“Damn you are living the dream! Good on ya!”
I often heard this expression when I refitted my decrepit sailboat Tranquility and started to live on it, sailing around as I pleased.
It usually came from a retired white male passing by the docks.
It’s a clearly North American clichè, pictured by the stereotyped characters in Jimmy Buffet’s songs: Having the sailing dream, working hard to get it when retired, the dream to sail the high seas chasing endless sunsets, eating the fruits of the sea and the land or, more conveniently, be moored by a white sandy beach in close proximity to booze as there is actually no need to chase sunsets: They tend to show up anyway at the usual time so it’s enough to secure a nice observation point!
And of course if they were actually “living the dream” themselves there was an addition to the sentence:
“I wish I did it sooner, when I was your age”, the complaint aimed a the not so great physical condition the retired live aboard sailor found themselves in after a life of hard work.
This conversation always threw me off.
Sailing and living aboard a sailboat was never my dream in the first place, so whose dream was I supposed to be living?
It was totally fortuitous that at 27 I would live and work on a sailboat in the tropics. It didn’t come from a carefully crafted plan, nor was a bullett point of the once in a lifetime bucket list.
My dream was to fix an old van, make it liveable and drive through the Silk Road, from Italy to China.
The original dream and the actual shape my life took had something in common: to be in contact with the elements, living a nomadic existence, a journey of discovery and knowledge… Yet I had no clue that sailing could serve as vehicle of personal meaning to the point of becoming a career and a way of life.
Had I followed my dreams I would most likely be somewhere else and done different things.
I would have studied Social Psychology in Buenos Aires, or opened a Rifugio up high in the Alps. None of those dreams became reality. It doesn’t mean they will not, but this is not the point.
The repository of daydreaming I entertain myself with is packed with many different conscious dreams. Personally I have a collection of reels that I can play non stop for days. They involve some kind of musical prowess, literary fame, and financial success.
Despite spending a lot of time lost in such fascinations I doubt I would ever be able to pull it off and make my dreams come true. And that’s ok.
Why I do not push hard enough to accomplish what I thought was the best future for myself? Is it a lack of determination or skills to achieve my dreams? In an era where you can do anything if you only work hard enough, why I keep failing so miserably?
Lately I have been asking myself a different set of questions:
Do I really want to perform complicated drum patterns in front of an adoring public? Or I just want to feel admired and recognized while expressing my talents?
Do I want to own many properties around the world? Or I am simply after comforts and security I want to have for myself and my family?
We want to feel valued, celebrated, cared for, we are after love, companionship, friendship and personal realization, and we create daring and beautiful stories in which we achieve incredible feats that give us enduring satisfaction and happiness.
Are these dreams we engage with in our heads genuine and in line with ourselves? Or do we take them from a stockpile of predetermined and socially acceptable ones?
Where do dreams come from?
As night dreams show, there is no need for many external inputs to fabricate dreams, we are perfectly able to weave the most marvelous stories while asleep in silence in a dark room. Our minds spontaneously write and direct the most original plots multiple times every single night.
Dreams, literally, come from the inside, even though this might still be just a convention.
The labor of the artist is to gather this inner imagery and make something out thin air, a novel, a sculpture or paintings, as you can see in this beautiful video about the work of Swiss painter Peter Birkhäuser:
The work of the therapist is to explore this world to find information and hypothesis for the understanding of the psychological suffering of their clients.
For many dreams stay what they are, unsolicited adventures in which we are the protagonist or, at least, the observers.
Dreams are beyond control, they come and go, and they can sweep through our lives or stalk us in the day-to-day existence. Most likely they stay buried deep in us, hiding behind well guarded doors. Moving in the direction of the dream can have disruptive effects on people’s hard earned peace of mind and stability.
Not all dreams come from the inside some dreams have more of a conscious flavor: They live in the culture and are passed on by example and in cultural artifacts.
We get fascinated by those dreams after watching a movie, reading a book or hearing a story from a friend or relative. Some dreams are contagious, and feed on our deepest needs and desires. We can inherit dreams from our family, or borrow them from pop culture.
Society invites us to follow our dream, find our real purpose and passion, make it a job as the only way to be happy and realized.
It is possible that I will finally pick up those drumsticks again and grab a used drum set, or set aside some time to walk the Alps, mountain hut to mountain hut.
I can also simply remember to spend more time outdoor and listen to music and play when it’s possible, with no need to make any of those complicated dream come true.
And even if it’s of course pleasurable to chase sunsets, discovering distant shores and meeting new people, each dream situation has hidden costs and downsides so big that it’s often wise not to follow a dream.
There is no obligation, we can be perfectly fine and live happy and meaningful lives without making one of those daring dreams become the reality. We can find what we are looking for without the need for the show. We can stop fake dreams make our life miserable.
Real dreams won’t disappear, they are there to never be reached or never be understood.
They are there to keep life fluid, possible and sustain growth and learning efforts, to set the North and to surprise us.
One thing is sure. If we open up to dreams things may start to get quirky, so think twice before living the dream.