Dreaming for 4,000 weeks
"Your life is made out of the days it’s made out of."
Yesterday matters more than today.
And each day is not a new slate.
In his book No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy wrote:
“You think when you wake up in the mornin yesterday dont count. But yesterday is all that does count.
What else is there? Your life is made out of the days it’s made out of. Nothin else.”
When the clock ticks from 11:59 to 12:00, nothing happens.
The date on your phone switches and the counter starts over, but the score stays the same.
So yesterday? Yesterday is all that does count. Because tomorrow, today will become yesterday, and what you did yesterday influences who you are today.
What you did yesterday will affect everything about how you see the world. It’ll affect how you interact with others. It’ll affect how you see yourself.
Existentialist philosophy argues that your essence is defined by your actions. In other words, what you do defines who you are.
Your life isn’t made out of the things you say you’ll do or the things you intend to do.
Your life is made out of what you do.
After all, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
It’s easy to dream.
So easy, in fact, that we do it in our sleep.
And while the word “dream” floods you with positive emotion, have you ever considered the idea that dreams — the actual dreams you have while you sleep — are sinister?
The “best” dreams show you everything you’ve ever wanted. Your brain can’t differentiate between real sensory input and imagined input during REM sleep, so as far as your brain is concerned, dreams are real life.
To make matters worse, dreams are easy to come by. You just shut your eyes and doze off, and you’re presented with a mirage of bliss.
You get all the feelings of accomplishing your wildest fantasies without any of the real-life experience, effort, or satisfaction that gives memories an almost physical weight.
Dreams trick you into feeling like your life is made up of more than the actions you take.
If you’re lucky, you’ll get about 4,000 weeks on Earth.
Your life isn’t made out of the dreams you had during that time.
Your life is made out of the days it’s made out of.
Your life is made out of how you lived yesterday.
Earlier, I cut McCarthy’s quote off before the end.
Here’s the rest of it:
“You might think you could run away and change your name and I dont know what all. Start over.
And then one mornin you wake up and look at the ceiling.
“And guess who’s layin there?”