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The Paradox of Dreams

There is a puzzling quotation that opens Herman Hesse's early novel,

Demian:

I wanted only to live in accordwith the promptings of my true self.Why was that so very difficult?

This weekend I met with my mentor, Alane Rollings, in Chicago. Alaneis a Southern woman with kindness in her eyes. She has a baby dollface framed by dark curly hair and she carries herself with extremefragility; but inside is a powerhouse of strength and love. She has beenmentoring me in fiction and poetry for ten years now.

One summer after my second year of college I sat in Alane's creativewriting workshop surrounded by high school kids who admired me formy passion and intensity. A couple years older than these students, Ihad already begun treating myself as if I were destined to write fiction,as if nothing in the world could change this basic truth.

Alane also seemed to treat me differently. She enthusiastically pointedout the attention I gave to detail in my short, fantastical pieces. Therewas a feeling of specialness, a halo of uniqueness, hovering over me inher classroom, and although I appeared confident in my abilities, I

needed Alane to prove to myself that my quest to become a writer wasnot an elusive dream.

At the end of the short summer term, Alane wrote on the back of myfinal assignment--a ten-page short story--that she'd be willing to readanother 50-100 pages of the same story. I read those words and myheart sank. Before leaving the classroom, she reassured me that shemeant it. My dream could become a reality if I wanted it badly enough.

What happened after that is a long story. I went back to college andbecame addicted to drugs. I never wrote another page of the short

story that Alane praised to my classmates. The rest is told in my Novelof Life.

I don't know what dreams look like to other people. I don't know ifsome people allow themselves to dream as vividly I do. Maybe it's amatter of temperament. Some of us are brought up to be morepractical, more responsible. Others meticulously cultivate theirirrational side.

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My mother never allowed me to have a full-time job when I was in highschool. She grew up in a poor neighborhood in Chicago and knew whatit was like to work hard and be poor. Without an education, shebecame a fashion consultant and then a clothing designer for Sears in

the 1970s. My mother never stopped working until she met my father;and then she went back to school and became an oil painter.

My father was born in Baghdad, Iraq. At twenty years old he was sentoff for compulsory duty in the Iraqi National Army under presidentSaddam Hussein. Since childhood he was following his mother's wishesto become a doctor. He worked as doctor in the army for two years andthen was granted a rare, once-in-a-lifetime pass to leave the country.

I believe my father never got to follow the "promptings of his true self".His mother fiercely directed him into medical school in Iraq because it

was a stable, higher-paying profession and something my grandmotheralways wanted to become herself. But my father loved literature andfor the rest of his life he would recall the hours he spent alone fervidlyreading European novels and magazines from the United States.

A father's dreams are easily passed down to his son. Through thisnatural process, I inherited my father's lost dreams. And here, it wouldbe nice to say, "Just like my father became a doctor, I became a writerand everyone lived happily ever after." But life is not a fairy-tale.

Alane and her husband Richard Stern seemed happy last weekend

when my girlfriend and I visited them at their Hyde Park house. A smallhouse with brown paint and blue shutters, it was built during theWorld's Fair in Chicago, nearly 80 years ago.

Alane directed us into her living room that faced a large window. Theovercast clouds caused the living room to grow dim. Still I could see aninfinite amount of interesting things on the walls, miniature pictures,framed sketches and small illustrations; and on the side tables, lots ofold books rising up everywhere. The wallpaper had an antique qualityto it, but it was well preserved and without a speck of dust. The housereminded me, in fact, of just what it would look like going down the

rabbit hole inAlice and Wonderland:

Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she hadplenty of time as she went down to look about her, and to wonder whatwas going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make outwhat she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything: then shelooked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with

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cupboards and book-shelves: here and there she saw maps andpictures hung on pegs.

I was surprised to see Richard in such lively spirits. He overflowed withan autumnal vigor, his eyes sparkling with interest. He remarked,

"Fantastic!" after either my girlfriend or myself told him a piece ofnews about ourselves. But I was more interested in hearing about hislife. He told us a story about Borges whose apartment they visited inArgentina. It seemed like a dream to hear a personal story about aman universally worshiped in the world of letters. Here was RichardStern, exactly the same age as Borges in 1979, telling me how Borges"directed me to the shelves" and "pointed out the exactlocation of thebook he wanted read to him even though he was blind".

(As a side note, I discovered a book about Borges on Amazon, in whichRichard recounts this exact same story in an essay entitled Borges on

Borges.)

To believe your dreams is a daring, dangerous quest, very often plainlyirrational. Think of Don Quixote.

Before going to Alane's house, I had gotten into an argument with myfather. Rather, my father expressed his disagreement with my lifestyle(i.e. writing and not having a full-time job). I'd heard the lecture beforeand so I buffered it with my own peremptory defense, but most of the

points I raised were useless.

Why was it so very difficult?

It was so very difficult because my parents unwittingly raised me thisway. It was so very difficult because there are conflicting realities inthis world. Herman Hesse, I'm torn between what is true to me andwhat is true to those around me.

My father has never been an illogical or preposterous man. On thecontrary, he wants his son to be self-sufficient and financially stable.

He wants me, more or less, to embody what Emerson talks about inthat great essay on man, "Self-Reliance."

And I want that for me too, but I also have this irrepressible drive toemulate Richard Stern, Jorge Luis Borges, Alane Rollings, and HermanHesse. My dream is to accomplish what they have accomplished intheir brief time on this earth.

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But my father has a point that I always seem to forget, "Dreamingtakes place in the future; while living is the here and now."

Toward the end of our visit at Alane's house, I broke into a soliloquyabout my past. I shouldn't have said another word. As Richard

remarked in his essay on meeting Borges, "We talked non-stop for twohours, literature, history, politics, jokes." I too thought our time hadpassed quickly and enjoyably. But something possessed me and Iblurted out:

"My father always wanted me to succeed. My father is a surgeon, and Ihad this . . . this need to perform, to outperform my peers. I tookmental enhancements, drugs like Ritalin, to become better than therest of my classmates . . ."

I went on, unable to stop myself, "And the Novel of Life, this project

that I'm working on, it's a work of archeology, I'm digging into my pastand finding a lost civilization . . ."

I had nearly become delirious explaining myself to the room, and all Ican remember is Alane, and then Richard, repeating the dreadful word"civilization". They repeated it as if it meant something, but to me itmeant nothing and I didn't know why I had even said it. It wasridiculous to declare in front of a celebrated author that I was diggingup a "civilization" with my "art". A civilization of what? Myself?

Alane led us to the front door and told us where to find the Coop

Bookstore on the University of Chicago campus. As I walked away fromthe brown house with blue shutters, I kept replaying the blunder in mymind, and I kept saying to my girlfriend, "Didn't I sound stupid? Didn't Iscrew it all up in the end?"

"No, no," she said. "You sounded fine. You sounded intelligent. You werefine."

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