Now is the time of night when we switch from artificial light to candlelight, when we put our phones (and their endless notifications) away, when we can – if we choose – put down this world and all of our troubles in it, and pick up a dream one, built out of worlds real or imaginary, past or future, realistic or absurd. If we allow ourselves the mental space to let go we can leap across the dark chasm and land precisely where we wish to be, prepared and excited to be unprepared, trusting in ourselves and the world all about us, diving headfirst with a smile, every one of our muscles at ease.

(Sigh.) If only we could.

But we can.

We used to do so on a daily basis, numerous times a day, before he learned how important it is to make money in order to buy stuff in order to have stuff in order to show off to others all the stuff you have in order to feel superior in order to convince ourselves that we have control over our fate in this world and to not be completely terrified every moment of the waking day by the knowledge that we will die, cease to be, the only form that we have known gone, and that everyone we know will do the same. Back before that, before we compared ourselves with every person we meet, or will never meet, or could ever meet, and consequently feel inferior to, we used to dream. We dreamed impossible things, absurd things, things we would be embarrassed by if anyone else found out, beautiful things, infinite things.

Now we know better. Now we know how to never waste time on the intangible, now we know the size of our television set is directly in proportion to our value in this world. Now we know we must never let our technology become outdated, for if we do we ourselves will become outdated.

However, that is forgetting it is the time of night when devices and screens are silent, when the technology before us is the same as hundreds of years before – pen and paper, firelight, quiet. Now, should we choose, we are free to dream again, to open the floodgates of the impossible and the never-could-bes and dance among the shadows with glee, immortal in communion with imagination and the heart of what it is to be human itself – to strip away the machinations of this diseased and dying society to stare at our own mind, naked and happy, ready to invest whatever we choose, whatever we need, able to bring happiness and harmony to ourselves and exactly what we’ve been so convinced can never be.

And, if were lucky, we might bring a sliver of this ease into the bright sun of the morning, the one we rarely let touch her skin, head down, shoulders hunched, eyes darting at digital points, drying out for fear that even one blink could result in missing out. For, as we know, happiness can never come from missing out, if only we knew what it was that we were truly missing. Perhaps now we are ready to begin our story, and allow ourselves dream again.

January 31, 2024