


Douglas Adams: Forty-two.
Ernest Hemingway: To die. In the rain.
The Sphinx: You tell me.

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I have a cliche dream

January 31, 2008

It’s become a bit of a cliché to have a dream. Who haven’t been asked, “What do you want to be?”. I admire those who can answer such question without further thought. And yet, it bores me utterly. People always answer as if it was work related. They want to become astronauts or writers. Only in fictitious books and movies, the answer might change. Real peoples dreams are depict thoughtlessness and unimaginativeness. They’re small! At least too small for me.
It is all about whether you want a happy life or a life that has meaning. I strive to get both. Ernest Hemingway once said: “Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know”. If meaning equals intelligence, then you’re bound to be unhappy. Nonetheless, meaning is rarely fortunate. I wouldn’t call it a dream. Reaching both happiness and meaning in life. Though it’s my wish to comprehend and answer those questions I find in life. Knowledge gives me a feeling of victory.
But I’m going to end up unhappy anyway. Knowledge and understanding isn’t everything. Besides it’s hard work. Sometimes I wish I was stupid. It’s not easy realizing and living with all the harsh truths in life. It’s impossible to ignore and there’s still something I don’t quite understand yet.
Which is why I hate doing irrelevant things, such as studying stones and writing about them. My teachers call it practise, and it’s really not that hard. I just don’t want to know it. It might seem a little ridiculously, but then you’ve misunderstood me. I don’t want to answer just any question, I want to answer my question, which has no connection to stones.
In mathematics, there’s a very important law. I’d say it’s the most important of them all. It goes like this: 2 + 2 = 4. It’s quite simple and logical, just as irrelevant to me as stones. But in my world, the answer isn’t necessarily 4. Actually it’s 5. I don’t understand why, that’s what I want to know. Stones are stones, but what makes a stone equal to something beyond a stone? might think it’s a denial of science, but I love science. Yet to me, there’s a difference in science. There is ugly and beautiful science. Beautiful science is a result with meaning. 2 + 2 = 4 – and then what? While ugly science is just a result. It’s hard to understand, why two plus two equals five. The process of learning it makes me unhappy, which I am bound to be.