illusions and inspirations of dreams

I saw Brazil last week.
Despite the ambience – a university classroom, bottles of beer, friends, the bootleg copy marred by occasional stops and that annoying cursor arrow in the middle of the screen . . . it sucked me in. Damn depressing.
Why? Because my dreams have sustained me for three years. You think I’m kidding? Not! My dreams consistently track a reconciliation process with a certain (no longer quiet so) short person that little evidence in real life supports. Brazil rips the potential belief factor of one’s dreams (“phantoms in the brain”?) to the charade they most probably are. Granted, my dreams contain none of the fantastic images that pepper Sam Lowery’s hallucinations – which also seem to occur during wake as well as sleep. Mine are quite mundane. A conversation, a look, a hug. the frequency and duration of mine vary, months sometimes pass with nothing, then I may have several in a row. Perhaps (probably) these dreams are simply indicative of my own emotional process, hopes and griefs re-ignited by current events.
Meanwhile, a few days ago I watched the youtube video of Paul Potts. One of the professors in my Department sent it around with these comments: “It centers on a humble fellow from Wales named Paul Potts. He recently appeared as a contestant on “Britain’s Got Talent” and, well, I won’t say what happened — watch for yourself. Be sure to check out the judges’ changing reactions while he sings. If you find him inspiring (as I did), you’ll find lots of follow-up videos on YouTube.”
Now – there’s a person who has nurtured a talent for years . . .
Funny, yesterday I had a conversation about my “secret identity”, the one I use on my business cards to play on my own delusions of grandeur and desire to be a superhero (click through to see “the best belated (by two years!) birthday present imaginable. The teasing continued yesterday, “What’s your super/secret power?” The question was quickly retracted, “I don’t want to know!” (If you’re curious, these quotations approach what I think it might be, or – at least – that for which I strive.)
Increasingly, I’ve been watching my brain slide toward . . . insanity? Is that what it is? Such deep convictions, so far removed from what most people seem to believe, or – at least – how most people chose to act. Can we really make a difference? Is change truly possible? How can I believe, so passionately, in “YES!”? It must be the razor-thin edge between real life and fantasy, don’t you think?
I mean, let’s be real. Here we are, caught up in a dialectic world. Never mind that Hegel’s original conception was a method of intellectual interrogation (not a neutral description of “how things are”). Discourses (nasty things) sweep us up such that nothing we say (or write) is unique, merely representative of thousands (if not millions) of similarly, supposedly-independently-conceived notions of sheer brilliance.
Is structure bigger than any/all of us? Quantum physics suggests possibly not, but hell, that shit is dealing with things either too big or too small to matter at the human scale (except, possibly, in consciousness, but who wants to go there?).
Ok, I admit, the movie (Brazil) freaked me out. And I’m seriously just beginning to write my prospectus. How the heck am I going to link the macro with the micro? Has anyone ever defined the meso-social? (Apparently not. A Google search shows the term used as if everyone knows what it means, but really all anyone is sure of is that it is somewhere in-between the microsocial and macrosocial. Does it matter from which direction one begins? From “the top” or from “the bottom”? Is it so obvious that “macro” is the top, and “micro” the bottom?) How does one aim to occupy a liminal space whose position and location can never be exactly fixed?
Frustrated? Who, me? Whatever gave you that idea? Only temporarily stymied.
I hope! Lest all my dreams, waking and non, dematerialize without a trace. :-/

I can be no less than who I am;

I want to be more.

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