A song to sing? | LOH Community Contest #154

I seem to find myself drawn once again to the latest Ladies of Hive community contest, rather sooner than I would've expected to contribute again. But I read the new questions yesterday, and one of them just keeps scratching at me, I guess.

In my book, this is the sort of question fated to remain unanswered by a good chunk of the population. It's cutesy, it's whimsical, it's got that what-if quality that we so hunger for in our fantasy questions. Maybe that's just it. It's got too much "what if"-ness to be taken for a serious question.

It's a question that grates, and so rather than answer it, I'm trying to figure out why. (As ever, if this needs mentioning, this is a freeflow thought freewrite. It is not an attack on the LOH community, their contests, question material or whatever else. Rather, I find this particular question symbolic of a larger mentality in our society that warrants talking about.)

For one, I don't buy the "big dream" sham. It's reductive.

To start with, not everyone has a big dream. Most of us have an assortment of smaller dreams that typically rearrange themselves throughout our lives in order of their importance at a specific time. But the number of people with a big dream are very few, I think.

On a personal level, what can I say? My big dream is to write. It is my fate to be an author. Maybe. But down the years, that's made me feel bad whenever I wasn't writing, or when I was engaging in other interests, like art or photography. Wasn't that a waste of time, if writing is "my big dream"?

As I get a little older, I find myself more drawn to having a family. I've always had strong maternal instincts, and it's a very important thing in my life to, at some point, become a mother. Wait, is that my big dream now? But what about the writing?

I love travel. I dream of seeing places like Kyoto, or Central America. I guess you could say I love travel more than certain other people in the sense that I resonate with that lifestyle more than people who're content with the occasional holiday. Is travel my big dream? And if not, how big is it exactly?

Surely, we need a scale, a measurement, how else would I know to categorize and award the "big dream" ribbon otherwise?

That's me. But many people won't be able to even pinpoint one big dream, let alone a few more. And if we believe that people should follow the "big one", we make it easy for people without a big dream or who maybe haven't identified their big dream, well, we kinda make 'em feel like failures.

Reminds me of a conversation I had with someone a few years ago, a friend who'd finished college, and he calls me and asked pretty much the same question as the LOH community. I said write. I'd write even if I had money. And if I didn't. And he said "that's just it, it's easy for you, you know what you need to do". And there was such wistfulness in his voice, such sorrow, I remember it clearly. An example of someone very clever, very gifted made to feel like a loser for not having identified his big dream (or maybe not having one).

Our definition of money is, to a large extent, ours.

Goes without saying that money is a necessity in the world we live in. Sadly, you have to provide for yourself, and perhaps for others, before you can even entertain the idea of passions and skills and hobbies. Though I have, in my life, found that a lot of the things people define as necessities, and subsequently slave away at a 9-to-5 for, vary wildly.

If we're to strip down to the bare necessities, we need money for food, for clothes, for a place to live, utilities, transport, and a few others. Yet you'll find a lot of people get lost along the way, and start including other complimentary stuff in their needs for a good life.

Coffee at Starbucks, holidays abroad, expensive moisturizer.... to each his own. And while these small things may make life more pleasurable, they're not necessities. Not really. You could go without them, and maybe find a job that pays less, but also allows you to work less, and thus have more time for that big dream.

Obviously, this isn't true for everyone, but I've met people like that, who will complain about their demanding job, but all the while, indulge it, allow it to rob them of their time.

As a creative person, I try to remind myself of that. I'm actuely aware of the necessity of money, so I always try to phrase my purchases from that perspective.

Sure, I could get a gym membership, but that costs some money. Obviously. Spending a monthly amount on this membership will make my reserves deplete more quickly by X months, or will mean that I need to work more this month, to break even, taking time from my writing, my art, my Hive, whatever. Am I willing to make this trade?

Ownership, to me, is vital and non-negotiable to healthy living.

You can do with your time as you wish. It's implicit in the phrase "your time".

This one also boils down to ownership, and buying into a victim sort of mentality. By ascribing our time to some mysterious, often malevolent third party (e.g. our boss, the system), we also absolve ourselves of any wasted time, unfulfilled potential, dreams, and so on.

This reminds me of another blog I wrote a few months back about chores. Beyond work, which we kinda covered above, our time is taken up a fair bit by "chores". When I'm done writing this, I'll go prepare myself a meal. Some meat, an omelet, nothing fancy, but it will take 20 minutes maybe. Yet I'm not doing it 'cause I have to, as the word "chore" would have you believe.

I'm doing it because it's what I want to do with those 20 minutes of my time. I could get away with much less. I could get a sandwich done and the dishes disposed of in 5 minutes, thus saving fifteen. But I don't want a sandwich. I don't think that's a healthy choice for me, and I don't feel my body would feel as nurtured and replenished after eating, though my immediate hunger would abate.

I cleaned the house yesterday. Didn't have do, but I wanted to, because I like a nice, clean space.

Once again, ownership. And better time management. By complaining our time is not our own and of all the stuff we "have to do", we conveniently sweep under the rug the rest of our spare time which often drains into meaningless scrolling, TV gazing, and other passive, unfulfilling activities.

Finally, your big dream doesn't need to be "to create".

This ties to a pet peeve of mine of art being regarded for so long as a bohemian, sort-of bourgeois luxury. If you have a fanciful big dream, it's gotta be to create something. Why? Maybe your big dream's gardening. Or setting a record for rollerblading. That's not creating, or particularly creative.

By infusing people with this reverence of "creating", we also downplay the many other uses of art. Why should you write, if it's not gonna be the next great American novel? Why paint if you're not Picasso-level?

Because it heals.

Because it feeds something you thought buried.

Because it restores your faith in enjoying yourself that many of us forget once we leave childhood.

Honestly, if I get one big dream right now, it's to heal from all the things that are not mine to carry, all the trauma, and hurt, and words that shouldn't have been spoken. And that takes time and receives considerable opposition, often from the voice inside my own head. Compared to that, rearranging my "chores" or my work assignments so I can find time to write or draw seems like a walk in the park.

What about you? Any big dreams you wanna talk about? :)