fantasies feel less.

We spoke about what it all is. But now that I think back upon it, I don’t believe we ever questioned the term that was used to narrow down the wide-ranging feelings. And is that not strange—suspicious even—how the naming of something, the labeling, attaches you to that one word and what we have decided that word evokes, suggests, means, says. As if we are all so simple minded—as if one word has the ability to determine the enormity of thought and feeling. I don’t believe it does, but still we go along with it because perhaps it eases us—determining a definition helps us make up our mind, and settle within the result of what has been chosen. I’m sure I could make myself clearer if I used examples, but even if that seems tedious to me at the moment. But I will give one: even in writing this, I have so many words to choose from to convey a feeling—to bring me closer to illustrating my intangible thought—and yet, I choose certain words because they are within my mind’s reach and imbedded within my lexicon and therefore I construct an idea that ties itself back to me, but it is not my single idea, nor may it be the one I believe in most. It is simply what I have chosen—what felt most appropriate to the condition I was in. I learned this especially when I was working in documentary classes and taking memoir courses. I saw how I exposed the subject in one very contained and yet, possibly artificial light, just so I could begin somewhere—just so I could begin the act of art. In doing so a perception of the subject was illuminated and so was a perspective of the individual directing the story (myself). But was it all true? In my mind of reason, yes, but it was not always true. In art you focus in on a certain passage way—you pull one thread from the ball of thought—you use one side of sense—one shade of thought—one eye in sight—and you stay true to those qualities, and those determine or perhaps, over determine the reality. I realize I have been doing this for years—I try and perfect it every time I sit down and think the art through—it has become so immediate that my real life (if you will) has become less and less different. I don’t know what came first: the compulsion to concentrate deeply on a certain characteristic in a character I have constructed or my own obsessive compulsiveness that drives me in my own life. I think the latter. I think writing has become my cure—just as I think it has always been the platform where obsessive compulsiveness—or is it neurosis—is accepted. But my life has always been the vantage point that I look out from.

I use to worry that I would not be able to write a novel. I feared conversation. I feared planning. Stories always came in strides to me—I knew only as much as the moment told me. Days moved forth, deadlines came around every week and I held back on the rush to decide the direction of my stories and let my experiences lead me and influence my writing imagination. I got into college for Writing and Publishing, then dropped it—thinking the glamour of the media industry would not only provide me with more money but would be… easier… for me. I didn’t have to feel, I didn’t have to acknowledge myself, my surroundings or my awareness of either. I entered into a new relationship and documented that through photography, but never lifted a pen to breath life into anything. Later I read a quote, “Lovers who truly love, never write down their happiness.” It reassured me but I couldn’t help and wonder if it had been a mistake. Ultimately, this past fall I got back into writing. I stopped watching films—which I felt like I was not really watching but drinking wine and drifting off to—and began filling time with literature and writing. There are so many reasons for it, but one is that it was a dialogue I could escape into when loneliness would otherwise overburden me—and it also gave me a reason to get healthy. When anyone, including myself, read my words they didn’t have to see me physically—they could imagine me—and therefore my body mattered less and I let go of controlling it more and more.

But see, now I have completely digressed because I chose certain words that have delivered me elsewhere than I had intended. What did I intend? What we spoke about and the word we used which our conversation revolved around. The word was fantasy. What is an expectation for an experience but a hope that our imagination has assumed for the future? Hope hope hope hope. I use to always want to name my Manhattan dog that. There is a reality in fantasies though—and the reality is that they are fabricated foresights—we attribute these hopeful scenes for future happenings—and we remind ourselves so much of the wish that they become apart of our memory. We even dream these moments—these scenarios—and we wake feeling as though they had been memories or a result of a memory. And they were because in foreseeing the future, you play out a scene you expect and anticipate will occur and when it does not you feel let down, deprived and unjustified (as though you have been robbed or deceived of what you deserve). But the truth is those moments never did happen—and maybe they were never meant to or never even should have. Sometimes the imagination needs to be cut loose because one builds an idealization—one works towards a future that had never been issued—and one reminds his self only of what he constructed for pleasure. The thing is fantasies do not just end, unless a new one comes one’s way. The fantasy is otherwise not destroyable. I have heard people recommend to others to act aloof—to play if off—but to act a certain way is to be conscious and aware the entire time of the fantasy not being reality—not being the current presence. Therefore, I think this is not useful advice. One may never be satisfied with a fantasy not being fulfilled, but one can be assured that it was never as real as the dreamer wanted it to be and that the dreamer did not even desire it as much as he had romanticized he did. The only advice I can give is to find a peace within oneself—a security that does not involve the exterior environment. It requires a degree of selfishness and a definite degree of comfortableness in oneself. One can live only his own life. Fantasies are fun, but they exist in bubbles that will never be entered and they pop when one tries to penetrate its surface or tries to get too close. I have gotten better about living within and for the moment—and when one is focused on here and not there, fantasies feel less and less.