Goal of the day: 487 words. Written: 487.
There are those who say that only those who work their hearts out win on our earth. Those who overcome the urge to be lazy and to get by, and do their mission perfectly.
Under our Sun (a star, by the way, not a girl), there are many who say all sorts of things.
I am one of those who say otherwise.
If impressive achievements are really so demanding of the last 10-20%, why do we have such terrible nightmares? Why do we wake up after, well, wet dreams, and why do we remember even our childhood dreams to this day?
No, sorry, I don't have the energy tonight to add to the longest litany of the effects of sleep on our bodies and yet...
...Just ask yourself if the dreams you remember most (and I'm sure you can recall at least one) were complete?
- If they were human, could they boast ideal plotting skills?
- What about imagination - are the places and situations depicted logical?
- And anyway, what was the dream - too short, too long or just right?
My dad is one of those people who hardly dreams. I must have inherited that from him, because I don't remember many dreams.
But I remember a few.
A big black spider.
I am drowning.
I am running, but I am running in place.
I get bigger and take over the whole room, and when I do, I explode.
Under my feet, I crushed many small turtles like the one I am raising.
I am a brick in the wall and I see an empty room.
And none of them were ideal. None of these nightmares or...
She climbs on top of me and we make love.
Her breasts are moonlit.
She meets me on Liberty Avenue and we hug.
We travel to China and settle in the Himalayas.
She laughs at my joke.
...The other dreams were not complete.
But it had an impact. It hit with force. It invaded my memory and affected me. Mentally.
Your work doesn't have to be perfect. They just have to be characterised by the things that matter most - the fears that genuinely scare you, the fantasies you've never experienced but want to experience so badly.
If you create like you dream, you'll have to work less, and your creativity will be genuinely open. Tava.
Rarely dreaming,
Daniel
P.S. Keep a dream diary.
Your dreams, your incomplete but truly perfect creations, are not just the glimmer of a moment on a sunny summer day. Well, can they really be. If you deliberately forget your sincere creations and write them off under the label "I didn't work hard enough on this idea".
If I were you, if I were allowed to get into your stocking, I would collect, write down and catalogue the ideas. Here, take a look around. Why are you reading this blog? What is in it? Well?
Yes - it's my work. My attempts to simply talk to you - as honestly as I can so far. My work is not ideal because, let's face it, sometimes we don't get along. But I try.
I tried. Then I saved the attempt. Following Autin Kleon's book "Show Your Work" - not just saving it, but saving it publicly so you can read, comment, criticise.
I Catholicise my dreams in this way... Eee, sorry, I don't know how to spell that word. In a word, I keep my dreams here.
Why?
So that I can come back after a while and learn from my ideas. So that I can go back and look at my dreams and find new ideas.
So - you can always write down your dreams when you have them.
They say it's useful.
Well, I say so - so yes, there is someone who says so.
Hey, shall we try it together?