Are we?

I dreamt that a well-known publishing house would return my manuscript to me with a letter of vehement nonsense and tell me not to write a single word again. I was new in a convoluted office. My colleagues looked like people I knew. They offered me a beautiful welcome card in which, surprisingly, were the signatures of the people of the publishing house who insulted me. So I had to refuse this card, explaining why, which created a shock wave among my new colleagues. The strangest thing (but deep down, what could be stranger in a dream than another part of it?) is that, in reality, I did not submit this manuscript to this publishing house.

I have a few ideas that are flying around: I’m not cut out for this world; I can’t take my place in it; I’m a stranger among myself. Betrayal is everywhere, and I always put myself in a destabilizing situation. I am unable to manage money properly even if I manage (it is because I am working), I am a creator, but I will probably sink like ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent of the creators of this world. There, I am afraid, as Yeats would have said, not of death, but of oblivion.

I am currently reading the biography of Steve Jobs, whose narcissistic neurosis was undeniable. He could be kind or ungrateful, often both at the same time; he categorized people into two clans: geniuses and losers. People hated him and admired him too. I figure he could have gotten his way other than by being an asshole. And yet, he is now revered for his genius (marketing) traits. We acknowledge him for having changed this, that (with the help of real craftsmen for whom he was only the great motivator), we recognize him for having made his mark. The man had the vision that he would die young and admitted to being in a hurry for life. His ego filled with contradictions (he was Zen and had no passion except for making beautiful objects), so he packed his whole world, he took credit for everything, made patents even for his packaging boxes. In short, an extremely unpleasant (and dirty) being. He really started washing in his forties.

It seems to me that my dream transposes this reading. Then doubt settles in. Am I also a narcissistic pantomime? My yesterday text appears to have shocked some of my readers. I probably made myself misunderstood by saying that most people no longer interest me. And in my dream, the insults came from above, from a publishing house that has always refused me its doors.

I certainly have claims. I want to find my happiness, to create a trace that, like these leaves of every autumn, will only have the beauty of one season. Are we anything other than automatons driven by indomitable currents? We still know so little about the mystery around us. Our mistakes could prove to be necessities and our successes parallel truths, without morals and miseries. For a long time, out of incapacity and surely out of laziness, we have called our ignorance by the name of God. What is the source of our life? Are we only a slow river of existence that manages to leave its mark on the ground? Who are the people around us? What are their goals? We have, once again out of ignorance and weariness, called these people by various names, but naming them is no longer enough. We should be able to go beyond these borders, to think differently, as suggested by the Great Computer Snake with its delicious apple.

I’m confused this morning, just like my dream is. I’d like to make a clean slate. I’m just not awake yet. I have things to do today, grocery, shopping, counting, professional work, baking my bread, taking my pain in patience, visualizing my success, licking my hair as a cat would proudly do.