I went down yesterday to a popular fast-food restaurant to grab a bite and be among the people. There, I was intrigued to find on the side of a to-go cup a quote that has echoed in my head for years, "Get busy building your dream, or someone else will get busy making you build theirs." I began to wonder; what causes the gap between the dreamers and the dream builders?
As I inquired, I noticed that many people don't dream very big, or worse, they think dreams are for other people and not everybody gets to follow them. The question alone ("What is your Big Dream?") can stir up uncomfortable fidgeting, feelings of awkwardness, the uncomfortable sensation of looking into something unknown? Clarity over what our dream actually is would help, but all growth requires expansion into the unknown… so are Big Dreams just fanciful goals or do they hold a unique role in the process of human development?
Dreams are sometimes belittled or thought of as little more than wishful, optimistic thinking - but what if the pursuit of a Big Dream, unique to each of us, is actually the greatest good we can do for society and the greater global consciousness? Perhaps, ironically, dreams pave the way to Awakening.
As kids, we're encouraged to dream big and told that the sky is the limit. But there are an awful lot of Oscar-winning movies about adults who pursued a dream to a fault and, as a result, being labeled a "Big Dreamer" can carry an almost derogatory sentiment, implying that a fixation on a future vision means one is incapable of managing one’s life in the here and now.
Our society glorifies those who achieve Big Dreams but seldom offers real encouragement to those in the thick of the pursuit. We live by the Napoleonic maxim (notably favored by Bond villains, too) that "The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success."
This quote bothered me for a long time… If you strive to be your best self and fall short, does that make you a lunatic? Of course not, and I'd argue that not striving to be your best self is the more insane behavior.
Don't agree? Chances are your subconscious does. As famously stated by Abraham Maslow, "What one can be, one MUST be," and our Big Dreams show us who we can be. They illuminate a path through the hazy fog of a busy life and help us determine what is needed to walk it. Just as certain jobs cannot be performed without specific tools, Big Dreams are one such tool we need when working towards Maslovian Self-Actualization.
(Bonus question, which level of the Hierarchy of Needs do your New Year's resolutions fall into?)
The caveat is this (and this was incredibly difficult for my hustling Western mind to internalize): "Achieving" this Big Dream is NOT the ultimate purpose of life - it is simply a Lighthouse, and it is your journey to reach this Lighthouse that will carve you into your true self. The Lighthouse shows us the bridge across the gap between who we are and who we "must" be. It shows us a glimpse of who we can be when we reach the end of the road, having learned the lessons and acquired the skills needed to bring our most important ideas to fruition.
This light may be little more than a flicker at first, revealing the road only in patches, but it will only grow stronger with each step in its direction. It is along this path that the seeds of all your greatest ideas are planted and nourished.
Whether you want to have a dream or not, you do
“If you deliberately plan on being less than you are capable of being, then I warn you you will be unhappy for the rest of your life” - Abraham Maslow
Returning to our friend Maslow, as long as there is a gap between who you can be and who you are, you will suffer. This is a corollary to Carl Jung's observation that "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life, and you will call it fate." Whether you want to have a Big Dream or not, you do. The real question is, do you know what it is? Do you see the Lighthouse or are you refusing to look up?
The main reason many of us never acknowledge our Big Dream is fear, mainly fear that we do not have what it takes to make it a reality and, perhaps, that we will get laughed at in its pursuit and be called a madman instead of a genius. Better to never acknowledge this calling than to risk failing at it.
Therefore, acknowledging this, discovering what our Big Dream is, and learning how to pursue it is one of the most important acts of self-development and growth that we can ever take. Already, perhaps, you can see how simply being aware of a Big Dream inside of us can lead us to make better, or at least more reasoned, choices throughout life.
It provides a through-line for life, making you a consistent person who understands your values.
Pursuing Big Dreams Builds Courage
More generally, Creative Acts build Courage, and few things require more creativity and courage than pursuing a Big Dream, unique to you, on the path to Self-Actualization.
You will need to make hard choices along the way and push through uncomfortable feelings that arise as you weigh your vision against any number of other paths you could be taking. You will inevitably be tired one day and a moment will come when it seems reasonable to give up... and you must know you can overcome this, even when friends are willing to co-sign your lack of conviction.
Courage is where the strength to do these things comes from, and it is a muscle that must be strengthened like any other. Courage (and its counterpart Discipline) is a foundational virtue - you MUST build this muscle if you hope to achieve your potential (or pursue anything of worth in this life.)
Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.” — Maya Angelou
In many ways, it's easier to find the Courage to go sky diving or to ask your crush out than it is to find the courage to believe in a Big Dream you have, let alone to wake up every day committed to putting in the work needed to pursue it.
Ultimately, Courage is a skill that helps us make good and "right" decisions, and this is why it is not the most intelligent or most prepared people who succeed but the most courageous. It is the skill that allows us to stay focused on our Lighthouse, no matter how far away or how dark the night.
"The acorn becomes an oak by means of automatic growth; no commitment is necessary. The kitten similarly becomes a cat on the basis of instinct. Nature and being are identical in creatures like them. But a man or a woman becomes fully human only by his or her choices and his or her commitment to them. People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day to day. These decisions require courage.” - Rollo May, The Courage to Create
One of the most courageous things you can do is create. Creating leads us to a greater understanding of ourselves by showing us what we are capable of. Knowing this we can live more joyfully and as a better citizen of the world.
Big Dreams are a Filter Against Information Overload
Have you noticed there's a lot of information out there these days? Would I be correct in guessing you have an app somewhere (or maybe several) full of articles and videos you tell yourself you're going to read/watch one day? Do you think you will, someday, read through and productively process all that information?
In today's world, Focus is often just as hard to find as Courage - and all the courage in the world will get you nowhere if you can't focus on the challenge in front of you.
In a busy world full of noise, a Big Dream can be a great filter, or a lens, to view it all through. It keeps you focused and walking in the right direction, providing a framework or criteria around which you can organize all the other information and experiences you encounter. (An obligatory warning about confirmation bias here, but that's a topic for another day.)
A Big Dream provides an ideal vision of your future, a metric to judge whether a piece of information is essential to you or not. It allows you to achieve the "curious and focused" state James Clear speaks of and prevents overwhelm and decision fatigue. In the modern age, you need a way to process, digest, and sort the endless stream of information that is hurled at us each day from work to family to friends to Instagram.
When you have a strong guiding principle, a Lighthouse, its light filters every piece of information you come in contact with, from books to movies to friendships and world views. A Big Dream can quite literally be a lens through which you see your entire life, and in many ways, it is this lens that makes you, you.
"The path is what creates who you are. All of the beliefs, skills, and billions of bits of information you process along the way toward achieving your goals is the most unique niche in the world." - Dan Koe
Particularly for artists (and philosophers!), how one perceives the world and all its vast blessings is EVERYTHING. In some way or another, your art will be birthed from this kaleidoscope of chaos that is everything you put your attention on plus the lack of everything you don't.
As you walk this path, great joy can be derived from simply refining the abilities and parts within yourself needed to better realize your vision along the way. On the flip side, a lack of meaningful Big Dreams could be a contributing cause to much of the anxiety of the modern age.
“If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy and inspires your hopes.” - Andrew Carnegie
Big Dreams shine a light on issues you need to address
Many people are out of touch with their nature and lack authenticity due to a lack of self-development in certain areas of life. This lack occurs when one does not encounter significant challenges or when one does not see these challenges as opportunities for growth.
"The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way." - Marcus Aurelius
When you know your path, you can more readily identify the things that are preventing you from walking it. If you are just wandering through life, it's easy enough to encounter an obstacle and determine it's simply a sign you should head in a different direction. Do you actually have a problem or are you just being anxious?
When you commit to a direction, the journey leads you to "problems" you will inevitably need to "solve" and your brain becomes more resourceful when encountering obstacles as a result. The Path is how you become aware of problems, and awareness is the first step towards addressing them.
This applies to everything from obvious gaps in knowledge to subconscious daily habits you never considered the toll of (I, for one, can never go to bed…) Can you communicate authentically, let alone effectively, if you don't know what you want or where you are going or what matters to you along the way?
Everyone has a Lighthouse, even you
Here's the thing, no one is ever really "just" wandering about. There's a 100% chance there is a Big Dream governing your life right now; the question is, "Do you know what it is?" and much more significantly, "Did you choose it?"
We all inherit Big Dreams, legends and myths of Lighthouses from our biology and culture, and these are an important part of our development as well. It is of great importance we examine these things for ourselves. Too many people wake up too late, stuck in a stagnant life spent unhappily pursuing someone else's goal.
Again our filter or lens is unique to us and the choices we make along life's journey, choices often determined by our most significant wants and desires, our Big Dreams. For many of us, the Big Dream we inherited is no grander than to "be comfortable," and while this is understandable, it will not lead to a better society or a more just world to live in.
As a tool for Self-Actualization, a Big Dream must be something we create for ourselves, and it is through contemplating this process that we learn to truly "know thyself." Without the freedom to explore this process, we cannot mature; and without awareness of this process, we can be little more than a drone, a spirit trapped operating a robot, stuck on a pre-ordained route.
Learn from the Process, not Achievements
Even if you disagree with all of this, I appreciate you taking the time to examine the idea. This will resonate with you or it won't, but simply by wrestling with this question you are well on your way to finding your Lighthouse. It is this wrestling that will shape and mold your character over time, like a sculptor with their chisel.
Never inherit someone else's Big Dream, unless you genuinely believe in it too. Dreams precede reality; nothing can exist without first envisioning it, and if we limit what we allow ourselves to imagine, we'll find that the world becomes very small very fast.
Now you may be asking, why a Big Dream and not just a nice, small, achievable dream? Wouldn't having little wins be more motivating than some far-off star you may never truly reach? In fact, if you set a goal you never hit, doesn't that make you a failure?
First, I'd say "achievement" is not what should motivate you; that is a misdirection of the Ego. It is the pursuit, the process, the path that should keep you motivated on a daily basis; the unending curiosity to discover some unique beauty of the world that only your lens, through a lifetime of experience, may be able to reveal.
"Work, which brings about progress in one's art, is sufficient consolation for being misunderstood by fools." —Paul Cèzanne
As with any epic journey, it is indeed vital to have guideposts along the way. These are often self-imposed obstacles you create for yourself to test your abilities so far, like an athlete at the gym. Can you achieve X number of Xs by X date? Can you convince X person to give you X? Can you find a solution for problem X?
Many of these Xs will be very important, even necessary, for you to continue doing meaningful work of any kind. We all need food to eat and a place to sleep, which is why these are the foundational layers of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. But can you also see how a bunch of random Xs can quickly add up to nothing if you spend your entire life in the weeds, never zooming out to piece together a larger picture?
A small dream will get you a few feet down the road (which does need to happen) but only a Big Dream can tell you if you are heading in the right direction on the right road. Decision paralysis can quickly set in if you have to constantly think up new goals, plus shorter timelines cause undue stress implying your window for success is rapidly closing. Most detrimental of all, small dreams have short paths to obtaining them, meaning you have fewer opportunities to learn during the process.
Timelines can motivate, but being super motivated to wander around in circles is not a recipe for success. It's better to have a Lighthouse, a guiding beacon, and a fixed point in the sky that we can always look to as we methodically sprint and stumble along our path. As any navigator can tell you, if that object is too close, it is less effective for navigation.
Science agrees as well. Dopamine isn't necessarily released when something pleasurable happens but rather when we ANTICIPATE something pleasurable happening. Achieving a goal is often far less satisfying than many people expect (another favorite topic of Oscar-winning movies!), and it is often the pursuit we find most enlivening.
Can a Dream be too big?
Attaining the "highest ideal" of ourselves is, perhaps, an abstract description of every person's Big Dream, and I think maybe we all know this. Much of our anxiety is caused by our lack of clarity over what this means, since navigating the many depths of life can feel like wandering through a dark forest on a moonless night.
Gaining this clarity, the ability to bring our lens into focus, is perhaps the highest calling of each of our lives. A Big Dream is a blessing, it is our trusted Lighthouse for years to come and the lens that reveals every unique insight we've ever imagined.
Then, can a dream ever be too big or ambitious?
Yes, if the pursuit has led you to act inhumanely, you are out of alignment and need to reassess. It is unnatural to harm others, physically or spiritually, and no one's highest version of themselves requires inflicting suffering on others and impeding their ability to pursue their own dreams as well.
However, our "professional" society often seems embarrassed by the notion of Dreams these days. Maybe this is why we now favor saying "Goals" instead of "Dreams" - this language signifies that we are "professional" and "grounded" with our expectations. We've read the books and listened to the gurus and can apply the mental scaffolding on which Goals are built as if to say, "Don't worry, I'm a responsible dreamer!"
Your dreams should be big enough that they excite you, so much so that you can't help but share about them, singing aloud as you walk your path. You will build confidence doing this, and simply living this way will inspire others you come in contact with (some, not all!) to begin their journey towards Self-Actualization as well.
We must all strive to be this Self-Actualized person, who embodies the full potential of who we CAN be, and encourages others to do the same. Commit to the process of becoming this person, or more accurately, creating this person.
Everyone needs this, most urgently you.
How do you find your Big Dream?
Follow your creativity; what do you like to make or do?
Create or pursue something purely out of curiosity.
Reflect often on why certain things make you feel a certain way.
If you're feeling brave, share the creations and insights you come across with others.
These actions, once taken, will illuminate the next steps on your path.
behind the scenes…
Thank you for reading this inaugural edition Socratic Engineering. I have many ideas still to add to this format and I welcome all feedback as well. The idea is, in some small way, to create a reflective experience involving several different mediums all centered on a certain idea each month, to be experienced together so that perhaps one may remind you of the other when encountered at a later date.
/ some thoughts that inspired this month’s original piece of music
Simple but inevitable… a moment of contemplation… a slow burn to a triumphant climax… anticipation in the darkness before dawn… a humble glow before the first mighty ray of sunlight bursts forth from behind a mountain top… emergence
/ a playlist to enjoy
I’ll expand more on these playlists in the future… this small collection might inspire some contemplation.