Last night I had a dream, and in this dream the world was thousands of years older, yet everything was the same. Well, not everything. I mean, the world looked familiar: there were streets, buildings and infrastructure that looked like that of our present day. There was electricity in the form of traffic lights, in vehicles that were like cars though not quite—more like jeeps—and various devices or fixtures that will have needed electricity in order to function. I’m not sure what other resources were being used: maybe gas, solar. Anyway, that covered the man-made stuff. Nature looked more or less the same. There were trees and green hills spotted about, and a hint of sea on a horizon. The sky was blue and without haze and the sun was out, suggesting a generally healthy outdoors. I didn’t see any animals, but this was an urban scene with a wilderness backgrounded, so perhaps there were critters in hiding; predators elsewhere, dogs and cats crawling after scraps, etc. Who knows what era this truly was because I’m told dreams are timeless. They represent what we think and feel, not what we know in a rational sense. They tell us who we are now.
Who were we in this dream? I mean, that’s when it got weird, for it was the people who made everything seem like we’d gone back to some kind of beginning. I was wandering through a throng that was gathered in a square before a stately edifice. It was an outdoor gathering, a conference of chatter and debate, informally arranged and proceeding inchoately. There was no structure, no one obviously in charge. That was in dispute, it seemed, as there was no hierarchy, no system of leadership or government presiding over the event—just a commotion of voices. They spoke English, the men and women who were there. The language I heard reflected me, where I come from, plus what age I feel sometimes. The people in the dream were articulate, but only just so, lacking adult syntax or vocabulary when they spoke to one another, seeming like children in a playground. What were they talking about? Hard to say, for I was capturing words and thoughts piecemeal, yet piecing together motifs from passing exchanges.
One couple, a man and a woman, seemed to be discussing ethics, or maybe style. That was the theme, gleaned from the words that surrounded an unidentified subject. That subject might have been sex. Or, that might have been me assigning that theme to whatever subject was actually being discussed. I’m told that’s timeless also, sex. The reason I thought they were talking about sex was because of my stereotypes and gutter imagination: the man was talking of speed and efficiency. The woman: it was all about patience, slowing down, being methodical. Talk about timeless. She acted like they had all the time in the world. The man bristled. There were things to do, priorities to be set. We didn’t have time, he insisted, to waste. Not any longer. But history will judge us harshly, the woman rebutted, if we don’t apply caution, develop something like—and here her words let her down—something like a method for getting together and doing stuff. There are things like…she meant preambles and mission statements. We need ways (she meant strategies) of going about deciding, like, how to be. She was using her hands, trying to move the air, to make something like an idea happen and stick.
This wasn’t about basic needs. I’m recalling my twentieth century now, my Abraham Maslow recall. Everyone gathered was holding either glasses or plates, eating snacks or drinking recreational libations. This society had plenty food and drink. Also, everyone seemed well-dressed, groomed, clean and hygienic. Again, looking around, it seemed as though this world’s physical demands had been managed. Much doing had occurred. Compulsion had wrought success. It was the internal that was missing. Obsession, as in that which breeds contemplation, or contrarily, delay, was invisible at least. But it was being called for, apparently. The man’s vernacular was no more impressive or organized at first. He mimicked action, that omanota—something. Squirt. Jab. Cling. The first word was about the intoxicants that were on offer, plus an expression the man seemed proud of—“you gotta squirt out the good stuff”—as if he thought he was capturing the essence of life in his turn of phrase. I gleaned from his last syllable, cling, that he was also speaking of property. Somebody had to own this stuff all around them, he seemed to be saying. There needs to be a way to divvy it up, and from that, determine where we go from there. The woman disagreed, said everyone had been fine so far without deciding upon who owns what. We all own it, she declared, gesturing around her.
Heads perked up at the invoking of a once heralded concept: the we. It was being replaced by the I, some were saying. The I(s) were having it, gaining popularity, that is. They wanted things. They…they just wanted, period. And they wanted now, whatever they were wanting. Time mattered all of sudden. Time is short. However long these people had been around, they’d noticed that it wasn’t long enough, this time thing. From that point, I inferred that death existed in this world. It wasn’t so new that no one had known mortality, and loss. Indeed, from another discussion, sort of adjacent to the first one, that death and the manner of death, and beyond that, what we do about the dead was a source of great anxiety. There was even an air of guilt about, as if someone, or quite a few people, had been doing something they shouldn’t be doing.
Shoulds. It was as if they hadn’t thought of this before, this idea of how to behave and how not to. It was as if behavior had never been regulated before, as if right and wrong didn’t exist. And given what the woman had been saying, or implying, perhaps they hadn’t needed to think in such terms. The world, this world, might have been an oyster so far. It had seemed to not have limits, and therefore no one was at risk, or dependent upon one another. There was fruit on the trees for everyone, and none of it was forbidden. That concept—the forbidden—didn’t seem to exist either. Or, it didn’t yet. Suddenly, I had a feeling that I’d traveled to a moment in time when not just morality, but reflective thought, was in its infancy. Confused expressions abounded. About me there was a sense of pain that was dimly felt in bodies but was otherwise located, and emerging. They didn’t know what to call it, this thing. No one had conceived of a mind, only a body, but they knew that it was a problem, this new feeling from somewhere. The man from the first debate stepped up to a raised platform before the edifice. He coughed and then raised his voice to the gathered masses. Then he began a speech that referenced some leaflets and an overlooking billboard that would soon reveal revolutionary thoughts. We must develop groups that come together and reproduce from within, the man announced, now sounding regal and eloquent. He issued a strange decree: From groups, individuals from within a group can collect goods and property, and trade with other groups, but pass on property only to those within its own group.
It was time for a new society, the man was saying. Until now we have been a fit collective, sharing what was abundant and therefore not stirring our fears of what unknown lay beyond the horizon or above the sky. But goods are limited, we are realizing. Property is limited. This world we live in: we see its horizon, but now we know it has an end. He continued in a respectful voice: unlike his worthy female peer, he believed that rationing of goods equally between people was not the answer. That would work in the short-term only, when there was famine, perhaps. I was impressed. It was as if someone had grown in a moment, found a voice and taken an evolutionary step. The statesmanship forged his climactic thesis: we must craft a world wherein competition and vigor create opportunity and growth. Some will lose in this plan, but those who remain will prosper, and our offspring will be an improvement upon us as a result. His tone darkened, for he next spoke to the urban legend that had caused the gathering in the first place. We must avoid the calamity that has befallen our friends from elsewhere. We must not allow our supplies to get so low that we stoop to levels wherein we turn to each other for our basic needs. We cannot eat one another ever again! We cannot have relations with those who birthed us. The results, as we have seen or felt, are ugly. It is a horror to us, we have discovered. A moment of silence followed before the man raised an arm and gestured to the billboard, whose tarp-like cover was now withdrawn. I looked up to regard an advertisers invention familiar to the world from which my mind had traveled. With a marketing panache at home in any era, its message read, “Just say no to Incest”.