Surfing the Kool Aid and the Problem with Dreams

I love beginnings. Shiny and new and oh-so-enticing, before an edge frays or the varnish peels, beginnings offer the promise of the perfect. And while old can have its own special charm – a well-worn, comforting companion with the battle scars of achievements hard-earned, how often do we really get there? How often do we stick it out and push past all the starts, through the hard and the hurt and finally make it to the other side?

My life is closet packed with dreams that never came and hopes that didn’t happen. Brush aside the cobwebs, blow off the dust, and you’ll find this business here, that career there. A rebrand for a rebrand that never took hold, a world forever 3 simple steps away from success. Potent and seductive, chasing the chase, I inhabit a world of constant beginnings.

But this is the question we have to ask: Are you getting it done? Or are you just surfing the Kool Aid?

We think of disillusionment as a loss. Crestfallen from our once great heights, we hit the skids, as we pick up the pieces and come to terms with a life that ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.

This is a world that loves the Kool Aid. That feeling of endless power and infinite hope that comes at the cusp of the possible right before you step into the soup. It feels so good. Why would you want to ruin it with reality? Sometimes, it’s easier to live in the dream than to live the dream.

But dreams end and reality doesn’t, and if you care to make good on all the promises you make to yourself, you’ve gotta take the dive and plow headlong into the real, because infinity lives in the the belly of the beast.

After all, isn’t disillusionment what we really want?

In the simplest sense, it’s not betrayal or burnout or the end of the road. It’s the moment the air clears and the illusion lifts. But the exact meaning of disillusionment is being free of illusion, so it’s also the moment you can truly see what’s really been in front of your eyes all along, and if at that point, you want the dream and you want the blue pill and you want to go back, the problem isn’t the loss of the dream. It’s that you had the wrong dream to start.

As Steven Pressfield would say, artists do the work. It’s not the hope that fills the void. It’s doing. It’s getting down and dirty, wrapping your hands around your life, and racking your brain each and every step of the way. It’s clarity and making it past the courtship, and keeping at it until the dream is gone, reality is there, and it is better than your dream. Not so much that dreams must die, but that to live, they must become more.

Photography isn’t going to make your problems go away. Business won’t. Neither will a new USB drive with a custom logo, a new website, or the right film filter. In fact, most things create as many problems as they solve. But they’re also an opportunity to do the best thing the world is going to give you. To feel the texture of your life, to engage with your true potential, and to find open doors you never saw. Don’t run away from these things. See how far you can go.

I love the getting and the going, and I love fresh new starts. But you can only hop from hope to hope so many times. You can only go so far on borrowed promises and the illusions we let ourselves believe in the face of the new. At some point, you need to break out, and instead of looking for the next big thing, learn to love the small things along the way. Because as wonderful as beginnings are, nothing beats being in the middle of it all.