Friday, May 3, 2013

A dream or a new reality?


Good morning world. I had to start early to get this out.
Last night, in fact, this morning at some time between 4am and 5.30am I had the most amazing dream. The details aren’t important, but it was full of fear and fantasy; a life-and-death situation. Over the years I’ve learnt that (for me at least) the details of the dream aren’t important, the only message to be read in dreams can be found in the over-riding emotion you are left with when it is over.
In this case, when my alarm went off and I realised that my world of chases and drama was over and it was time to get up and go to work, all I wanted to do was go back to sleep to face my fears and fulfill my potential in THAT world. In this world, I was just going to go sit at a desk and answer a phone, while ‘dreaming’ of my life that is to be.
Is that what life is? A boring alternative reality? It reminded me of a quote from one of my favourite movies of all time: Waking Life. “Giacometti was once run down by a car, and he recalled falling into a lucid faint, a sudden exhilaration as he realized that at last, something was happening to him.

That is exactly how I felt upon awakening this morning. Given the chance I would have chosen a life of danger and immanent physical threat, over the usual day-to-day drudgery – just to feel alive. It’s a terrible irony to feel more alive when dreaming than when awake.
But, to move past ‘wishing’ for another life, the concepts in Waking Life show us we can say yes to each moment. That each moment of our lives and our existence are unique and amazing in their own way. Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman (my favourite book) and the movie that followed, Peaceful Warrior also explain this concept beautifully.

On my way to work this morning I didn’t pull out my smart phone and play games, or read a book. I meditated. I felt the breeze on my face at the train station, heard the conversation of strangers on the train, and noticed the play of light on the leaves of the trees. Gorgeous.
Now I don’t need the risk of danger or the thrill of the chase to be happy with life. 
I can just say yes.

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