Let’s talk about dreams a little today. We are still in the very beginning of this journey, so this is the very best time to lay down the groundwork for doing things differently, for doing things in our very own way. Because that’s the trick I believe in – A world that is better because we have stopped fussing about false “this is the way”-s and other overrated trivialities, and instead, are going after our own dreams directly, at our own pace, through our own ways. Woah, this is a good start because it demonstrates the very next thing I’m about to say here that justifies the whole need for this ‘writing activity’.
That being me being a confusing kid to many. Often, people don’t understand me, they see my ways as unorganized and rather chaotic, and my message as rather vague. I talk about big dreams and me having the power to create my own reality, and yet, I’m 24 and haven’t achieved anything tangibly. There is no elaborate CV, there is no expansive network of mentors and other geniuses I have swept off their feet throughout the years, even worse, there isn’t even a simple bachelor’s degree because I had managed to anger the teacher who was in the position to decide about my academic fate. And nevertheless, I keep dreaming and talking of optimistic new realities and grand promises as if I would be experiencing something unique which I’m not actually demonstrating.
To be honest, I get it – Without a track record of successive wins it might indeed seem weird that I’m bashing so many things in today’s reality while referring to potential vague solutions to it which even I’m not living or at least seem incapable of coherently introducing. So, what’s the big deal? What’s the point of doing all this?
Personally, I see this moment as something big. If a movie would ever be made of my journey, here I would say “Drumroll please!”. Because the big reveal is here: the trick really is just dreaming, one’s integrity and strength of character to begin (!!! Recognizing very first steps, the idea of beginning something instead of already doing it is an absolute and inescapable prerequisite) the long process of bending the rules and shape of reality. The freedom to indulge in insane visions and daydreams, the childish naivety to believe in anything, from the cute and lame to the craziest of things. That’s where great things start happening, the moment when the “what is” turns into anything it could be. Might sound like mere bullshit but what if there was something more to it?
The other day, back in the summer break, with my mom and brother we wanted to watch the new Downton Abbey movie. It was the very last day of the screenings. The one cinema that was still playing it was not, at first look, to my mother’s liking. We knew nothing about it, and that was almost enough to keep it that way. But I said jokingly that the chance was there that in that cinema a single girl might be selling the tickets and my brother might find her cute and attractive. They could fall in love, one day they might get married, and their future child might solve the never abating issue of world poverty. If such things are at stake here, we really can’t skip the movie because an unknown cinema from a great distance is not to our liking, in truth, merely because we have never been to it. Obviously, we bought the tickets online in advance and never came across any girl my brother could have fallen in love with, but that dream with all the subsequent positive consequences could have turned into reality.
This website is driven by the very same mentality, it pursues the very same thing. Throughout the years I have come across so many people who are very dear to me, but I have never found that one friendly soul I could go after my business ideas with. And then, I created an unfinished website and began writing. You might find the whole idea of this website, or this article specifically, amusing. Others might find it ridiculous or weak. But it’s out there searching, and with it my reach increases, and it might land on the Facebook newsfeed of somebody who is walking the dog of this other kid who does find something in all of this fascinating and takes the courage to reach out to me. For the moment, embarking upon something truly big is just a dream, but something might already be in the making which I couldn’t have risked not kickstarting merely because an unknown cinema from a great distance was not to my liking.
Being all naïve and stupid, maybe a tiny but higgledy-piggledy, is a prerequisite, an essential start to a potentially great journey. Without it, by walking away from dreams and just going with what reality momentarily presents itself to be, we prematurely give up on so many potentially incredible things. By walking away, we relinquish the chance of a “what if” to turn into something great. And we don’t just lose out on amazing things, forego untasted luxuries, a loss we could live with, but we might end up doing the very opposite of amazing and beneficial things.
Putin has walked away from saving lives and promoting prosperity when he decided to scrap diplomacy and instead just go and invade Ukraine. The Republicans have walked away from their own voters when they decided to understate the severity of climate change out of disbelief that their voters could swallow the truth about a harsh reality. Liberals and progressives have walked away from cultural peace when they decided to label latecomers and laggards as homophobes and racists. Racists and homophobes have walked away from the chance of understanding and loving when they grabbed their guns and shot innocent people arbitrarily.
Presenting complicated truths as so simplistic could seem to some as reductionist and potentially misleading, but if you were to think about your own life’s unresolved conflicts, how many times has it happened that a trashy, painful, and overall unsatisfying conclusion was reached because someone had just walked away instead of approaching an idea optimistically, with belief in dreams?
There is so much at stake each time we decide to rationally predict reality. Obviously, without guarantees it’s not surprising that we would like to go with the more certain way even if it doesn’t comply with all of our wishes. But this story unfolding here will not apply this mentality because the idea of slowly and gradually bringing together those people who dare to put faith in their most insane visions and dreams in order to begin the redefining of what reality is and what it could be is too great a dream in itself not to pursue it.
In light of this, there’s one thing I can definitely promise – Stupid things may take place here but everything that is going to happen will have integrity because that’s the way I’m pursuing my very own dreaming instead of just bending to someone else’s reality. And this readiness to throw myself into my own thing regardless of it potentially ending up all weird or lame is this essential prerequisite to something great because without it the world is nothing more than bickering liberals and conservatives, growing pollution and waste, and a bunch of Donald Trumps, Morgan Stanley-s and Putins. So, fasten your seatbelts because this one is after a truly different dream, and while not every piece of the story might immediately be clear, in the end, I promise that all things will amount to something big.
