Someone said recently that we dream only of people we see regularly, and that it shouldn’t be startling when people on social media, particular visual media like You Tube, show up in our dreams. Whether that’s completely accurate or not, I’m not certain. But having awoken from a particularly detailed and lucid dream involving one such media character (who I don’t actually watch, who is about as far from my own political leanings as you can get, but who does feature a lot in the commentary and presentation of figures I do follow) I can attest to the relative validity of the point.
I dreamt I was on a cruise liner from Seattle to Vancouver in the company of a girl I haven’t talked to or seen in many years, who is now married with kids, with a bottle of vodka in a plastic bag (I haven’t drunk alcohol in years either) and with a certain Ben Shapiro in my custody who I was bringing to a UN trial in Vancouver(?!!). During the trip, probably under the influence of vodka and the girl, I took pity on Ben and decided to let him go free. Bizarre.
An interesting feature of this dream was the occasional accompaniment of the scenes with a burst of canned laughter (the laughter you hear on sit-coms). Bizarre, tragic, ridiculous, farcical, wonderful, dreadful, fun, painful, all and more. A dream. And so too this life which goes on according to it’s own principles, about which we can be intellectually certain of very, very little.
Looking objectively for underlying meaning, or even the ghost of anything permanent is like an operation performed in a dream (I’ve had some of those too!). At the very basic and generally uncontroversial level of experience, things appear, develop, transform, then disappear. Breaking down appearances, looking for underlying structure, reveals only more appearances. There are patterns, there are reliable predictions- there is good, beneficial, profound science and knowledge – but the only certainty is constant change and conditional dependency. And indeed, the limits of dualistic thinking in terms of subject/object, freedom/determinacy, unity/diversity, singular/plural, particular/universal, transcendent/immanent, even relative and absolute (in fact, even permanence and impermanence).
What really distinguishes the nature of waking life from dream? I’ve heard many arguments and propositions, with varying degrees of plausibility, but they hinge themselves ultimately by appealing to difference in degrees and not in substance. They also include unjustified assumptions, like the self-sufficiency or absolute validity of objective logic.
Life is – it encompasses – the bizarre, the tragic, the ridiculous, farcical, wonderful, dreadful, fun, painful, all and more. Just like a dream.
Most of us past a certain age (and many before) have encountered the pain of having our trust in others dashed by their apparent unreliability. And many of us are guilty of being unreliable and so hurting others. Many times I’ve invested a lot of genuine hope for, respect for, admiration for, and trust in people only to see them ruin their good work and reputation by descending into hypocrisy, silliness, viciousness and going with popular fads (and trying then unconvincingly to justify this to themselves and others). And I myself have let others down in similar ways.
Vain is the search for perfection. But we should still try always to be better.
There was a film my sister loved when we were younger called “A River Runs Through It” starring Brad Pitt. There’s a scene in it that I always find very moving. The father, a Presbyterian minister, makes a sermon after the death of his son. He talks about how vain it is (and by implication, how immodest) to believe that we can really direct others or presume to steer them, even if we are convinced it is for the best, even if they are close kin.
There are things which we do have immense control over as human beings – the distribution of material resources, the form of government, the system of justice and the practical application of justice – but no human is a god.
Fundamentally we are all equally human, equally transient forms, equally precious and treacherous, understandable and mysterious, reliable and feckless, frustrating, malignant and deserving of love.
I have had an unfortunate habit in my adult life (and I really don’t know where it came from) of using the word ‘love’ rather freely. I seldom have meant it in the romantic sense of the term. But people very often assume that’s what one means when one talks about love and so many people have (unfortunately) gotten the wrong impression. I have to guard against this impulse. But, here I think readers will understand what is meant. Just like in that film scene when the father says that what we can do is to try to love people who let us down (as we might hope others do for us).
Maybe instead of ‘love’ I’ll go for a Buddhist concept. What we can do is just be with others. Be with all things. Not complicated. Not easy. But ultimately about as best as we can do.
I wish you all peace and a very good week.
Wishing you a week full of peace, love and light 🪷