Life is But a Dream...

I wasn't going to post today, but I wrote a song the other day for a book I'm writing. Of course.

The idea behind it came from one of my infamous mid-night thinking sessions. Sometimes, I'll wake up at three o'clock in the morning with a thought that just won't go away until I battle it out of my head. The other night, I was thinking about memory and--- well, to avoid going into the ENTIRE philosophical debate I'd had with myself I'll skip a bit--- I came to the conclusion that the person I call ME is only ME because of my  thoughts and my memories.

We can definitely talk more about this in depth if you were curious how (or why) I just decided that randomly in the middle of the night, but the point, I guess, is that the revelation that I was merely memory made me think about that old nursery rhyme "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." If you don't remember it, here's the gist of it:

Row, row, row your boat

Gently down the stream...

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,

Life is but a dream.

This sparked a whole other discussion with myself that started with me freaking out about existence, my place in the world, et cetera, et cetera, but ended with me thanking the Lord God Almighty that life isn't nearly as serious as we paint it to be. Believe me. I understand the importance of LIVING life. Why not? You only die once, after all. But if I'm just a memory, then that F I got in high school is just a memory and I can move past it. If yesterday was a whole twenty four hours but I literally only retained about five foggy facts, then nothing that happens today can actually touch me when tomorrow comes, can it? Not if I don't let it. Not if I can leave it in the past and walk away.

I know there are things we have to face, have to deal with. I'm not saying we shouldn't deal. I'm saying we shouldn't dwell.

Here are the lyrics to the song inspired by this crazy night of existential thinking. Perhaps one day, I'll work up the nerve to sing it for you.

"Life is but a Dream" by an opticALlusion
Row, row your boat gently down the stream
It's a good thing we all know that life is but a dream
Although it's fun while it lasts it was
fun while it lasted, yeah.
So, so it goes we are tethered by these strings
Made from torn up pantyhose and some broken bits of things
But somehow we all manage we've
all seemed to manage, yeah.

And I plead with you--- don't you see the truth?
Who knew the sun was a lie?
Guess we always did. Chose not to notice it.

Oh, oh oh, oh oh oh oh... Yeah life is grand
Even when you're stuck in the middle.
Oh, oh oh, oh oh oh oh... It's all pretend
But we'll just dance up until the end---
Right up to the end.

Tap, tap your toes to the great cacophony
Of our long forgotten hopes and our dried up misery
Because we know it don't matter, no,
none of it matters, yeah.
Ha ha we're going so fast we cannot see
The blurry visions of our pasts, of the whos we used to be
Like a mirror they shatter, our
reflections have shattered, yeah.

Did we live at all, if the bluff's been called?
If we don't wake, at least we dreamed.
I can see the end; let the fun begin.

Oh, oh oh, oh oh oh oh... Yeah life is grand
Even when you're stuck in the middle.
Oh, oh oh, oh oh oh oh... It's all pretend
But we'll just dance up until the end---
Right up to the end.

Take care, Lovelies! Have a wonderful week,
Deserae
P.S. I love the song here. It's "The Man Who Isn't There" by Oren Lavie. If you love it, love it lots. If you don't love it, what is wrong with you?
P.P.S. I forgot! One more thing! If you like short story contests where each and every entry is judged and looked at, get a Figment account (or sign into your old one) and try your hand at their Defy the Dark contest. Entries are due September 1st, but that's so doable, and anyone can enter!

Commenting on Comments

Arianna- Haha! I am the Queen of Linkage. Do you think they will raise a monument to honor my linktitude?

Maya- Girl, get your YouTube account ah-sap! So many awesome things to get into. So much to see. So much to share with thee!!!

Robin- Aww, thank you for coming to see me! I loved your comments on the posts as well. Were you entered? Which story was yours? Personally, I'm not too thrilled about the thriller either! But that's just 'cause I'm a big ole scaredy cat. ISLA and this mysterious fifth Perkins novels are the projects I'm most looking forward to by her. I, too, enjoyed ANNA best, but is it horrible that I wasn't the biggest fan of Anna and Etienne? Don't get me wrong, I love the story as a whole. But whenever I think about THEM, about their relationship, about the process of them getting together... I don't know. I could never fully love them like everyone else did. Again, thanks for stopping by! I look forward to getting to know you via the glorious interwebs.