For as long as I can remember, I have been a day dreamer. When I was in classes at school, I would daydream instead of paying attention. In meetings, I would often think about what someone said for several minutes, which led me to miss what everyone else was saying during that time. When I listen to podcasts, I often need to rewind several minutes because I was thinking about some point that someone made or some other issue that was on my mind.
It’s involuntary. I would prefer to be paying attention to the moment at hand, but my brain automatically goes into a fugue state where every rabbit hole is ripe for exploring.
It is unclear to me whether this is a good or bad thing. Certainly, missing what someone is saying isn’t ideal. However, is it possible that we are not doing enough thinking about what people are saying and just jumping to what we want to say instead?
When it’s just me and the car I typically turn on music so that my mind can wander without missing any important information. In conversation I often need to make mental reminders or notes to store topics that I want to explore afterwards.
Recently, I was reading a book that had a scene where an important revelation was communicated. This is a fantasy book, so magic is possible. The character who heard the information dramatically slowed the passage of time. so that they could think about the implications of what was said. As the reader, I could go through all of their thought processes without the timing of the scene being ruined. In other words, the character had the ability to think about what was being said in real time. I wish I had that ability to pause the world so that my mind could wander to its heart’s content and then pick back up right where it started.
As a society, we often look down on people who daydream as unfocused or lazy or dumb. I think that is unfortunate. Daydreaming is what gets us our best ideas. There is a reason people get great ideas while in the shower or doing their morning bathroom routine. These are moments where one can daydream without judgment, without pressure, and without distraction.
I hope that there will come a day when speed of thought is less important than depth and quality. I hope that we can encourage daydreaming in the future.
There are so many things that I think are wrong with the world. We could be so much more efficient. We could feed the poor, house everyone, maintain a clean environment, and encourage each individual to be the best that they can be. But unfortunately, we have too many dumb ideas that get in the way.
Today I daydreamed about many things. One of them was this blog post. World peace may not be easy, but it starts with somebody daydreaming about it.
Whatya think?