Monday Morning Quote
Quotes
Monday Morning Quotes
Monday Morning Quotes
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Since 1998 I've been sending out these reflections first thing each week--one or more quotes plus my thoughts about the intersections and contradictions. They're archived here back to 2002, and a new one is posted every Monday morning. Dialogue is still welcome . . .
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Quote #991 - #FantasyLost
02 Aug, 2021
FANTASY LOST
"Prospect is often better than possession."
Thomas Fuller
GNOMOLOGIA: ADAGES AND PROVERBS
"Dreaming about being an actress is more exciting than being one."
Marilyn Monroe
"How strange when an illusion dies. It's as though you've lost a child."
Judy Garland
"A team of neuroscientists have explored the neural pathways that move information pertaining to both worlds; one exclusively in our heads, the other extrinsic (with added mental filters, of course). Their findings suggest that the signal flow of information when we imagine things is in exact reverse to the one when we experience the outside world."
Dragos Mitrica
I think in many ways we're happier with the information we create ourselves --the fantasy, the projection--the stuff that flows from parietal lobe to occipital lobe, inside to outside--than we are with information coming in from outside to inside, occipital to parietal.
Which is why hope can be better than reality. It is certainly purer than reality.
You know how you can more easily mourn an opportunity you never had in love or career, home or travels, than the ones you actually got and had, especially for an extended period of time?
Even a gorgeous field of flowers is more complicated if you have to navigate it, or tend it, or pick the flowers and sell them by the side of the road.
So please forgive me if I quote myself today:
"When I was younger, I assumed that people were the happiest when they got what they wanted. It seemed logical, and I think it's what everyone believes. After many years of living, however, I now understand that it's not true. When people get what they want (or what they thought they wanted), they are forced to confront the fact that nothing is in reality the way we fantasize it will be when we long for it.
In actuality, for the most part, people are the happiest when they have hope--when they believe there's a chance they might get what they want in the future. And the time when people have the most hope is when there are possibilities out there, whether those possibilities are mostly fantasy (like a lottery ticket) or fairly grounded in reality (like a batch of submissions in the mail)."
Shellen Lubin
WEATHERING THE LOW FRONTS: THE GIFT OF REJECTION, DEPRESSION, AND POST-SHOW CRASHES
Back Stage Publications 2001
If we could just understand that, perhaps we wouldn't be so disappointed when we don't get what we want. Because getting what we want and not getting what we want both lead to the same place: the imperfect, complex, multi-faceted reality of life, with its plusses and minuses, ups and downs, and continual trade-offs.
And, even better, what a joyful experience we could have in the world if we could learn to love the imperfect, complex, multi-faced reality of life.
Love it as it is, instead of how we wish it were.
Wouldn't that be something.
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