The Near Distant Future

Life is never how we envisioned it, yet we still continue to dream up scenarios on how we land the date with the supermodel, the promotion at a renowned enterprise or the record deal breakthrough. If it makes your crotch tingle with joy, you will replay these fantasies again and again.

I cannot count the times that I have drifted into my sea of dreams and suddenly wake up to a bitter revelation. In my sweet fantasy I am a success in every single thinkable way. Should I mentally pause, it would look like one of those adverts in fashion or lifestyle magazines, where some guy stands out with his trendy hairdo, six-pack and ripped biceps. Fuck yeah, I could clear my throat in the presence of females and get offers of No-Strings-Attached-Sex, because in my dreams, I'm brimful of perfection.

My dreams revolve around the post-completion of my goals, and while I won't get into further details what those goals are, I will say that they are not unrealistic nor unattainable, just unfulfilled. I always picture how I might be standing looking out of a window reflecting on what I have achieved. I have not aged a day in my fantasies. Is it because I am unrealistic? No. Simply because I have no clue of who I am in the future or what the future might bring. I call those moments “The Near Distant Future”. These moments or concepts are the product of my tireless efforts to finish my objectives and not knowing when the completion will take place. To me there are only the epochs of “now” and “then”.

There are no sequences of how I will attain what at times seems impossible. No sequences depicted like Rocky Balboa's training session before the big fight. Lots of running, skipping, running up the stairs and jumping up and down like a crazed moron with violins playing a familiar tune in the background. There is no mental cinematography that can even closely describe the emotion and reality of the true endeavour to fulfill the dream or goal.

Regardless if the then-epoch will arrive or not won't keep us from drifting away those moments before you fall asleep at night, or during the dull lesson at school. We want to find ourselves trapped within the frames of the perfect picture in that magazine. We want to live that seemingly inanimate paper world. Sometimes I wonder if I focus too much on that perfection. That I live too much in my own mental silver screen and forget that even if or when I complete my goals, perfection will always be out of reach. I suppose that I am like my own bullshit salesman. Always out to sell myself the perfect future wrapped in a heart-shaped box with a fancy little greeting card that says:

“Ambition and dreams are the source of motivation and the excuse for everlasting unhappiness.”