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Vacation Backentry Three
Dorothy opened her eyes to find herself safe in her bed in Kansas under the relieved watch of her friends Hunk, Zeke, and Hickory. "I had the strangest dream," she said, "and you were there, and you were there, and you. . ."
There are almost as many theories about dreams as there are people who dream them. Some believe they predict the future; others, that they are unfinished business from the past. They might be messages from the collective unconscious. They might be totally random nerual hiccoughs. Psychologist/philosopher Carl Jung theorised that any person who appeared in a dream was merely a manifestation of the dreamer; if your money-driven uncle nightly inhabits your head, perhaps you are concerned about your own finances.
I like Carl Jung for the same reason I like to profile movies: I am fascinated by archetypes. I also went through the required middle-school phase when everyone asks "what if you're all just figments of my imagination?" With me it just stuck a little differently: "what if I'm only friends with you in order to know me?"
The obvious corrolary is that if your friends are your imagination, or even just your choice, you are responsible for them as well as to them. Perhaps the reason you phase out old friends when you find new ones is that they fill the same niches - some more completely than others. Maybe the reason you hold on to the old ones is that they represent who you were. Maybe the reason you stick with your bossy, domineering friend who you don't really like that much is because of the part of you that's still bossy and domineering.
It goes further: if you don't like a friend of a friend, should you worry about the integrity of the friend? If you have a small friend group, does it indicate a lack of internal complexity, or do you assume that the members are more individually complicated? If you're suddenly less interested in someone, does it make you more shallow or show you've resolved an internal issue?
I mention all this because I'm in love with Ciro in an obsessive I-am-more-interested-in-what-he-has-to-say-than-anyone-else way. I walk around the house talking about how cool he is. If I know he's going to be someplace, I go there. A common new part of my vernacular is "if Ciro were here, he'd get it."
This level of near hero worship is not particularly unusual for me. One can recall, for example, my months-long romance with Chad, during which most of my entries referenced him. Worthy of note is what Chad represented: new independence from college and parents, love for the unattainable, and the willingness to starve for the art of writing. Ciro represents something entirely different: brilliance, passion; frustration with systems, politics, stress, exhaustion, writer's block. Sleeping in somebody's living room. Searching for something neccessary but indefinable. Searching for a sense of place.
Ciro's leaving for Italy or California. I'm not sure what that means.
There are almost as many theories about dreams as there are people who dream them. Some believe they predict the future; others, that they are unfinished business from the past. They might be messages from the collective unconscious. They might be totally random nerual hiccoughs. Psychologist/philosopher Carl Jung theorised that any person who appeared in a dream was merely a manifestation of the dreamer; if your money-driven uncle nightly inhabits your head, perhaps you are concerned about your own finances.
I like Carl Jung for the same reason I like to profile movies: I am fascinated by archetypes. I also went through the required middle-school phase when everyone asks "what if you're all just figments of my imagination?" With me it just stuck a little differently: "what if I'm only friends with you in order to know me?"
The obvious corrolary is that if your friends are your imagination, or even just your choice, you are responsible for them as well as to them. Perhaps the reason you phase out old friends when you find new ones is that they fill the same niches - some more completely than others. Maybe the reason you hold on to the old ones is that they represent who you were. Maybe the reason you stick with your bossy, domineering friend who you don't really like that much is because of the part of you that's still bossy and domineering.
It goes further: if you don't like a friend of a friend, should you worry about the integrity of the friend? If you have a small friend group, does it indicate a lack of internal complexity, or do you assume that the members are more individually complicated? If you're suddenly less interested in someone, does it make you more shallow or show you've resolved an internal issue?
I mention all this because I'm in love with Ciro in an obsessive I-am-more-interested-in-what-he-has-to-say-than-anyone-else way. I walk around the house talking about how cool he is. If I know he's going to be someplace, I go there. A common new part of my vernacular is "if Ciro were here, he'd get it."
This level of near hero worship is not particularly unusual for me. One can recall, for example, my months-long romance with Chad, during which most of my entries referenced him. Worthy of note is what Chad represented: new independence from college and parents, love for the unattainable, and the willingness to starve for the art of writing. Ciro represents something entirely different: brilliance, passion; frustration with systems, politics, stress, exhaustion, writer's block. Sleeping in somebody's living room. Searching for something neccessary but indefinable. Searching for a sense of place.
Ciro's leaving for Italy or California. I'm not sure what that means.