Leaving The Dream, I Was Free

I have just dreamt about writing something. In that writing I was free. I was not thinking about creating content, writing catchy headlines or cutting my paragraphs. I didn’t care if someone was going to read my stuff and clap. I didn’t see a reason for an audience and applause.

In my dream I was simply sitting down and putting one word behind another, without concerning myself what the next sentence should be like. There wasn’t even a specific topic that I was writing about. I was just there, careless and open-minded, ready to channel whatever came upon me.

In the dream I was not forcing myself to keep writing even if I didn’t feel like it — just to keep “honing the craft”. There was no Benjamin Hardy or Gary Vaynerchuk in my dream, who would be telling me from behind their keyboards that I need to be disciplined, and always willing, and always striving towards my goals in order to be worthy. I was writing because I felt like it — but I knew I would stop any time, if only I felt like doing something else.

But I didn’t feel like doing anything else. Writing was the most important thing there was. And I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else, for a very long time.

So I wrote and I wrote, and the words kept leaking out of me, and it seemed that I would just never stop. I didn’t eat and I didn’t drink, just because I didn’t want to lose the flow. I didn’t even check my Facebook updates — a sign that I was truly immersed in what I was doing.

I didn’t notice when I stopped dreaming and began living in the waking reality.

I didn’t notice when I exchanged writing for the freedom of speech and for being, truly being with my family and friends. When did I start going out of the dream and diving deep into the human reality? When did I become concerned with a dog on a pavement, who suffered during waves of heat and started bringing him water? How did it happen exactly, that I figured I wanted to go to China and I left everything behind, put on my walking boots and left?

I lost touch with the reality of time, and apparently I was still hitting my fingers on the keyboard. So it seemed to me, at least. There was a subtle vibration shaking my heart from time to time, in a pleasant way. At the time, I didn’t realize these were subtle orgasms of laughter, making my body shiver because I felt so alive.

I was living the dream. I was being a writer, whatever it meant to me at that time. I was alive.

And so I brought myself to this space and time today, where all the dogs, hot-air balloons and friends and sailing trips blend into one. There is no need to be poetic anymore, because all I can realize is this: I took the only path available that was leading here. I arrived at a destination, yet there are always so many possible new paths to a wanderer.

In those cliché metaphors, I closed my eyes. I will remain this way for a while — for I need to close one chapter in order to open another. I need to remain still in order to start moving again.

And as much as I am attached to living the dream the way it used to be — this just cannot be anymore. The dream has disappeared. I need to live the reality.