The cool breeze flows past my body singing a tune of glee. I sit here in the golden sunshine watching the sea slowly ebb its way down the beach; the gulls whistling their happiness, and the occasional dolphin exhibiting their talents. My time here, this dream of better days is just that—a dream. I bend and twist my thoughts into an imagined world of exaggerated ideals.
The phone at my desk begins ringing, alerting me of where I am, and what I am not doing—where I do not want to be, but am. The ringing of the phone pierced through my minds’ determination to withdraw, and pulled me back to reality—I am at work.
* * *
My fancies, my hopes and my thoughts mean little should I not venture to act on them; not without planning but after appropriate summation of the facts of the objective world. With this I mean that my thoughts amount to nothing if I don’t take that step of turning them into reality. I sit here in my office, observing the clock edge closer to five. I may be attending to my work, but I do not embrace it. I embrace rather what I want to do, and not what I am doing. The harshness of existence requires that we not remain idle for long; otherwise failure and certainly our end will be the consequence.
The nature of dreaming and our very definition of it ascribe an irrational view of possibilities of us and humanity. It is the power of the mind to choose, and ignore the way reality is. But—one thing remains constant no matter how much we think about it: the world is as it is. No matter the ignorance of the mind, we cannot defy reality or make as though something can be altered by will alone.
It is our reconciliation or understanding of the two worlds that are apparent, subjective and objective, but it is always the objective that wins out. We cannot allow ourselves to be foreshadowed with illusory dreams while our life—our being—fades away. We cannot succumb to wishing things out of the earth, drilling for mountains of gold that do not exist. A course of thought based on externalities, one of clear vision, will open larger doors and offer greater fortunes to those who embrace it.
I say look around you—look at the products of our existence—look at the here and now—the environment surrounding you—embrace its cause. The beauty of the world is not to be ignored, and I shall not deter you from dreaming about it, but in wading your way through daily life, you must not ignore the facts. The nature of reality is that with every cause, there is an effect; without causes, without effort—there are no effects. If you do not labour in life, you do not live. If you do not produce, you cease to exist.
To those that scorn man’s expansion, perhaps imagine it without. Should you choose to do so, you imagine your life away. You purge yourself of meaning and extricate reason from reality. Remove the factories, the mills, the roads, the buildings and what is the result? What is the plight of man? Man fades simply because sustenance—action—is determined by the masses to be evil. When man holds his effort to be his greatest value, the expression of his life, he is despised. When he claims ownership over his life and the products of it, he is spat on. Sacrifice on the contrary, is the greatest of virtues according to these destroyers of the mind. They profess that man is not an end in himself. They demand that mankind is the entity of superior need, not the individual men that make it up. One must not live in the interest of himself, but for society.
To those that follow a path of non-effort, they prime the people for self-destruction by looting from the real dreamers, the real men. These real men are the ones that take pride in their work, but pay the price for doing so; no mutual exchanges or acceptance is sought. The majority, deemed by no rational motive to have some form of control, plunder the fruits of these men in order to support the unearned. Under such authority, you become mere automatons—living a life of despotic servitude.
I am a man of principle and conviction. I do not suggest a reliance on mystics or faith; such is a repulsive nature in the unthinking man—to ignore the world around you in order to service extravagant dreams with little grounding. I am a man who believes in reason—this is my principle. The only one I need to endure reality.
* * *
Come five o’clock I begin my escape from the office. I have an old iPod attached to my head playing beats that excite my mind. The sky is just as I had dreamt earlier, a golden sun showering its rays down upon me. The wind is here too. My walk home isn’t an illusion, I’m experiencing it. The cheap rush of here and now pass over me while I pick up the pace. I run up stairs feeling the air draw rapidly in and out of my lungs, and the blood pumping through my body. Scooting through the streets I see life—everything right here in front of my eyes. The people jogging, the trees rustling, the cars moving, the birds flying, these I notice as I slow to catch my breath. Before I approach my home I see constructed houses of varying designs, the old and the new. I think of the labour that went into them. I smell the planted flowers along the hedgerow, the bright yellows and reds catching my interest. At this point, this time in living—now, I am overcome.
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