In praise of daydreaming

In this moneymaking, high-speed, success-oriented and appearance-is-all ruled world habitually “daydreamer” is a slightly offensive adjective of mockery with which inflexible restless sad workaholics, stiff etiquette and formalism worshippers and taut sentence-spitters pitifully address to the high cultural circles’ outcasts and world-that-counts’ pariahs – in other words and to their bold self confident eyes  a flock  of absentminded and hopelessly quiet losers.

Nonetheless among those who ridiculously cannot realise and accept the limits and conditions of their own personalities, finances and lives and regardless strive to unreasonably divert the course of the events and nonsensically force them into an impossible lusty paradigm – which could be called utopians; or those who wish to follow unworthy highly publicised role models or worse to involve others into their own miserable ineptitude – which we could call visionaries; there are those who wisely lead their lives leaving room to sound and temperate daydreaming: a most commendable practise and meditative exercise – and naturally these are the fortunate ones I am hereby referring to.

Dreaming is unquestionably a fundamental aspect of living: imagination and fantasy create true emotions and indelible feelings. Hopes and expectations, as well as regrets and remorse, widely spread throughout daydreams accompanying the steps of our life. Anyhow woolgathering is neither a unmistakably distinct project of life, nor a well pondered definitive course of action, and it is not even the childish and useless proclaim for an alternative and of course better reality; it is a mere, and consciously distinct, image of reality that exceeds every day’s life and reassesses it under a new – happier and smoother – light.

In truth sometimes this reverie is more dangerously like a vague sense of emptiness and it reveals the confidence, or perhaps the warm hope, one has for being worthy of something better, yet, not knowing what this something actually is – as wonderfully depicted in a few lines by Flaubert:

“ Vaguement je convoitais quelque chose de splendide que je n’aurais su formuler par aucun mot, ni préciser dans ma pensée sous aucune forme, mais dont j’avais néanmoins le désir positif, incessant. ”

More often though this daydreaming fights against the hardships and responsibilities that age and reality usually – and inexorably… – bring along:

“Et puis, sont-ce là des états? Il faut s’établir, avoir une position dans le monde, on s’ennuie à rester oisif, il faut se rendre utile, l’homme est né pour travailler: maximes difficiles à comprendre et qu’on avait soin de souvent lui répéter.”

and this by opposing a marvellously clear and mellow perspective, often unachievable, that – I daresay fortunately – melts within one’s imagination. Flaubert, rather a gloomy personality, reaches wonderful nuances of merriment when daydreaming..:

“Que ne suis-je gondolier à Venise ou conducteur d’une de ces carrioles, qui, dans la belle saison, vous mènent de Nice à Rome! Il y a pourtant des gens qui vivent à Rome, des gens qui y demeurent toujours. Heureux le mendiant de Naples, qui dort au grand soleil, couché sur le rivage, et qui, en fumant son cigare, voit aussi la fumée du Vésuve monter dans le ciel! Je lui envie son lit de galets et les songes qu’il y peut faire; la mer, toujours belle, lui apporte le parfum de ses flots et le murmure lointain qui vient de Caprée. Quelquefois je me figure arriver en Sicile, dans un petit village de pêcheurs, où toutes les barques ont des voiles latines. C’est le matin; là, entre des corbeilles et des filets étendus, une fille du peuple est assise, elle a ses pieds nus, à son corset est un cordon d’or, comme les femmes des colonies grecques ; ses cheveux noirs, séparés en deux tresses, lui tombent jusqu’aux talons, elle se lève, secoue son tablier; elle marche, et sa taille est robuste et souple à la fois, comme celle de la nymphe antique. Si j’étais aimé d’une telle femme! ”

Nonetheless, I wish to remark that daydreaming does not mean censure or forgetfulness of actuality, or worse escape from real life; it is rather a flame in the darkness, a rosy perspective in proximity of a paramount choice or a capital turn of life. Even art – especially poetry – is always inspired and supported by dreams: the artists represents life just the way he/she sees it; without borders, rules and limitations. Even though sometimes this representations of the world might be rather sorrowful and murky the satisfaction of creation gives him/her peace and joy: music enthuses the listener with memories, and evoking affections and relations. Fortunately this is not a mere privilege of great minds, everyone can seek for the spark that can inspire and enrich his/her aspirations and expectations from life. In fact the great emotions that art can instigate are tightly linked to its ability in setting free the reality from the schemes and formats, by expressing it through new and diverse representations.

Human beings should never level themselves to the immediate representation of reality, but they have the right – if not the duty – to transfigure it to the extent that, via this new image of actuality, they can comply, or at least cope, with the dream of the life they mostly cherish for. It is obviously a clear fact that all human activities must consider the existing conditions and requisites and the overall framework they develop within; actually too often mirages get shattered, perspectives fade away, prospect projects weaken down: but even those professionally firmly taken decisions and highly detailed programmed/budgeted doings are based on an implicit fallacious assumption: the absolute existence of solely controllable variables… Yet even pessimism is, to a certain extent, a degenerated representation of reality, which additionally discourages from hard fighting and forecloses any enthusiasm.

Even such a severe author like Dante Alighieri, who most certainly knew enough the world’s crudeness and  its impact on actual life as he had his share of defeats, disappointments and troubles, could not refrain from daydreaming:

“Guido, i’ vorrei che tu e Lapo ed io
Fossimo presi per incantamento,
E messi in un vasel ch’ad ogni vento
Per mare andasse al voler vostro e mio,

Sì che fortuna od altro tempo rio
Non ci potesse dare impedimento,
Anzi, vivendo sempre in un talento,
Di stare insieme crescesse ‘l disio.

E monna Vanna e monna Lagia poi
Con quella ch’è sul numer de le trenta
Con noi ponesse il buono incantatore:

E quivi ragionar sempre d’amore,
E ciascuna di lor fosse contenta,
Sì come i’ credo che saremmo noi.”

[Guido, I wish that Lapo, you and I,
could be by spells conveyed, as it were now,
upon a vessel, with all the winds that blow
across all seas at our good whim to sail.

So that no misfortune nor temper of the sky
could ruin our route with hatred or cruel slip;
but we, respecting our old friendship,
to be companions still should long thereby.

And Lady Joan, and Lady Lagia, then
with she who’s the thirtieth on my rank,
with us should our good wizard set:

sailing and talking always and only of love:
and each of our three ladies would be merry
as we should be, I think, if this were thus.]

Thus surprisingly such an austere writer, who dared to describe in his Divina Commedia an audaciously insightful journey throughout the “Other World” portraying crude punishments, poignant atonements and mystic joy, used to covet a very simple – and rather common I daresay – dream: to sail far and away, boundlessly, on a little vessel with his two best friends and fellow poets Guido Cavalcanti and Lapo Gianni and their  three girlfriends, cherishing the pleasure of infinite hours spent talking about art and love within the smooth waves of the tranquil ocean.

I definitely concur that modern life requires a cold blooded capacity of promptly and correctly analysing people and situations. Nonetheless daydreams accompany life, do not replace it; they do not overflow on actuality, but can smooth it out – thus reducing its severity, intransigence and harshness; and they allow to overcome dire moments by unveiling promising new perceptions of present and future. Therefore consequent joy, sadness, hopes and fears should move along our daily steps following – but absolutely not stopping – the rhythm of our life, which would be otherwise too rational, and also way more droning.

Ultimately daydreaming is both the spring and symptom of a positive attitude towards life, because in each and every moment gives room and way to hints of happiness, flashes of possible satisfactions and anticipations of prospect victories: altogether some softer and milder expectations that may try to counterbalance those foggy, grey and gloomy hours and days that nobody ever lacks of…