necessarily lead to complacency, but the two are extremely compatible partners. There’s always a danger of forgetting the bigger goal for an existence of simple but consistent survival. After all, the American middle class represents the culmination of nearly everything evolution has been striving for: an existence of minimal predation, abundant food, and ample opportunity to reproduce (well, maybe some things don’t change.) Biologically speaking, once we’ve reached this safe haven, there shouldn’t be much else for us to do but shag until the cows come home.
It’s our intelligence that makes this standard of living possible. But intelligence is also the biggest joke that evolution has ever played on us. I don’t completely agree with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but the man was onto something. As humans, we are no longer content with simply surviving. Want is always whispering in our ears and nipping at our heels. We crave for something more beyond our present. Perhaps it's a family. Or perhaps it's a house or a job we can be proud of.
INEVITABLE DIGRESSION
I’m aware that we’re lucky enough to be in a position to even dream of nice houses or jobs. As many have argued, we could have been born as starving children in Africa and thus shouldn’t be too sad if our dreams don’t pan out the way we want. But I hate the “starving children in Africa” argument because, like it or not, misery is relative, just as happiness is relative, just as dreams are relative. So yes, thank the merciful G-d of your choice that you have the opportunity to dream higher dreams than having a consistent food supply; but don’t feel bad about thinking that something like your career or place of residence could be improved. (Complaining too much, though, makes you an annoying git and invalidates my entire argument. Don’t do it.)
END OF INEVITABLE DIGRESSION.
So we have something of a paradox to resolve. Humans tend to seek higher callings than a routine existence; but routine can lead to a false sense of security and dull the mind into not pursuing its calling at all.
It’s because dream-chasing is hard work. In the midst of the working world, it’s even harder work. And nature prefers the path of least resistance. Easy as that.
School is a convenient place to do some dream-chasing. It’s a familiar scaffold around us that organizes and focuses our life. The external demands of professors and exams carve out time for us to work, and therefore time to play (as insufficient as that time may seem.) Even when you’re crushed with schoolwork, there’s always the next bit of respite to look forward to, the next winter break, the next summer vacation-even, somewhere off in the distance, that shiny diploma waiting just out of reach. The end result is that life has a tangible rhythm of tension and release. Planning is easier when life’s increments are simple to grasp, and easier still when those increments are imposed upon you.
Which is the reason we run the risk of losing sight of our dreams when all of those increments end. After school, you no longer have a variable class schedule and time condenses into the holy triumvirate of work, leisure, and sleep. It may seem an enormous relief in its simplicity until you realize there are no more summer vacations, no more syllabi, and no more easy ways to keep track of the days. For the first time, life shifts from a world of external demands to a world of internal ones. We, and only we, are responsible for committing time to our passions. It’s all too easy to arrive at home at the end of a long day, give that dream a sideways glance, and say in a small, self-justifying tone, “Not today. I’ve worked hard today. I’ve done enough.” And you probably have worked hard. Maybe you have a decent job that pays the rent and puts food on the table. And maybe that job isn’t so bad after all, not your Platonic ideal of a job, but close enough. And maybe after a while you might think, hell, I could get up and keep plugging away at that dream of mine-or I could rest here and simply be. That tickle of dissatisfaction? Well, I’ve lived with it before. It’ll be all right, I think, so long as can make it till tomorrow-and the day after-and then-
Well, you’re intelligent people. You know how this one ends. I think Pink Floyd put it the best.
And then one day you find
Ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run.
You missed the starting gun.
I say it doesn’t have to be this way.
More than that: I entreat you that you not make it so.
There are other ways to live our lives. We are not doomed to devolve into complacency. School was only the first step. Our challenge now is to take it to the next. Because ignoring the calling is spiritual suicide. It’s the deadliest of double-edged swords; to dream is terribly, pleasurably human, but it’s a dream that creates a hollow in our souls that begs to be filled. Realize now that dreaming was the easy part. The hard part is just beginning.
I repeat: this is the hard part now.
And I know-there are some days that are so sad and so still that when you sit, you can feel time on your skin, sandpapering slowly past. Keep going. There will be other, lighter days, days filled with friends and the music of laughter.
Never stop striving. It’s a testament to the immortality of the ego and a proclamation against a life without callings. And no, it’s not going to be easy. So let’s tip our hats to that. Ready? All together now:
FUCK. THIS. SHIT.
Now let’s get on with it.
The logic of this all seems obvious. If you’re aiming to entertain and to ram advertisements down a few throats in the process, you’re best off putting money on the most receptive audience. But it says something else as well: that television broadcasters know that modern living is so predictably cyclical that each day can be compartmentalized, sectioned, and sold to the highest bidder. To some, the wake-work-play-sleep nature of modern living is probably reassuring. To others-those first-time jobholders and a few working souls who haven’t been bludgeoned into complacent submission by the uncompromising cudgel of routine-it can be downright depressing.
I’m not the first person to think this and I won’t be the last. I’m one of those previously mentioned workaday virgins. But it’s a badge of my age. I’m twenty-two years old, not quite a year removed from college, and I can feel it coming on: the doldrums of my twentysomethings.
Twentysomething. The word is brilliant. In four syllables, it captures all the listlessness, uncertainty, and ennui of this age. It’s a word that marks the end of the simpler epochs in our lives. It’s a word that can’t even be arsed to finish itself.
But I speak from bias. There are those who glide through their twentysomethings with barely a hiccup. Perhaps it’s because they’ve been working since high school. Or perhaps it’s because they’ve entered grad school, or have landed their dream job, or are on their way to a life filled with many, many offspring. I say: good for them. This essay doesn’t concern them. This essay concerns a different population: those uncertain American college grads, rich or poor, who have a calling and are in danger of letting it go.
Now before I veer into maudlin territory, let me back up and explain what I mean by a “calling.” It’s a higher idea-a higher ideal-of ourselves. It’s what, in the end, we want out of our lives. Perhaps I’d be better off calling it a “dream.” And it doesn’t have to be outlandish, either. If you think you have no dreams just because a voice inside you isn’t screaming “I WANNA BE AN ASTRONAUT WHEN I GROW UP,” well, it’s time you pulled your head from your rectum. In all likelihood, a calling is what sent you to college in the first place. It’s what you suffered through all of grade school to do. Think about what you majored in. No, not what you switched your major to (like I did) because of some stupid extenuating circumstances. It’s all coming back now, right? Great. Keep in it mind.
Back to the present. College is over. You’ve celebrated this fact or mourned it, most likely both. You’ve decided you needed a little time off to reconsider your calling and have gotten a job in the meantime. You work and you work and you work-and perhaps you’ve discovered something a little disconcerting. Every day is starting to seem just like the next. Somehow, someway, you’ve fallen into a ho-hum but comfortable routine of your own making. And you’re actually sort of okay with this.
We are now entering the danger zone.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with routine. I repeat: there is nothing wrong with routine. And there’s nothing wrong with predictability. Probably most of the Third World would be content with a comfortable job and a comfortable home in which to wile away the rest of their lives in cheerful obscurity. So no, I don’t have a problem with routine. I do, however, have a problem with the complacency that tends to come of routine. Routine does not necessarily lead to complacency, but the two are extremely compatible partners. There’s always a danger of forgetting the bigger goal for an existence of simple but consistent survival. After all, the American middle class represents the culmination of nearly everything evolution has been striving for: an existence of minimal predation, abundant food, and ample opportunity to reproduce (well, maybe some things don’t change.) Biologically speaking, once we’ve reached this safe haven, there shouldn’t be much else for us to do but shag until the cows come home.
It’s our intelligence that makes this standard of living possible. But intelligence is also the biggest joke that evolution has ever played on us. I don’t completely agree with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but the man was onto something. As humans, we are no longer content with simply surviving. Want is always whispering in our ears and nipping at our heels. We crave for something more beyond our present. Perhaps it's a family. Or perhaps it's a house or a job we can be proud of.
INEVITABLE DIGRESSION
I’m aware that we’re lucky enough to be in a position to even dream of nice houses or jobs. As many have argued, we could have been born as starving children in Africa and thus shouldn’t be too sad if our dreams don’t pan out the way we want. But I hate the “starving children in Africa” argument because, like it or not, misery is relative, just as happiness is relative, just as dreams are relative. So yes, thank the merciful G-d of your choice that you have the opportunity to dream higher dreams than having a consistent food supply; but don’t feel bad about thinking that something like your career or place of residence could be improved. (Complaining too much, though, makes you an annoying git and invalidates my entire argument. Don’t do it.)
END OF INEVITABLE DIGRESSION.
So we have something of a paradox to resolve. Humans tend to seek higher callings than a routine existence; but routine can lead to a false sense of security and dull the mind into not pursuing its calling at all.
It’s because dream-chasing is hard work. In the midst of the working world, it’s even harder work. And nature prefers the path of least resistance. Easy as that.
School is a convenient place to do some dream-chasing. It’s a familiar scaffold around us that organizes and focuses our life. The external demands of professors and exams carve out time for us to work, and therefore time to play (as insufficient as that time may seem.) Even when you’re crushed with schoolwork, there’s always the next bit of respite to look forward to, the next winter break, the next summer vacation-even, somewhere off in the distance, that shiny diploma waiting just out of reach. The end result is that life has a tangible rhythm of tension and release. Planning is easier when life’s increments are simple to grasp, and easier still when those increments are imposed upon you.
Which is the reason we run the risk of losing sight of our dreams when all of those increments end. After school, you no longer have a variable class schedule and time condenses into the holy triumvirate of work, leisure, and sleep. It may seem an enormous relief in its simplicity until you realize there are no more summer vacations, no more syllabi, and no more easy ways to keep track of the days. For the first time, life shifts from a world of external demands to a world of internal ones. We, and only we, are responsible for committing time to our passions. It’s all too easy to arrive at home at the end of a long day, give that dream a sideways glance, and say in a small, self-justifying tone, “Not today. I’ve worked hard today. I’ve done enough.” And you probably have worked hard. Maybe you have a decent job that pays the rent and puts food on the table. And maybe that job isn’t so bad after all, not your Platonic ideal of a job, but close enough. And maybe after a while you might think, hell, I could get up and keep plugging away at that dream of mine-or I could rest here and simply be. That tickle of dissatisfaction? Well, I’ve lived with it before. It’ll be all right, I think, so long as can make it till tomorrow-and the day after-and then-
Well, you’re intelligent people. You know how this one ends. I think Pink Floyd put it the best.
And then one day you find
Ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run.
You missed the starting gun.
I say it doesn’t have to be this way.
More than that: I entreat you that you not make it so.
There are other ways to live our lives. We are not doomed to devolve into complacency. School was only the first step. Our challenge now is to take it to the next. Because ignoring the calling is spiritual suicide. It’s the deadliest of double-edged swords; to dream is terribly, pleasurably human, but it’s a dream that creates a hollow in our souls that begs to be filled. Realize now that dreaming was the easy part. The hard part is just beginning.
I repeat: this is the hard part now.
And I know-there are some days that are so sad and so still that when you sit, you can feel time on your skin, sandpapering slowly past. Keep going. There will be other, lighter days, days filled with friends and the music of laughter.
Never stop striving. It’s a testament to the immortality of the ego and a proclamation against a life without callings. And no, it’s not going to be easy. So let’s tip our hats to that. Ready? All together now:
FUCK. THIS. SHIT.
Now let’s get on with it.