Dream a little dream

Tediously unpacking carton after carton of my fathers’ belongings, I discovered a dust coated poster of James Dean with the somewhat ostentatious yet hollow quote saying, “Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today.” Ironically enough the ultimate demise of James Dean in a speeding car crash was on par with his philosophy. A latter thought however, was how vastly contradicting the epitome of the human race and its philosophy really is. We have a desperate will to survive come what may, in order to extend our “shortly” granted lifespan. In the same pursuit we wish to live as vicariously as possible, if indeed our estimated lifespan is cut short unexpectedly. Either way humans are trying to reach “God status” by trying desperately to be indestructible or masters’ of their own happiness.

Maybe once the question was: where does this need arise from? The more pressing question now is: will they fulfil this need and find a way to live forever, while being abundantly happy? The answer is a simple: no. While some optimistic folks are trying to remedy this, the scale by which these events take place are far too large for any human to comprehend. It took millions of years of evolution to develop a functioning and moderately happy society in the first place. While humans were the first animals capable of running such intricately complex societies, one must remember that inherently, animals we still are. As long as their remains a paradox between societal progress and personal self-interest, the latter will always come out as the winner. Self- preservation and the will to survive is imbibed in our basic nature from our very first ancestors and will continue to do so for the many generations to come. The main markers of the progress we have made are medicine, science, education, societies, trade, language and technology. The common denominator between all these markers is that it benefits everyone in one aspect or the other. However, the minute progress for one society deters or stalls progress for another, humans will fall back into their animalistic nature and do what they can to prevent that. Thus, we have war, death, poverty and crime.

My convoluted train of thought came back to the realization that James Dean might have been correct. Have an infinite number of dreams, be it rational or irrational. And each day carry forth one of those dreams. Now, the harsh reality is that for many their circumstances don’t allow them to do so, including me. I wish, I wish that every morning I wake I could jet set to a new destination, climb the Himalayas, or become a master pianist. Though a dissatisfactory solution, I realized that a lot of beauty lies at night, when you’re just about to sleep, and the little inkling of imagination that is still awake, envisions scenarios in which those dreams do become reality.