Monday, October 20, 2008

"Some men see things as they are and say, "Why?" I dream of things that never were and say, 'Why not?'" - George Bernard Shaw



Dreams - The Cranberries


Frankly, I am tired of writing about how the University of Texas has been a reflection and point of departure for my being, so for this entry, instead of writing about direct connections like how my life has felt like some rabbit hole, which it hasn’t, I will try to indirectly coordinate my life and Lewis Carroll’s work.

Dreams have always been an extremely intriguing topic of discussion for me. As long as I can remember I can hear my mom telling me at the breakfast table that if I wanted a dream to come true, then I must keep it a secret and not tell anyone or else it wouldn’t happen. Specifically I can recall a dream about some seals being lifted off the ground by helium balloons dating back to when I had to crawl up onto my chair to see over the kitchen table (like Alice!). So now, I will take you down a map of my dreams and how maybe they relate to the situations that Alice gets herself in.

“‘Wake up, Alice dear… It was a curious dream, dear, certainly; but now run in to your tea: it’s getting late.’ So Alice got up and ran off, thinking while she ran, as well she might, what a wonderful dream it had been.[1]

Every morning that I wake up, I find myself reliving the sequence of events that procured throughout my mind during the last few hours of my slumber, and it is in these moments that I feel I experience the real eccentricities of life. Without this creative outlet, and living a world where one finds no rationale for action or even the basic rules of life, there would be nothing to live for, as far as I am concerned. I try to incite this sort of enthusiasm with my friends and family, but not many people find dreams as fascinating as I do. In addition to the dreaming process, I feel like I have too many déjà vu moments, and times that feel too much like something that I have actually encountered or dreamt before to be coincidental. It happens daily. I am a firm believer in the idea that those who have déjà vu have lived a previous life, and it is in those experiences that the vaguely familiar instances resound.

Back to the book. Alice Liddell’s dream worlds in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There are composed of the many different types of dreams that an individual may encounter. According to many researchers, there are five dominating types of dreams one may have: Ordinary Dreams, Lucid Dreams, Telepathic Dreams, Premonitory Dreams, and Nightmares.[2]

For the majority of my sleeping time, my dreams are dominated by what is called the Ordinary Dream or dreams consisting of everyday occurrences but grossly exaggerated. My most recent dream that I can recall happened last Monday. Tuesdays and Thursdays I have class at eight in the morning, and am therefore incessantly fearful of oversleeping, because of course you will be the embarrassment of the class walking in to a presentation putting yourself on display for everyone to know that you only had time to throw on a shirt and sprint to class. Similarly to the White Rabbit, who thinks “The Duchess will be savage if [he] keeps her waiting”, I, too, feel very compelled to show up on time as to not upset the Design and Visual Communications instructors. So last week, my roommate woke up and began getting ready at seven, thirty minutes before my alarm was set to go off. I was roused a little by his scurrying about and opening and closing of drawers and keys clinging against one another as he left the room, but wanted to capitalize on as much of the minutes I had left. When I fell asleep again, I had a dream that I was laying in bed, woke up, and looked at the clock to find that it was ten – making me two hours late. I went through a serious of thoughts on if I should even consider going in to studio, being so late, but decided that I should. Luckily, my alarm went off before anything else could happen and I was able to get to class on time.

The second type of dream one may have is the lucid dream, or the act of controlling your actions and realizing that you are in a dream sequence but deciding to stay asleep. For me, these types of dreams are the scariest. In Alice, this lucid state of being is mentioned in the second book when she stumbles upon the Red King who is asleep in the wood. Tweedledum and Tweedledee tell her that she is “only a sort of thing in his dream”[3], which she reconsiders when she wakes up at the end to question whether “He was part of [her] dream” or if she “was part of his dream, too”[4]. I think that these dreams are the most abundant because usually one wakes himself up during it, and the theory is that you only remember the dreams that you wake up to. I ALWAYS dream that I am driving down a road, but have no ability or concept of how to correctly drive a vehicle, and everything that I try to do is wrong. After having so many of these same kinds of dreams, when I have them now I repeat to myself how it is only a dream, but continue nonetheless. Cars and the art of driving are a really big fear of mine, so these dreams prove to be rather traumatizing. I completely demolish other automobiles as I monster mash over them, and in the process destroy my own car, which I have a lot of pride for.

Another type of dream is the Telepathic Dream: the “language of angels” where the living and dead converse together. I cannot find a point in Carroll’s story where her dream state has been affected through telepathy, but I have had only a few encounters with such events. After my father passed away, I would consistently dream about having conversations with him, which always made waking up and the realization of his departure a little bit difficult. Over time, however, these dreams keep me grounded, and remind me every time how lucky I am to have the people around me, and what a prominent figure in my life that my father was, and keeps the relationship strong… you could say.

Now, here is where the world of dreaming and reality coincide, and frankly freak me out. The Premonitory Dream is where your body acts in a way that plays out the future, and if you are lucky, can give you insight in how to steer your actions. There are two occasions in Alice that have some resounding truth to premonitory dreaming. In Looking Glass, there is a point where the black crow of eclipse evades the land, and Alice meets the White Queen who practices the idea of living backwards, and the chapter following this engagement she comes into contact with Humpty Dumpty, whom she recites the child’s rhyme to revealing his ultimate fate of falling off the wall. Last week I had one of the most vivid premonitory dreams that I can remember. It was Thursday evening, before Design on Friday morning where we had our first formal review of a project one-on-one with an instructor whom had not given critique to us before. I never felt overwhelmed by the upcoming review, but my dreams revealed otherwise. In my dream, I went into review to find Elizabeth Danze, the one instructor that from the beginning I have felt very intimidated by, and in the dream she went on to harshly judge what I had created and told me that I was overanalyzing and over designing the project. When the review session came, who did I have? No other than Elizabeth Danze, who did in fact tell me that simplifying my design would make my project and presentation more cohesive. Her critique, however, was very positive and constructive and I walked away feeling relieved and proud.

Nightmares are something that everyone is familiar with. Lewis Carroll’s story could be considered an epic nightmare for some, and trying to imagine being in Alice’s place during this sequence of events would be quite fearful. Mysterious creatures like ugly duchesses, griffins, talking doorknobs and literally everything within the story have the ability to be played up into a sweaty mess of a dream. Personally, the nightmare that I am able to recall over and over looks much like the picture of Alice being dragged by the Red Queen on page 164 of Annotated Alice. In my dream, I was being stalked by this wicked witch through a ghost town of cowboys in a shootout as I scrambled to run between barrels of hay and houses on stilts through saloons and the like.

Lewis Carroll’s two stories involving Alice Liddell are depictions of dreams where reality is exposed to the creativity of the mind, and is something that resounds clearly in my life. Though at times there are unexpected events and daunting creatures, it is this world that enlivens me daily, and a place of refuge from the mundane everyday occurrences.

[1] Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, pg. 124-125

[2] The Five Types of Dreams, Gillian Kemp http://www.enotalone.com/article/3836.html

[3] Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, pg. 189

[4] Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, pg. 271

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Wednesday, October 15, 2008

But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?" - Albert Camus

Football coaches and I do not agree on a lot of things; that is something that I learned quickly in high school. In middle school, the athletics department catered towards the students to get a feel for playing a variety of sports, and the top athletes were always given priority over those who were not as successful. During those years, I won a few awards, even scored a few touchdowns, but mostly found companionship and mentors with my coaches (I still keep in touch with them to this day). Now, high school: that was an alien species of its own. I think what bothered me the most about playing sports for Austin High was the coaching staff. Maybe it was because I wasn’t the best anymore, but I will give myself some credit and say that the respect they demanded was not something that they encouraged much from themselves. I still have the haunting memory of being called out by the head coach in front of the entire football department because I aspired to do other things besides catch footballs, crush opponents, and drink beer. I should preface this by saying that the hours that I spent with these people taught me a lot about the person I did NOT want to become. As I said, for the majority of the time I found no consolation in talking with the coaching staff at my high school, however there is one occasion that I remember actually finding a hint of something reminiscent of truth.

Before classes began for my freshman year, I spent the summer in a speed and fitness camp put on by whom else but the freshman football coaches – granted I had no association with them thus far. It was in the keynote speech of this training camp that still inspires me throughout my day. The same man, Coach Mueller[1] (pictured left) who would later refer to me as the “riff-raff” of the freshman class, told the attendees of the conditioning camp to never allow someone the opportunity of letting you know how much potential you have, fore it only means that you are not performing to your best ability. Potential was a taboo only in reference to failure. I have encountered this mantra again, four years later, as a freshman in architecture school where my Design I professor insists that we steer our mind away from thinking arbitrarily.

The intention of this essay is not to find faults within the people who have cause troubling times for me in the past, but rather the opposite. I must be able to take away a greater good from these people. I must surmount what potential I have, and use it to its fullest extent. I must ground myself by encountering others and the diversity of the world. I must focus on the goal that I have set for myself: Learn and Experience. Defy Stereotypes. By doing so, I hope to find success and fulfillment in my personal quest for greatness.

The fundamental goal or attribute that I strive to obtain is to make an impact on the world. I aspire to do so by not succumbing to the toxins of modern society: prejudice, egocentricity, elitism, manipulation, ambition. The relationships that I have created with others, and each individual impact that they have had on me has largely contributed to this demand, and made me realize why life is worth living. As Joseph Cambell in The Merchant of Venice says, “you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss… find where it is, and don’t be afraid to follow it.”

Being so young, it is hard to try and specify what it is exactly that I would like to spend my life[2] doing, but I have many ideas all which wrap around the familiar theme of using each of my strengths in composite to the other in efforts to be the most adequately adept person for whatever may come. With that I feel that there is a strong pull from a plethora of areas which we have encountered already. I know that (for me) success is defined not by a single plan of action, but I will only be able to dwell in my accomplishments knowing I have truly utilized my resources to the best of my ability.

The expedition for making my impact has already begun. I like to think that the people that I have positively affected the people that I have come in contact with throughout the first 19 years of my life granted not all might feel that way. The foundation of my ideals was laid by my parents for the greater part of my juvenile education, though in the last four years I feel that I have become to make a voice for myself, and become an individual. Moreover, living in Austin has greatly influenced my understanding of others.

Most importantly, I have started to recognize the peculiarities in others who may not follow my ideals, and have given them the right to that belief. Albert Einstein said that the most “valuable thing in the pageant of human life… [is] the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime”. The hardest thing about being a leader today is to create a space to emphasize the individual.[3] So often we are bogged down in the fog of difference that we tend to forget the importance of this diversity. I overhear conversations in the cafeteria of the superficial nature that plagues the adolescent mind, and only inhibits growth. For me, this is one probably the most precious resource for maintaining the integrity of the modern world.

A second ideal that I have tried to focus on in my endless journey implementing my passions to action is eliminating the self, letting go of all preconceived notions, thus focusing on the task at hand. The notion of the ego has been an underlying theme throughout the past discussions in class. Trying to find the balance between self-concept and outer awareness is a precarious task, yet increasingly important in eliminating an elitist mindset as well as absolutes. The single most evident concept that I have come to base the motivation of my existence is the fact that no matter what I do, I am no better than anyone else. Furthermore, I think that it is unfathomable to try and make a claim for another person. I have had trouble in the current presidential campaigning process as I watch debates where the future leaders of our country somehow find the power within themselves as to assert their own beliefs upon the population of one of the most diverse countries in the world.

Contradictory to what has been presented, the essential process which will eventually lead to a successful understanding and utilization of the resources that one has to offer is self-realization. It is imperative for an individual to know his strength and weaknesses and to expose each at the appropriate time. By making a conscious effort to grasp self identity enables a person to approach personality and character holistically, and accelerate relationships through the sympathetic imagination. In Paradigms of Interdependence, Covey proposes that the essential building block of relationships:

“The place to begin building any relationship is inside ourselves, inside our Circle of Influence, our own correct principles character. As we become independent – proactive, centered in correct principles, value driven and able to organize and execute to become interdependent – capable of building rich, enduring, highly productive relationships with other people.”[4]

I write this paper as I listen and watch two men vie for the spot of leading one of the most influential nations in our world - Senator [5]John McCain and Senator [6]Barack Obama (left and right respectively). The question was posed to deliver a statement explaining the leadership qualities that each felt they had making them the better candidate for the job. To my surprise, their responses did not reference the topic at all; however, they went into great detail trying to belittle the other, and making false accusations as to why the other was not suited as President of the United States. Petty arguments based upon personal qualms only hinder the process of utilizing the potential of an individual, and is something that I have tried my best to veer away from throughout my life.

I have only just begun embarking upon the road towards finding success through achieving the goals that I have made for myself. As I have said, this success and final enlightenment is a process that can only be calibrated through personal reflection. I have been given the opportunity and am blessed with talents that have until this point been dormant in periods of non-use. By encouraging and emphatically promoting diversity, in tangent with eliminating ego while finding my true identity I feel that I have the ground plans for a life that I can call successful, and employ my passion for community.

The educational path that I have chosen for myself has proven thus far to be a very competitive task. Architecture on its own is a very demanding program, as is Plan II, but what I looked forward to mostly when applying for both schools was the opportunity to expand the horizons of my learning and not find myself overwhelmed in one or the other.

As for Plan II, the program has a certain amount of requirements of classes to take: World Literature, Freshman Tutorial, and Philosophy. All of these are mandated as to increase your fundamental education by providing a well-rounded discipline which focuses, in the end, on your senior thesis. The advantage of getting accepted into the Plan II honors that I found the most intriguing was eliminating potential ignorance and naivety, and it has offer me with the prospect of broadening the scope of my studies. Looking ahead in my Plan II curriculum, I am excited. The program lends itself to the interpretation of the individual, and allows for a wide spectrum of coursework that one may chose at his or her leisure. I feel that this part of my education can only be beneficial towards my ability to become a better leader.

In contrast to my work in the Liberal Arts, the next five years will be complimented by a curriculum in Architecture[1]. Over that time, I will have completed ten semesters of design, four semesters of construction, three semesters of visual communications, and have the skills developed in order to build a sound structure. The field of Architecture is incessantly changing, which is reflected in the continually modified requirements within the school. Having the ability to be flexible in studies enables the students within this program to be better prospective employees and designers following graduation. The road ahead is very trying; reviews are constantly open to subjective comments and critiques by those who feel superior. In the end, persevering through constant criticism and extreme vulnerability will allow me to become a better leader by reinforcing the elemental ideals set before.

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