If you’re like me — and I don’t mean that as an insult — you’ve probably got two or three long-running daydreams or fantasies that you spend at least a little bit of time maintaining every day.
For example, I have a daydream about being a leader in my field of endeavor. I have a big office with a window and nice furniture and lighting, and spend my time developing clever strategies for developing more business and inventing clever solutions to long-standing problems. Because this is a daydream, issues of budgeting, staffing, and contract disputes never come up.
I also have a daydream about quiting my job and becoming a writer, and finally finishing my 1,400-page novel about life in second-century China. Then the novel is well-reviewed, people line up to buy book, and I am inspired to write more books, and become rich, famous, and respected. There might even be movies. Because this is a daydream, issues of advance money, budgeting, writers block, and contract disputes never come up.
And then there’s the most intricate and elaborate fantasy, which is the world described in the penultimate fantasy. The characters have taken on a life of their own, in some sense. I need to check in with them every so often, or they tend to wander off-script.
All this daydreaming takes time. Nothing is static. For example, when I’m rich and famous, what kind of cool car should I drive? There are always new cars, so the answer changes.
In one of my favorite books, Gravity’s Rainbow, there is a character, Pirate Prentice (no relation to Spuff, AFAIK) who has the unique gift of being able to take over and have other people’s daydreams. This is very handy in times of crisis — if you need the undivided attention of some cabinet member, for example, you can call in Pirate Prentice, and he’ll take care of maintaining his or her fantasy worlds for as long as necessary.
It’s an intriguing gift.
Anyone out there have any daydreams they’d like to outsource because they take up too much time? Let’s hear them. Maybe we all have the same dreams. Maybe we can amortize the work of maintaining them? Or at least we can steal each others good ideas…
