For a long time now I have been pondering the wisdom of pursuing a dream. My dilemma is multifaceted: if I pursue it and fail, what happens next? Is it better to have pursued a dream for it to only shatter or to have it relegated to just a daydream? A mirage of a future that could exist but most likely will not but instead remains intact as an ideal, something to dream about? Moreover, if you do go for it and succeed, what then? What happens to you at an emotional or psychological level when you achieve what you want? How do you cope with the inevitable let down? Is a life full of unfulfilled but potentially possible dreams better than a life full of dreams and goals achieved?
I remember watching an Alain de Botton show on television an eon ago when TV was analogue and in this program he was talking about his love, fascination and idealisation of a particular city. He had puffed this place up to such unimaginable levels of glory and fulfilment that when his plane touched down, he found he could not leave the airport for fear of shattering his illusions about this place. He realised he did not want to really find out what this city was like but preferred instead to retain his mythologised view of it. Part of me thought that was really stupid, to have traveled all that way to only not disembark for the sake of preserving an illusion. But part of me also understood where de Botton was coming from too, to want something to remain a glorious daydream. A city of perfection.
The reality of something sometimes sucks and it’s this breaking of dreams with reality that gives me pause. Right now my dream is perfect and in this world, my world is perfect. It’s an oasis of imagined possibilities. It’s idyllic. But here is the double edged sword, by being so wonderful, it makes me want to pursue it. I want to bring this dream into my reality but doing so will inevitably make it less wonderful because that is reality. Is life a series of life goals you relentlessly chase down and yank out of the ground before moving onto the next one? When do we stop chasing? When do we press the pause button and just stop? Should we stop? I thought I would have so much of this sorted out in my head by now, having been alive for decades but being alive for decades hasn’t helped. I feel no closer to wisdom.
How is wisdom gained? Through the reading of philosophy? Through the living of life? A time consuming combination of both? I don’t know. Nothing has really worked for me. But I still seek wisdom and I hope to leave this world less empty headed than when I went into it. Maybe it’s good to not have these answers, after all, life is a puzzle that we spend most of our lives trying to solve with none of us having any real answers. I guess life to what degree we have control over it, is what we make it. It's a series of choices we make and the consequences of those decisions, both good and bad. This is a very prosaic and boring way to end this post but perhaps reconciling myself to what is boring and prosaic is a form of wisdom itself. Has this brought me closer to solving the dreamer's dilemma? Possibly. It boils down to what I choose to do and accepting all that flows from that choice.
