Symbolism

"Yeah, I went out with him before. I think the expectation was superior to the experience. Even if the sex had been amazing, who cares? I mean sex is nice and all, but I still have to talk to the man later. Besides, physicality only takes you so far in a long-term relationship."

Sometimes we have people and things in our life like this. My friend had seen a hot looking guy that she thought would be amazing, and as she got closer to the person, the facade fell away, and the realization came - dear God, he has no brain.

Harry Chapin said, "It's better sometimes when we don't get to touch our dreams."

Achieving a dream can be very scary. Achieving it without really realizing it may not be so scary, but actually having the knowledge that you are about to achieve a lifelong goal or achievement, or encounter a lifelong idol, can be quite daunting. Because it is only then that you actually have the potential of losing that dream or symbol, of it being corrupted or tarnished.

The people that have been tossed and turned on the sea of love, finding it fleeting and painful, now stand upon their bridges scouting the seas for the unseen dangers that are surely lurking ahead. Some of them have stood upon the ledges of their lives, expecting the happily ever after to be just around the corner, only to later be asking where's the orchestra.

Some have attempted noble professions, arts, music, legal aid, environmental groups, and the like, only to find corruption and their pure image of these icons chipped away. A friend of mine once went to join a leading environmental group. (She was very environmentally active at that point in her life.) Then she learned that 80% of every dollar donated did nothing but feed back into the behemoth organization - to pay for its overhead. This was not what she envisioned.

When we picture our dreams coming true, we never consider it a scary prospect. When we see ourselves finding that special person, it never enters into our calculations that there will also be this absolute terror gripping us as we ponder if we are making a mistake or if it will just fall apart like all the others - because if I lose this one, it's really going to hurt. When we picture meeting our idols, we don't imagine the possibility that they will disappoint or fail to live up to our expectations. We often fail to take into account in our musings the fact that everything that glitters isn't always gold.

The beautiful woman that you spy across the room, is perhaps better left across the room because then she never has to become real. Your leader or icon is perhaps best left at a distance so that you never necessarily have to know if they fail to meet your expectations or receive high marks. The love of your life is perhaps best left unattained, as it will always exist as your muse, as you go off Chasing Amy. However, to maintain such a position isn't really living and isn't really learning, and would sort of obviate one of the basic points of the movie I just used as a metaphor. After all, if you don't talk to the beautiful woman, how will you ever learn that beauty can often be only skin deep. If you always keep the leader on a pedestal, how will you ever understand that they are human - thereby giving you the faith that their achievements are attainable by anyone, including you. If you never love ... well what's the point in the search.

I once saw Wynton Marsalis speak and he explained how life is just tough sometimes. Through life, people and organizations are going to disappoint you, the beautiful things that you spied across the way may not impress upon further inspection, and sometimes we will get hurt. However, if you play through the pain, if you keep pushing and don't lose faith, if you never lose your ideals, and your values, you can persevere. Ideas, values, and thoughts can be pure, but attributing these attributes to any given person is always done at a risk, as they rely upon another living up to an expectation that we have placed upon them. The intangible is much more likely to be able to achieve such an irrational goal.

Some of you may get to this point in the post and think, "Well then I should just never have faith in anyone or anything because they will just disappoint me." However, you will have missed the thrust of what I am trying to convey. People may disappoint you at times, but it is our placing of false expectations that, sometimes, leads to these very disappointments. Allowing one or a few bad people, one or a few bad relationships, one or a few bad anything, to shatter your views and ideals, undercuts the validity and strength of those very views and ideals - they are bigger than one or a few anything. Besides, they can change with time and growth - "physicality only takes you so far" is not likely a statement my friend would have made when she was younger.

"Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!" - Auntie Mame. It is through sucking the marrow out of life, and taking these risks, that we live. Yes, we risk pain and the rocks below should we fail and fall, but a life of pure safety is often empty and boring, and our dreams, values and ideals worth a bit of risk.

(As an aside, I am still recovering from a cold as I write this. So it may or may not be coherent.)