When you listen to people talk about their dreams, you see one of two things:
There are the bright eyed ones who you just know, I mean know, will do it. They share their plans not for validation, or approval, but out of sheer bursting desire to talk about this excellent thing they have built inside themselves, this thing that powers them forward, that leads them into often uncertain but necessary paths. They talk about what they have done, what they are doing, what they will do. They’ve put their bodies into it. It’s taken things out of them. They still go on in pursuit.
The physical presence of their commitment is so much that, as they talk of their next move, you almost feel as though it were a partner, a flesh and blood person taking real shape next to them, nodding and murmuring along in agreement. It’s a unity of purpose.
It feels real, a tangible form of happiness they pass to you and share; you can clasp it to yourself and admire it before handing it back to them and saying good luck, you’ll be great.
The other side is the storyteller, or the salesman- this is the territory of the tentative, a squinty maybe, a hazy “Wouldn’t it be cool if…?”. It’s a well told tale, a compelling pitch, but it’s cold. There’s no blood in it from the struggle of the doing; nothing has been taken out of them because they haven’t given anything yet. The yet hangs forever in the future like a promise to keep kicking down the road. You get the feeling the story of these dreams has been said a lot, the way it rolls off the tongue. The pitch is so well crafted, it’s polished from all the saying. And that’s the problem.
It’s been said a lot. Mentioned, referenced, brought up, discussed, talked, talked, talked- but in the end, talking isn’t doing.
The practiced art of the detached sketch of the story of the idea of the edge of the hope, all of this safe refracting distance built across so many conversations and so little actions, that’s the tell- it’s never, ever going to happen. But it’s a beautiful story, and a terrible distraction.
They will be telling that story, that future “someday I will…” potential plan until they get too old to do it. And then they will never tell that story again, because they will be too filled with regret to be able to talk about the time when they were young and free and healthy, and had This Thing they Wanted to Do, but they never did it. So it wasn’t done. And it never would be.
You and I and they can make these stories real, but that’s the point- you have to make them real. You have to eventually stop the talk and do the thing. That’s the jump, and it’s where most people, absolutely myself included, stay standing on the shore, content to tell the story, to trot it out as small talk introductory fodder at parties, or with friends when 2 a.m. mornings make people ache to talk, talk, talk, never do, about dreams.
Sometimes it’s used as an imaginary fallback to grasp for a false security of eventual fulfilment. Sometimes it’s wielded in impotent anger, an empty threat to shout into the wind when things get almost hard enough to motivate them to finally do it, but not quite hard enough, so they don’t. Just like they never do.
It’s not doing them any favors. It’s never done me any favors. It’s a lie you tell yourself about some future shining day when This Thing you want to do will be, somehow, without any effort or blood or pain or sacrifice, magically Done. But why do you even want it, and will you ever even do it, if all that happens is the repetition of words passed back and forth to distract from the truth of your inaction? I am asking myself the same questions, trust me. My own frustration with some of my choices is at the base of this. We all do it. We’re all frustrating in this way- it’s not unique.
I’ve realized that I have to unilaterally, unabashedly, and without regret give up on what I’m not going to do. If I was going to do it, I would, and if I’m not, the daydreaming is a poor substitute for being awake and clear eyed about what’s actually happening. I’m not going to waste my time stroking a story of a dream that will never be real. Life is short and the world is large. There are things I wanted to do that I haven’t done yet and now I won’t be able to do them and that should be the end of it.
Oh well. I can’t do them, but I can do something else. As long as I am actually doing something, I’ll be fine. My God, but regret is heavy. I can put it down. I don’t have to make a mistake twice.
I don’t need to tell ghost stories about dead things- it’s not going to happen. Let it go.
I’m writing to you at the end of winter vacation, back in Bangkok where I started, getting ready to take the familiar night train back to Vientiane. This trip, maybe more than any other so far since I moved to Laos, changed me. I can’t say why: it wasn’t terribly earth shattering culturally; I didn’t go far; I’ve backpacked far longer in far more remote places; Thailand is a familiar neighbor and feels like a second home after Laos at this point. But something about this time in Thailand shook me up. I’ve been complacent here in Laos. It’s been good for me, but I feel it in my bones, in every bit of me, that it is time to roll on down the track. Security, stability, contentment- I have that here. But I’ve grown dependent on it to the detriment of other aspects of my life, and myself.
I gave a lot of advice on this trip, during late nights and early mornings and long discussions over gorgeous meals in Bangkok and random train station kiosk coffees and shared taxi rides before abrupt goodbyes. All of that advice, every bit of it, it boomeranged right back to me and hit me in the chest with an accusatory “And what about YOU?” It’s hard truth and it’s undeniable.
I’ve checked out a bit the last two years, licking wounds and swimming in grief and doubting what I was doing. Life was harder than I thought my life would ever be, so I took easier paths than I ever would have before. I fucked up easy things. I neglected important things. I made bad decisions and terrible mistakes. I was a messy, chaotic person and that made me hard for other people. Some of them left. I don’t blame them. It was all necessary and I own it all without shame.
I went through it; I came out the other side with pieces missing, with things in my possession I didn’t want. I’m sifting through that now, and it’s a long job. I’m thankful to all the people I’ve met along the way who laid the groundwork to get me to these realizations- the ones who stayed, and the ones who left. They all did what they had to do, and helped how they could.
I don’t know exactly what I want to do next, but I know what I don’t want to be doing, and that’s as good as the former being certain. I am ready for whatever happens next. I am okay not knowing what that is. I’d rather say I don’t know than tell a sweet story that will never be real.
I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.
There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.
Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, 3
Originally published January 5th, 2015 on Blogger. I’m sure 2020 gave all of us pause to consider the things we wish we had done, the things we wanted to do, and the things we hoped for. But I hope it also made us reflect on what we need to stop wasting time on as well- even if that means giving up on something we’ve thought we wanted for a long time. Maybe we just liked wanting it, if we haven’t done it yet. I write this to you at the beginning of 2021. Be sure not to talk of the endings of 2020 and the beginnings of 2021 too much. Do something now.
