You're forgetting

by Leviathan , Hotel Zanzibar, Sunday, June 09, 2013, 19:29 (4195 days ago) @ Cody Miller

"People think dreams aren't real just because they aren't made of matter, of particles. Dreams are real. But they are made of viewpoints, of images, of memories and puns and lost hopes." -Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes

Have you ever really been in love? With an actual human being, not with a dream; something you can't control and someone who has thoughts and feelings of her own? Your story could very very interesting, but it's not a story about real love. Your dream girl does what your mind wants / fears, not what she wants. Love is also about the other person. And so this is actually a fairly good example if you use your experience to make some kind of statement about true love or whatever, since that's only your mind's conception (or even its wish) of what love and heartbreak are. The matrix feels real while you're in it. (unless I misunderstand, and you dream of a woman who is or was real whom you really were in love with).

http://youtu.be/0jTuKHKIT4w

If there's one word out there that doesn't have a simple definition, it's love. It doesn't mean the same to everyone, and it can cover a huge range of emotions. If anything is one of your 'matrices' in my brain, it's our definitions and classifications. We let them define and limit our experiences too much instead of enslaving them to try and express them.

That's why I wouldn't wake up and say 'I fell in love with a dream'. No, I'd have to enslave a thousand words, or attempt to bend a novel to my will to try and express that unique love I felt. I'd have to rely on the sentences as well as the spaces between them. And maybe at the end of the day, one or two people might have understood and related, and maybe a few more might have taken some nugget from it and transformed it to benefit their own experiences.

But still, by my own definition of 'love', that emotion I had in this dream felt as valid a love as I have ever felt, so who are you to say it didn't? How could you ever get inside my heart, dissect it and prove you're right?

Even in real life, people kiss, but is the kiss real? Or is it a rehearsal of what you saw on TV or used to do in the past? At least then the girl is real even if the kiss isn't.

I've been saying it doesn't matter. If this 'fake' kiss is happening, it's as real as anything to me, it was just inspired from something different then what you think it ought to be. I sure as hell can't tell what act or thought of mine is original and what is borrowed, I don't see how anyone else could. 'Real' is just another word - a word we created to described a certain kind of experience. And I don't really care to waste my time anymore on drawing lines in the sand to say what meets some philosopher's criteria or doesn't.

Whether I'm a fish in a river or plugged into a simulation, it doesn't matter to me the arbitrary 'validity' that some other perspective applied to it - what matters is what I do with my experience and how I, subjectively, feel about it. It didn't matter that the girl was just from a dream to me, what matters is that I chose to break her heart. It doesn't matter if the kiss is from TV, what matters is if that the person chose to impart that kiss, felt it was the right thing to do in that situation, and that they were honest in their expression.

It's not about reality - it's about sincerity.

Exactly what I'm talking about. You haven't lived those lives. You've only lived your own. Do you watch COPS and think you've lived the life of a cop? Watch Mad Men and think you know what the 60s were really like? You're in the matrix…

So? I now know what the Mad Men's world is like. I know what Middle Earth is like. Just because they never happened in this life or are not historically accurate doesn't mean I can't experience them in a different way than my usual day to day and gleam something wonderful from them to affect the rest of my life.

I can go run up a hill outside or read about Aragorn running up a hill - one isn't defined as a 'reality' and one as a 'matrix' in my mind, it's just that they're two different things, both able to create meaningful and lasting impacts. I feel no need to place one higher than the other in some sort of hierarchy.

I think what I decide should influence my life, whether it's a real person or a dream, an adventure with friends or an engaging book, is up to me and my convictions, not some mighty critic or judge that goes around deciding what is worthy and 'true'.

(But I also think people can make mistakes and get addicted to things like television and games, running away from other problems, diving into into something that can hold all their attention, and never wanting to return. Sometimes it's intentional, sometimes it's not, and I think a friend that knows you might be able to pick up on the signs that a habit has become unhealthy like that and help you back to where you'd like to be. But it's usually not the quality or type of book that causes such escapism from my experience - it's the person who wants to escape and the shit they've been through. In that mindset, you'll find anything, no matter what's in front of you, be it Twilight or Crime and Punishment, as long as it successfully distracts you. But I think that's kind of a different beast than what you're talking about here.

Though if it is, we should both just shut up and read Breakfast of Champions.)