I had a dream. Not that kind of dream. The kind you have when you’re asleep. Actually I’ve had lots of dreams. Not sure why, but it just seems to be one of the things that I do. I suppose lots of people dream but, and this is just something I’ve been told, not everyone remembers their dreams. As a matter of fact, apparently some people never remember their dreams. But I do. And for those of you who do too, I’m guessing that like me, every once in a while you sit through a rerun. I believe they (and by “they” I mean those who spend their time studying this particular phenomenon) call this a “recurring dream”. And the funny thing is, these recurring dreams seem to recur not only in one mind but in many minds. Perhaps it’s that “collective consciousness” thing Dr. Jung goes on about, but for whatever the reason, whenever the topic of recurring dreams comes up in conversation, (and come up it does) dimes to dollars more than one person in the crowd has had the same one.
Like the exam dream. The one where you show up to the final exam and realize, at this most inopportune time, that not only have you not prepared yourself adequately for the challenge but you failed to attend any of the classes on which you are being tested. Not even a one. To make matters worse, you didn’t even bring a pen. Or the travel dream. The one where you fly, drive, take the train or bus to some place far from home only to discover that you forgot to pack your bags and there you are in the middle of some strange city or town with nothing but the clothes on your back. If you’re lucky you find out that you brought your credit card, which helps to mitigate the predicament you’re in but, nonetheless there is that initial feeling of, what shall I call it, helplessness that overcomes you. Kind of like when you forgot to study for the exam. Now I don’t profess to have an explanation for these dreams but I’m sure they have some sort of purpose, some lesson to be learned. Fortunately, and for the most part, these are not the kind of dreams that come true although I suppose in some cases they could.
Then there’s what I like to call, the box dream. You’re smack dab in the middle of a big move. As a matter of fact, the moving van is parked right outside your house, the burly guys (or gals) making their way up the front step. The house is full of boxes but, and this occurs simultaneously with the first knock on the door, much to your chagrin you notice they are all empty. None of your stuff is actually in the boxes and they’re here, right now, to take them away. There’s nothing left to do but panic. Suffice to say, that’s the dream I had last night. Now despite the reference above, I’m no Jungian scholar but I’m not sure it takes one to interpret this dream for me. Because, you see, right now I should be packing. The whole house. All 30 years of it. Putting each and every little thing that I want to keep into one of the many boxes that have been strategically scattered throughout the house. And what am I doing? Obviously, I’m writing the blog.
It’s not like I have a made a commitment to post to this blog on a regular basis. Au contraire. Of late my posts have been rather sporadic and that’s ok with me because I always said I would write when I had something to say. And let’s face it. There’s only so much you can write about being shallow and I’ve been doing this now for three years and then some, so a slow down of sorts is to be expected. But today of all days, with the big move looming and the house in the kind of disarray that belies the fact that nothing constructive is actually happening, I decided this, of all times, was the best time to sit down, yes in my chair, to write the blog. Mostly because right now, it appears to be the best justification I can come up with for my procrastination.
I’m sure you realize this by now but, just in case, as a shallow person I don’t spend a great deal of time thinking about shallow people as a “collective” or about the possibility that we have a shared set of characteristics. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I don’t know any other shallow people. It’s just that, even though I now have 83 followers, or as I prefer to put it “just under a hundred”, not one of them has actually approached me to say, “Hi. I’m a shallow person just like you”. And I hate to be presumptuous. But I’m thinking that if they did, one of the things we would discover during our likely brief encounter is that, just like those shared dreams, we too would have some things in common. And more than likely, one of the things we would have in common would be our propensity to procrastinate. No psychological theories here to fall back on. It’s just a feeling I have and now I’ve said it out loud. Shallow people, on the whole and based primarily on my own experience, have a tendency to procrastinate. Which right now, in my case, is rather problematic because you see, while many people live their lives hoping and striving for their dreams to come true, I am a tad worried that the one I had last night just might. And at this stage of the game (as my Mother likes to say), that would not be a very good thing.
You’ve heard it before. You’re sitting around, chit chatting with a bunch of friends and before you know it the conversation turns to ghosts. Someone in the group has a story to tell about how their front door mysteriously opens and closes, once a year, at the exact same time as, coincidently, the previous owner “bit the dust”, as people are wont to say. Then there’s the guy who swears up and down that every morning when he comes down for breakfast he discovers that the front burner on the stove is on and there’s a faint smell of burnt toast lingering in the air, and he never eats toast so there has to be ghost in the house. And a hungry one, at that. This conversation continues on for some time, because who doesn’t have a story to tell about a ghost? But sure as the sun rises every morning, you know there’s gonna be one voice in the crowd, one Doubting Thomas who, before too long will emphatically declare “there’s no such thing as ghosts”. And while, in this particular case it’s entirely possible that the validity of this statement is open to debate, especially given all of the evidence you’ve just been privy to, I do believe there are circumstances when those who are so bold as to proclaim “there’s no such thing as” (and you can fill in the blank here) are, and I say this with the utmost respect, entirely wrong. Let me give you an example.
Things happen. Some good, some not so good. But just like the inevitability of death and taxes, every morning when you wake up you gotta know that sometime, somehow during that day, something is going to happen. It may not be something spectacular, or important, remarkable or even memorable. Truth be told, it might be something rather mundane. But come hell or high water, you can bet your bottom dollar that something, anything really, is going to happen during your day. As a shallow person I do my best not to dwell on most things that happen, particularly the “not so good” things. As a matter of fact, this past week I had one of “those” things happen and while I have been known to rant, on occasion complain and more than every once in a while worry, the one thing I tend not to do is whine. Which is why I will refrain from going into the details of that “thing that happened” here. What I will tell you is that it got me thinking. Mostly about the nature of “things” that happen. And here’s what I’ve come up with.
As a shallow person I’ve never been one to turn a blind eye to a cliche. Let’s face it. Trite sayings can be useful on all kinds of levels. Like when you’re walking down the hall at work and you inadvertently make eye contact with someone you tangentially know, and at the most inopportune time, perhaps when your mind is wrapped around whether to have soup or a sandwich for lunch, and the only thing you can come up with in the moment your paths cross is, “Hi, have a good day!” Well, that’s not so bad. I mean, who doesn’t want to “have a good day”? Certainly there’s nothing wrong with letting someone know you hope they do. And it’s miles ahead of trying to pull up something slightly more meaningful on the spur of the moment which, more than likely, will result in some sort of unintelligible garble spewing from your otherwise preoccupied mind, making neither you or them feel any better. Isn’t it easier just to make someone smile and go away a tiny bit happier?
I strongly dislike nail polish. It’s not the colours, or the smell or even the fact that using a toothpick to painstakingly paint little pictures of stars, flowers or hearts on 10 teeny, tiny canvases seems like a rather frivolous waste of time. Nope, it’s not any of those things. The reason I strongly dislike nail polish is because, strange as this may sound, I’m a little claustrophobic and when I put polish on my nails my fingers can’t breathe. That’s right. For some reason, which I suspect will forever remain unknown, nail polish does that to me. So I do what any reasonable and clear thinking human would do. I don’t wear any, ever. Which is why you will probably be surprised when I tell you that I am, right now, attempting to remove some glossy, red paint off of my thumb nail. All this because, if I can put it this way, curiosity appears to have killed the cat. But here’s why.
