A Thought Adrift…

A Simple Search

So I was at work about 9am the other morning and the work phone rings. I can tell from the ring tone that it’s an external call. I pick up and some guy says “Hey, my name is <something something>” (I didn’t catch his name) “I read your article about Peugeot 306 cabriolet hoses on athoughtadrift.com. What diameter are the hoses you use in that article?”

More than a little taken aback I say “it’s called speed flow, and I think there is only one size……. how the hell did you get this number?”

“It was pretty easy” he says, “You mention that you work with Radars on your “about” page. You also mention the suburb where you work in one of your blog posts. A quick search for Radars in that suburb brings up your company name, I ring the front desk and ask for a Simon Gemmell and they put me through”.

Goddamn. It was THAT easy? Two little facts like that? I work with Radars and the suburb I work in? He could have emailed me, but I bet it was harder to work out what my email address was than track me down and call me!

The guy wasn’t a psycho or anything, he seemed quite reasonable and he gave me a tip for fixing the windows if they ever break, but it certainly was a shock. I suppose somebody who finds my wallet on the street will probably have more information on me, but it’s just the ease of tracking me down that scares me. I will be careful about what I post (and have in fact edited some details in previous posts).

Goals, Dreams, Needs and Lucid Dreams

I think there is a an important distinction between a goal and a dream. A goal has some achievable outcome and a deadline. A dream is something less substantial and it’s something you will probably never actualise. As I said in my previous post, setting too many goals can be dangerous to your general well being because you end up chasing your goals. But you can’t really chase a dream, it’s always so much further away than a goal, and it’s so hard to grasp what you actually want from it so I don’t think it’s such a problem. I get a warm fuzzy feeling when dreaming, but I don’t get the same nice feeling when I think about my upcoming goal. I think having dreams is important, because dreams give hope. And hope is essential to feel human. Or maybe I should say something quotable like “to be human is to hope”?

I think my darkest moments have been filled with a distinct feeling of complete hopelessness, which correlated highly with a complete lack of will to live. Not as in “I want to die”, but “live” as in to get up, move around, do something proactive, achieve etc etc.

I’m no great thinker, here are some quotes from some people more eloquent than I (source):

• To eat bread without hope is still slowly to starve to death. (Pearl S. Buck)
• He who has never hoped can never despair. (George Bernard Shaw)
• Hope is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torments of man. (Friedrich Nietzsche)
• A sobering thought: what if, at this very moment, I am living up to my full potential? (Jane Wagner)

Anyway, my original intention with this post was to bring to your attention the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs, and discuss whether it relates at all to the general well being of the person. See I think you can reach the top of the pyramid, self actualisation, and still be terribly unhappy. In fact, I don’t think it addresses well being at all. What DOES it address? Anyway, those down the bottom have some simple needs, and I’d say they have a lot of hope. I’m not saying the beggar is happier than the aristocrat, but those at the top may have everything except hope, and hence feel completely lifeless, where as the beggar feels hungry but alive. Hope is necessary but not sufficient for happiness.

The other thing I wanted to bring your attention to was this really interesting article on lucid dreams. This ties in with both the “dream” theme of this post (although it relates to sleep dreams as opposed to life dreams) and the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs. Basically it says that you can have some level of control your dreams and actually use them as a tool. The lucid dreams FAQ briefly mentioned being able to use it to achieve “self actualisation”. Certainly an interesting article anyway and it related to what I was thinking about at the time.

Since the FAQ said there is not harm in attempting to enter into lucid dreams, I’m going to try it out. Getting the “rush” of knowing I’m in a dream sounds like fun to me. I’ll let you know how I go. Then you can brand me as a new age hippy and be done with me. I’m not a hippy, I’ve just got an open mind (maaan).