Skip to content

Act Now

3 min

Better Questions is supported by readers like you. If you get value from my writing, consider becoming a supporting member. Exclusive content, weekly deep-dives, free beta-access to future courses and more. Thanks.

----

Wherever a wish-fulfilment (in a dream) is unrecognisable and concealed, there must be present a feeling of repulsion towards this wish, and in consequence of this repulsion the wish is unable to gain expression except in a disfigured state.
We should then assume in each human being, as the primary cause of dream formation, two psychic forces (streams, systems), of which one constitutes the wish expressed by the dream, while the other acts as a censor upon this dream wish, and by means of this censoring forces a distortion of its expression.

Freud.

---

You are fighting for your life.

Did you forget?

Not surprised, really.

Much easier that way.

Lie back,

and let it happen.

---

You may think that you have dreams, goals.

I can assure you: you do not.

You do not want what you say you want.

Instead, you want to be the kind of person who has what you say you want.

You don't want the girl, or the boy, or the job, or the car.

You wouldn't know what to do with them if you go them.

What you want is to be the kind of person who would have those things; to be chosen; to be selected.

This is how you imagine it works for everyone:

Things are bestowed upon people who are lucky enough to be the kind of people those things are bestowed upon.

The "alpha male" gets the girl.

The "rich guy" buys another company.

The girl who is "so thin she probably has an eating disorder" gets the guy.

What you feel is not desire at all; you can't desire what you are incapable of having.

What you feel is resentment.

You can't act, and you don't believe anyone else can, either.

All victories are illegitimate.

All gains are unethical.

And because you're a "good person" - even if you've never done a single thing to earn that designation - you're fine with never getting the girl, or the boy, or the job, or the car...

...as long as no one else gets to have them, either.

You may think that you have dreams, goals.

You do not.

What you have are grudges.

How's that working for you?

---

By the way, if you think I'm defending the "alpha male," "rich guy", and girl with an "eating disorder," you've missed the point.

None of those people exist.

They are your fantasy.

---

You don't want the identity you project on social media.

You don't want to be in the porn you go back to night after night.

Those things aren't your wish.

They're the defense against your wish.

Your real wish isn't to get the things you say you want...

But to make sure others can't.

You need somewhere to point your rage.

Better out than in, right?

---

To review:

You don't have dreams, you have defenses.

You don't have desires, you have resentments.

You don't have enemies, you have hallucinations.

How's that working out for you?

---

"That isn't fair," you say.

Oh, no?

You think you can actually see people, as they are?

Social media hasn't permanently and irreparably damaged your ability to see them as them, instead of as things, as categories, as types, as memes?

Your aspirations are your own, not carefully curated collections of consumer-ready, off-the-shelf goals pitched to your particular demographic?

You think I'm talking to someone else?

You can act, after all?

Then prove it.

I dare you.

I dare you.

Find the heaviest boulder you can find,

push it up that hill,

and accept the responsibility for what you find at the top.

Act.

Now.

Act.

Before it's too late.

You are fighting for your life.

Did you forget?

Subscribe to receive the latest posts in your inbox.