Reverie Prompt:  pp 88, 93  Create your own reverie in response to Bachelard’s reverie:  “Reveries of idealization develop, not by letting oneself be taken in by memories, but by constantly dreaming the values of being whom one would love.”  Great dreamers dream their double.  Can you create a reverie to demonstrate how and why the passion of your current field study sustains you?  How is your “letter” (e.g., c is for cacao) your magnified double?  (E.g., While tasting Kallari chocolate can you re-member how C might idealize cacao?) “”Tell me whom you create and I shall tell you who you are.'”

We can want and will ourselves to grow and to change, to be making all the right steps towards happiness, success, love and any of the many of the things people seem to be after in life. Unfortunately, dreaming of a future self is not enough. It takes acting upon that dream to see changes and results. This seems like such an obvious statement but I notice how blindly I walk through existence sometimes, expecting things to turn out the way I want them to. Perhaps the most prominent idea that has been settling into my mind during this journey is this: you have to give what you want to get. I believe that being overly comfortable for too long can make this statement seem less true. When you are desperate for the things you want (love, happiness, company, etc.) it becomes so much more crucial to put yourself out there. During this month off I have noticed how we sustain our(dream)selves by sustaining the world and those around us. No love will come to me, no matter how badly I want it, if I don’t show love or compassion to others. There are so many people who want someone to love them but don’t smile at strangers on the street. There are so many people who want to be happy but make others unhappy daily. This prompt, this idea of “constantly dreaming the values of being whom one would love”, makes me think of an experience I had this week as I was standing on the side of the road with my thumb out. I had been waiting for a ride for a while when a man in his car slowed next to me and lowered his window. I expected him to ask me where I was headed to but instead he offered up his middle finger to me, screamed a nice loud “FUCK YOU!!”, and began to drive away. During the last second of our eye contact I smiled and threw him the peace sign with my hand and I am certain that he saw it. That man must have been so full of hurt that he needed some sort of release on someone helpless. I wonder if he wants love (I believe he does) and I wonder if this is how he goes about life, expecting to find it. I felt strangely powerful as I stood there on the side of the road with my peace sign up, his blue convertible running away from the love I want from the world.