Filed Under “Someday”

Notes on unrealized dreams and the inertia that keeps them there (the stargazer's dilemma)

Ideas and dreams are like shooting stars. You only have them for a moment before they’re out of view. And if you don't act on them, that is to say, cast your wish upwards and outwards, then they skip onto the next stargazer, who maybe will do what you were too slow to enact.

Or something like that, anyway.

I’ve come to believe in this sincerely. Especially in this post-COVID era, where I spawned idea after idea in my journals. But what good is an idea that never sees the light of day—stuck between two ply, forgotten? Or in some cases, an iteration of my original idea came to be a year or two after the fact, by someone else. Now imagine if I had just done them when I had thought to?

I selfishly fear this collective consciousness, the pillaging of ideas that I’ve staked claim to in my head but never seeded into reality. To lose an idea, once held so tightly to the vest, to a stranger or sometimes even a friend, feels like a miscarriage of joy. A vision never carried to full term. I can’t let any of it go, every snuffed out, best-laid plans. But I also can’t get past it being just a plan, too scared to act, and others actually having the courage to put themselves out there.

I latched onto a similar sentiment while watching Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist (stunning visuals btw, if you can stomach the 4+ hour runtime and historical inaccuracy). There’s a part in the film where Hungarian architect László Tóth (played by Adrien Brody) is in conversation with a Harrison Lee Van Buren (played by Guy Pearce), the patron, who quiets the lead and says:

“Shh. Shh. Before I lose it. Dreams slip away.“

It’s a totally passing line, that seemingly held no significance in the overall scene, besides maybe serving as a thin tie-in to the larger themes the movie grapples with in the background, like immigration and the American dream, and inadvertently to me, seeing as how it has somehow stuck with me, all this time, more than half a year later.

Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist

I hate to think of all the time I’ve probably spent thinking about what could have been. I try earnestly not to fixate on regret as a weight, but rather as fuel (which is much harder said than done; I live life with a very weighted psyche). I suppose this is what they mean when they say there is no such thing as an original thought. Instead, I choose to reframe missed moments and dreams as seedlings for new ones.

For the first time in a long time, I feel without a dream. Like I’ve been floating between desires, while an inertia epidemic rages throughout me. My ideas, though steeped in earnest fancies of mine, feel rather rootless. Or maybe it’s more like root-rot. The metaphorical soil in my brain is dried, uneven, and seems to shift beneath every step I take, no matter the direction. It’s a kind of soullessness that consumes you from the inside out. It’s not to say I’m unhappy, but I’m not fulfilled either. The numbness of it could sort of make you cry.

Substack, my sweet Horde Haus, writing about and working with clothes and styling, I guess, would constitute as my dream. It’s the thing I want to dedicate all my time to, even when I don’t quite know how to just yet. It still feels very small in my head, the idea of this newsletter. Like I haven’t been able to allow or grasp just how far or wide the tendrils of my mind have the audacity to take me. It’s a scary thing, the not knowing, the blinded faith, directed by deep intuition and a gut feeling that I’m destined for something big, for more, but trapped in the shell of an outdated version of myself.

For as long as I’ve been working, I’ve wanted a mentor. Someone to guide me, see me, and believe in me and the things I want to put out into the world. Friends can be supportive, sure, but I find a lot of them support what they think I should be doing through the lens of their own lives, not necessarily with me in mind. A friend is a friend, a mentor can help me self-water and take shape in ways I couldn’t see for myself.

I’ve neglected my tried and true ‘creative fertilizers’, instead oversaturating the soil with the goals, dreams, and meteoric success stories of others. And in some way, like it’s osmosis, I’ve depleted myself in the process. I told myself that true crime podcasts were lowering my vibrations and ruining my life even though they’re my favorite respite, a guaranteed brain declutterer. I’m revisiting old rituals and investigating new ones in the search for one that fits this new iteration of me.

I was recently part of a 20-year anniversary gala for a Palestinian dance company near to my heart, and the night felt magical, totally larger than life. I’ve only been a part of their story for a blip in their history (all of 3 years), but to bear witness to the culmination of 2 decades of work: the content, the performances, but also the friends and supporters made along the way, was surreal. A tear-jerker to say the least. To know you’re destined for something much bigger than yourself and to go for it, despite it all. It’s the resilience of a dream, the laying of a legacy over just riding the wave of hype, I suppose, that keeps one propelling forward.

So now I ask myself, what would 20 years of Horde Haus look like? What would that iteration of Devi be doing? Who would be there bearing witness? Who has been a part of the journey? For now, I’ll put pen to paper and start tilling the soil for that plan. I learned last weekend that I’m even better at manifesting things than I previously thought. So, if I started today, what would I be able to thank myself for in a month, a season, a year from now? I hope I’ll be able to look back and say: I caught that one.

xxx
D.