Operation Achieve Anything: Day Two-Hundred-Seven, Dateline 7-26-2018

Fantasy is an exercise bike for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles than can. Of course, I could be wrong.
— Terry Pratchett

Good morning crickets. Welcome to day number two-hundred-seven of Operation Achieve Anything. Last night I was supposed to explore my views on fantasy as the Achieve Anything… book shifts its focus to how an active imagination can be a beneficial tool for accomplishing your goals. The book’s take is that if you can visualize the outcome, then you can use the make-believe hypotheticals to create a roadmap to real-world success. Though I wholeheartedly agree with this concept, my own personal relationship with fantasy it a little rocky.

I was a very lonely child growing up, and that loneliness carries on to this very day. It’s not that I never had friends or fun, but I think that my chaotic upbringing created a drive in me to seek constant sanctuary in my room where it was safe, and I could be left alone. Since I was a nature introvert being raised by addicts and enablers, the addicts were too busy with their own issues and causing chaos to notice my needs, and the enablers allowed me to develop anti-social avoidance mechanisms because that’s seemed to be what I wanted.

Keep in mind, I only blame the enablers for the developmental days that help to lock me into this path. As I grew older, my isolation trend was my own issue that I grew while no one was the wiser. I don’t know if anyone knows that one of the reasons I’ve worked graveyard so much throughout my life was to avoid too much interaction with those who were close to me. I have a problem where I am all or nothing when it comes to relationships which can be overwhelming for other and can burn people out and lead them to leave. Working overnights created a regulator to limit the chances of me scaring people away with my over-the-top antics that stemmed from an overactive imagination.

The other reason I worked late was that I lived so deep in my own head that my fantasies kept me from being able to sleep. Part of me feels that this is why I’m open to the idea of there being a collective consciousness because at night I’ve always felt much more at ease while all of the collective consciousness nodes recharge in the dream realm, clearing the airwaves so that I could think up thoughts on my own.

I loved this time of the night so much because, in that collective silence, I was left alone in my own world where I could just play. When I did play, the small collection of people who were unaware that they were my world were there to play along even though they didn’t know it. This is why all of my stories are so autobiographical because it always allowed me to spend my time with them the way that I wanted in a way where I was understood.

Unfortunately, after decades of doing this fantasy and reality started to blend which led to my mid-life meltdown. At first, it was fine because most of the disconnect between the two worlds was that I felt closer to people or felt they understood where I was coming from more because of the fictionalized version of our story. I consider this fine because even if I wasn’t a writer, I’m sure there would still be many examples of disconnection between how I see relationships and how things really are.

The problem came when I started to explore the idea of these two realities through my stories. At this point, I began to see more and more signs that we were living in a simulated reality. Not in a Matrix way where there are bad guys to fight but in the real way where we are the constructs of our own thoughts while at the same time we are also different constructs of the thoughts that others have about us.

Meaning, I’m the only one who knows the true me no matter how much I try to express what that actually is. Meanwhile, I may be a villain to some who I may have mistreated by not matching up to what they needed for their reality to see me as a good guy. At the same time, I may also be a hero to some who liked my jokes and were always happy to see me. It’s as if every single thinking thing is its own parallel universe, on top of that, I believe in a more traditional view on the parallel universe concept where there are literally multiple selves in dimensions that we can’t see.

This led me to stop seeing the collective consciousness concept as being such a collective system of beliefs as everyone seemed to be started to fight for the control of the group thought. This kind of synced up with me starting to see politics as being more damagingly polarizing and no longer two teams striving for similar goals. This was also two years before the Trump election and why I’m glad that I left Seattle when I did because I really don’t think I would have been able to make it out alive because I was already dealing with another self-destructive bout of depression while on anti-depressants that were really messing with my head.

Now, I’m the shut-in I always dreamed of being when I was a little kid, and all that I have is fantasy. This is why my feelings are so mixed because I do love living in the magical worlds in my head, but it would be nice to have some company. Today’s assignment actually addresses this by saying that you can fantasize as much as you want but it doesn’t have to come true. The book tells this more as a way to free the minds of the uncreative by saying fantasize about ANYTHING because it’s not actually real, and don’t point it out as a reminder for people like me who may have gone too far into a fictional realm.

The actual assignment is to just fantasize. That’s it, just fantasize. Once again, we see that this book is for boring business normals and not creative types because about half the page is devoted to explaining how to use fantasy to have fun as if they don’t even grasp the concept of imagination. Oh well, we’ll see what I come up with to fulfill this task when I check in with tomorrow’s update. Until then, it’s now time for me to wrap this thing up by saying, good day and good luck to you and all of your projects.

Talk to you soon.

Sincerely,

The Wicker Breaker

P.S. Below are links to my novel, which I plan to promote as part of Operation Achieve Anything, as well as a link to where you can buy the book that is providing the structure to this project in case you would like to purchase it in order to play along.