Tonight I Murdered My Dream
This evening, at half past nine, I murdered my life’s dream. All alone, here in my home. No one to defend it. No one to hear it scream. I cornered it, I mastered it, I killed it. And I haven’t felt this good in years.
I was only thirteen when the sweet-talking bastard conned its way into my conceited young mind – at an age when I couldn’t possibly have known better. "To be an author is my destiny," I wrote in my journal, on a Thursday in the spring of ‘86. And it’s been with me ever since. For over thirty years, I pledged myself to it, bought into its grand vision, took counsel from it in my most private moments – even permitted it to wear my favorite slippers. It chided my lack of discipline, yet scoffed at my best efforts. I can’t tell you how many times I beat myself up because of its disappointment in me. It lingered like a toxic haze, tainting my life decisions with delusional self-importance, filling me with a debilitating mix of pride and shame, stymying my development with its demands of originality and genius.
Good fucking riddance.
I was a boy when I breathed life into it, and was half-way through adulthood before realizing it had locked my greatest love away. On those rare occasions when it granted us time together – when it permitted me to write for pleasure – it hovered and leered, a judging, meddling chaperone. Want to know how I finally killed it? With a pen – the very instrument of its promise. I opened my journal to the next blank page, and I inscribed this simple sentence: "I am not, will never be, and do not aspire to be a writer." I then added, by way of clarification: "Anything I write, from this moment forward, will not be in any way related to an image of who I could be. When I write, I will do so not to give credence to a dream, or bring my life in line with my self-image. I will do so because I feel like it."
Having thus extinguished my dream of being a writer, I then proceeded to write about it. Because writing is a thing I do. It is not who I am, it is not who I aspire to be. Nor is it who I have failed to become. It is how I bring order to my thoughts, it is a way to give flight to my imagination, and it is how I share. And when the ghost of my dream comes to visit, as I’m sure it will, this piece will serve to remind me: Act fast! Shoo it away!
Once I’d made up my mind, the actual killing was quite straightforward. It was that first part – realizing what needed to be done – that was so hard. It took me nearly half a lifetime. I have hundreds of journal entries, I’m sure, in which I bemoaned my shortcomings, excoriating myself for my lack of progress. All that time, I never realized this engrained habit of self-flagellation had twisted a joyous aspiration into a disabling affliction. To see that the problem was not me, but the dream itself, demanded a radical change of perspective. A eureka moment. Is it not the ultimate defeat, after all, to give up on one’s dream? But that’s just it – it’s not "giving up". It’s recognizing that the dream has become – and always was – an obstruction.
In a healthy, balanced life, a sense of accomplishment comes from multiple sources. But my dream was a greedy, jealous little shit. Had to have it all to himself! Achievement in anything but writing was something to be scoffed at, or – worse – a dangerous diversion from the one true path. How could I count my blessings when I was a failure in the one way that mattered most? My career – the one that has paid my bills these past twenty-five years – has been a constant source of inner conflict. It represented my lack of courage, my willingness to sell out, my fear of putting that prima-donna of a dream above everything else. Every time I extended my commitment to my career, it was framed in an either-or way that interfered with my pursuing both at once.
The dream started with a philosophical conclusion I reached as a boy: that my life’s goal was to contribute beauty to the world. Noble enough. But the problems kicked in when I combined that simple vision with my high esteem for genius and my arrogant belief that I was brilliantly talented. Given that I was special, more gifted than anyone I knew, I just needed to pick which of my talents was greatest. My art would be my gift to the world, and it would bring me both admiration and money. From among the things I judged myself to be good at, I chose writing.
That prescription was a curse. I was like the child forced to take violin lessons. For some, I’ve heard, this actually pays off. But I have a deep aversion to being told what to do. It is, I fear, one of my defining traits. So here I took a thing I enjoyed doing – writing – and I told myself I had to do it. I created this vision of my future self, called it my dream, turned it into a tiger mom, and let it loose on one of the things that gave me the most pleasure in life.
While I was a teenager, building my identity around this dream was pretty harmless. And fun. It was a fantasy I entertained, which made all the hours I spent writing pointless drivel – and sharing it with no one – seem like valuable preparation for the greatness I would someday achieve. Expectations on my writing output at the time were low. I was just a kid. The real test would come later, I told myself. Sure, I was disappointed when The Atlantic Monthly didn’t accept my poems. I had never even seen a copy of the magazine, but I was sure they were missing out on something special.
And when I was encouraged to write for the school paper, my dream gave me a handy rationalization for my declining. Great novelists can’t be distracted with mundane journalism! I didn’t have to admit to myself that I was turned off by the amount of work I saw other students putting into the paper, or that I was afraid of failure, or that I felt like students currently writing for the paper were not "my caliber", or that I was uncomfortable with the journalism teacher’s close-talking, made all the worse by her cigarettes-and-coffee breath. I had a blank check, a bottomless bank account of "no" in the face of opportunities to test my writing ability, improve it when it fell short, and possibly do something useful with it. After all, my talents had been tapped for a higher cause. Tapped by me, admittedly – but that was good enough. I had every confidence in my authority to judge my own worth. Dreams are like that. They’re underwritten by a sense of importance that lifts you high above such inconveniences as doing things you don’t want to do, spending your time helping others here and now, and applying your talents to small projects seemingly unassociated with greatness.
I should clarify. I am not against dreaming big. I am a believer in the power of positive thinking, and of striving to hit challenging goals. I’m against dreams like mine, predicated on a gift, a special genius – dreams that tie your self-worth to being better than others in a realm of accomplishment. Dreams of being accomplished, as opposed to being someone who accomplishes things. Build your identity around virtues, like hard work, sacrifice, generosity, and determination. I dreamt of being a writer, and of having some aura of bohemian elevation because of who I was. I had little vision of how my writing might be of use to anyone. I had a vague, philosophically appealing notion of making the world a more beautiful place, but I had tied that to the belief that I could do this more effectively than others. What’s more, I associated success as a writer with making money; to be a writer, in my mind, required one to make a living by writing.
Dreams like mine take a perfectly nice part of who you are – often comprising your greatest strengths – and turn it into something precious and fragile, something to be cherished and nursed along. Much as divorce is often perceived as a deep failure, and can lead to personal crisis and even suicide, so too with dreams: a dream forever out of reach saps your sense of self-worth, diminishes your life, and leaves you miserably comparing yourself to others who appear to have achieved what you could not. Better to recognize your dream for the enemy it is. Kill it where it lives – up in the clouds – and rebuild your sense of worth here on the ground.
For perhaps six months, after the achievement of my first and to-date only published novel, I felt that I had finally tasted the fruition of my dream. I had written a book, shared it with the world, gone way outside my "comfort zone" to promote it, and was even invited by a magazine editor to contribute a short story, solely on the basis of his liking my book. I was, officially, living my dream. And I found this deeply satisfying. But it wasn’t enough. Dreams of greatness undermine their own successes. How great is great enough? I didn’t sell as many books as I had hoped to. And I didn’t follow it up quickly enough with more writing, and more success.
So, I’ve killed my dream. Is this the end of writing for me?
Not at all. It’s a rebirth. Now, when I write, I will do so for enjoyment, or to inspire, or to raise questions, or simply for that sense of connectedness that comes from sharing a story. Gone is the specter of measuring up. Gone are the comparisons to others. Writing is just something I do, as do many others, and the only comparisons worth making are to my past self – are my skills improving? – and to my current potential – am I pushing myself to write as well as I am able? Am I applying past lessons? Gone is the denigration of my potential, because it’s not measuring up with my vision of superiority. Gone is the self-loathing, the slandering of my art – often before it even comes into being.
Could I relive my life, and poison the roots of any one regret before it flowered, I would revisit my thirteen-year-old self and lay bare the ruinous conceit of my dream to "be a writer".
If you found this helpful, you'd like to thank me, and you enjoy reading science fiction, consider buying my book! More info here.