American in Paradise

Dreams.

Dreaming, longing, a first freedom to imagine the objects of my desire, and opulence, ostentations, outrageous objects at my finger tips. Lamborghinis, ski chalets, Barbie-like future wives, yachts, dream and glamor-jobs as a designer of clever boxes, even cleverer buildings, of a life in harmony with luxury. I knew nothing, which was everything, a desire dissonant against the reality of all the struggling people around me, who, likely had dreamt too, who, likely had come to a realization somewhere along the path that they had to bed down for the night, to stop pining for each mystery around each subsequent corner.

He thought for a while, then declared, "I'll be a garbage man", for which he was teased incessantly for an age-appropriate amount of time. But what they failed to understand was that he knew that garbage men were paid well, union wages, that they rode around on the bumper of a truck all day, and got to see all of the trash, yes, but also the treasures thoughtlessly discarded each day. And so, he was a young dealer in dreams of treasures panned from the leftovers of careless consumers, not so different from his life today.

Many people have learned what, exactly, to say. I've found though, that what I've learned is perhaps not real, that what I have learned is simply what someone else has learned, or what someone else wants me to know, so that I will believe - in a product, in a belief, a god, a way of life that benefits some, belittles some, bemoans and besmirches my own freedom to choose. I no longer see the point in believing, and so I try to simply be.

Rustic acres, food, clean water, health, fun, simplicity - so simple, that truth is woven effortlessly into this dream... 'woven' is too much effort, the dream is true. Little house on the prairie it is not. It is the ability to go far enough to be a stimulated human, not so far as to be destroyed by it. Everything for which there is no concrete reason falls by the wayside, and feeling the pleasure of being is the quotidian. The dream simply is. It is naked, pure, unafraid.

To judge another's dream is not anyone's place. To judge one's own is a diversion; to live a dream, a futile effort to focus; and to describe a dream, the wrong words seem to come out. The effort to put words to a vision, like the victims of a disaster saying, "it's so... I just don't know what to say...", helps to push the vision a step further from realization. Only by letting go, do these words flow, and often silence speaks more eloquently my thoughts.

Remove loaded logic, expectations, understandings, ethics, truth... by knowing that every word is surrounded by a history of intent, and knowing this may leave you silent, it may leave you clinging to a wall, distrusting the existence of the particles supporting you, it may make you wonder what is in the empty box that you can't see, and what you know is there, that you don't know is there, and that will be your opportunity, as it is mine, to understand your dream.