Daydreams…
Greeting dear friends & fellow navigators, & welcome to my world this week There is a sentence in the book The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa: “To write is to forget. Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.” Pessoa knew exactly what he was doing. He built this huge cathedral of interior life out of a job as a clerk in Lisbon & never quite stepped outside it.
If you recognize yourself in this, welcome. The inner life is a genuine talent. It is also a place people like me hide. However, there are reflections I have been having this week worth knowing.
The map is not the territory, & you keep eating the map. Alfred Korzybski gave us this phrase in 1933, & it should literally be tattooed on the inside eyelids of every daydreamer. The imagined version of a thing is not the thing. The trip you planned in your head is not the trip.
This is not a flaw exactly, but you must know you are doing it. The mind is a wonderful map & a terrible tour guide. It will hand you a gorgeous document & then act shocked when the roads do not exist.
The passive, repetitive dwelling on negative thoughts, past mistakes, or distressing events without finding a solution or reaching resolution is problematic. Your brain convinces you, going over the same problem for the ninth time is productive. Psychologists say: reflection asks, “what can I learn,” & “why do I feel this way,” & then loops forever without an exit.
If you notice yourself in the exact same spot, you were an hour ago, you are not thinking. You are marinating. Boredom can be good. Something is wrong, grab the phone, fill the silence. But the interesting stuff lives on the other side of this discomfort. There is research suggesting people would rather give themselves electric shocks than sit alone with their thoughts for fifteen minutes.
Do you get what this means? We are so allergic to our own company, pain becomes preferable. The head-dweller has an advantage here if they can flip it: learn to sit in the empty room without reaching for a screen, & you find the room was never empty.
Do the small, ugly thing before the big, beautiful plan. But like always, Aristotle had even this figured out: we become builders by building, harp players by playing the harp. Virtue, skill, a life, all of it accrues through repetition of the unglamorous only. The daydream skips to the ovation. Reality makes you tune the instrument first. Make the bad draft. Send the awkward email.
You must spend something to get anything. The inner life feels safe because it costs nothing. Yes, I wanted to say this for so long. You can love without rejection, achieve without failing, adventure without a scratch. But safety is exactly the problem. Everything real requires a stake.
Brené Brown built a body of work on the idea, vulnerability is not weakness but the birthplace of connection, courage, & creativity. You cannot experience the good without exposure to the bad, because they arrive through the same door. The imagined life is free, & nothing matters comes without a price, & the willingness to pay it is the whole game.
The dream is free. This is precisely what is wrong with it.
Just few observations again dear friends & provide an opinion in my world. Thank you for stopping by. In a world where everyone is constantly scrolling, the fact you stopped to read, left a clap, shared a thought means something genuinely special to me. If my journey encourages you, all is well with my soul. Looking forward to next week; this is Kenn in Paradise, Nelson, with best wishes.
kenn@kennbutler.com
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