Dreams at Midlife

[Phoebe]

Do you think it is necessary to have hopeful dreams for the future in order to be happy?
Do you have any such dreams?
I am curious since most people here are in some zone of midlife - surely no more than halfway through - but at least in the middle, right?
And I was listening to someone talking about this who believes that such future dreams are necessary for happiness, but I find that my dreams of the future grow far less personal over time. I'm mainly concerned that my kids will be able to live on this planet and carve out some kind of decent life for themselves in this country. Right now it's not clear that either of those things is a great bet, but they are hopeful dreams of the future. At least we work on setting ourselves up for such a future.
For myself though? I find that I don't really have such dreams but I'm not sure that is necessary for happiness. I've done most of the things I really wanted to do in life, and the things I thought I still wanted to do grow less important over time relative to things like, try not to live in a nursing home.
Try to forestall specific health problems you expect, so that at least you die of something else surprising in the meantime.
Try to get the house painted both inside and out. Does that even count as a life-dream? Reader, given the rarity and difficulty of making it happen, Yes it does. Everything here has to be done on a rigid sequence, although I may rebel and paint my kitchen regardless of what anyone has to say about it.
I have traveled to the places I really cared to travel - It would be nice to return to some or go to others but none of it is really necessary.
I would like once more to live with a cat who actually likes me, instead of cats that merely tolerate my presence and become solicitous only when someone else has forgotten to put out their water.
Otherwise to be honest all of my dreams involve other people getting what they want, whatever that might be since we don't know yet.
I'm not even sure I have a dream of grandchildren like I used to think I would have, because how the hell are grandchildren going to live here? If you imagine any grandchildren born 10 years from now or more are likely going to be alive when some form of catastrophic climate change effects occur, why would we want to inflict that upon them? That's a choice best left to the kids you know, whether they want to have kids someday. I would hate for my grandkids to not be living in a democracy as well, or for my kids to have to make terrible choices about leaving me or leaving the country in order to have a future for their own kids. I hate to sound so bleak about it but I'm not really sure if we're going to make it that far.

[Akiva]

I don't know if dreams are necessary for happiness. Other than hopes for my kids, I don't really have any. And I'm pretty sure it's not a lack of dreams that makes me unhappy--it's the fact that I'm a fuck up.

Which brings me to someone I hate that a lot of people do--talk about how you should follow your dream. I did that for about 13 years, and all I got was a useless education and a whole lot of debt. And of course it exacerbated my already strong self-hatred.

[bralbovsky]

Another reason folks believe a previous time was ostensibly better is that we didn't know anything.

We didn't know (because no one could post photos) what our neighbors and friends were eating.
We didn't know what our crush would look like with puppy ears.
We didn't see how far we have to go to make the society truly what it's alleged to be in the brochure.

Once we got a glimpse of the effects of napalm, and the universal reality of Zimbardo's experiment, and huge chunks of ice sloughed from Antarctica...happiness became harder.

[bralbovsky]

To actually address your question, no.
In the third half of my life, I have a few desires, some of which are within my power....

My dreams have always been uniformly terrible and unpleasant. A mix of Faces of Death and the bleakest parts of The Martian.
I guess I should be happy to have avoided all the trauma I envisioned.
I have come to understand that I am unlikely to travel the country with a sharp knife and a long list.
I have come to appreciate small achievements.
The dread, and the sense that I have already failed to usefully prevent doom are consistent.
Other than that, I settle for relief. Occasionally I feel useful.
I have come, I think, to a Lovecraftian maturity, where I comprehend that the forces we are fighting are cosmic in scope, nevertheless, I keep passing the open windows and throwing myself out of bed.

[Phoebe]

I blame the fact that I've seen this on you, and I mean directly on you. Do you think I had agency, do you think my fingers were under my own direction when I had to search for this once you had mentioned the phrase? And it's not okay, b, it's not okay because he looks so much worse in this picture:

[Phoebe]

I don't know if dreams are necessary for happiness. Other than hopes for my kids, I don't really have any.

That's the thing - it's like it transfers to your kids. I have hopes about my kids. For myself I just wish to escape the worst forms of suffering? But that's not really a positive dream you're trying to work on, like other kinds of productive "dreaming it into being".

[Phoebe]

Other than that, I settle for relief. Occasionally I feel useful.
I have come, I think, to a Lovecraftian maturity, where I comprehend that the forces we are fighting are cosmic in scope, nevertheless, I keep passing the open windows and throwing myself out of bed.

This is both a great way of putting it but also something I have never really contemplated properly before, so at the same time it resonates with current thoughts but I'm going to have to sit with that for about a week. Maybe it is enough to be mildly useful.

[Mike]

What do we mean by 'dreams' here? Are dreams just hopes for the future? That's how I picture them, and you can have big dreams or little dreams.

My dream (one of them) is to have the time and resources to travel more often and explore. Maybe as the kids move out. At my stage of life, this is very achievable with just a little planning. Does that mean it's not really a dream? Can achievable goals be dreams? If not, then are we saying that dreams have to inherently be unachievable...or at least have to be unlikely? Because if that's the case, then I think pinning your happiness to a thing that is really unlikely or that depends on large amounts of luck seems really unhealthy.

[Akiva]

Because if that's the case, then I think pinning your happiness to a thing that is really unlikely or that depends on large amounts of luck seems really unhealthy.

I agree, but sometimes it can't be helped.

[Phoebe]

What do we mean by 'dreams' here? Are dreams just hopes for the future? That's how I picture them, and you can have big dreams or little dreams.

This is basically what I mean, yes. I used to have a lot of them of different types, big and small, and over time as they were either achieved or abandoned I found that I didn't generate many new ones and instead most of them are just fixated on my kids, so there's a kind of blank space where the specific content goes. Wish for success of child in ? School, ? Career, ? Future. Whereas before I used to have specific plans about these things and dreams of achieving certain goals. Most are achievable but sometimes not - like I have a dream to sing karaoke someday or a dream about what I would do if I were made president for a month, but I don't expect to achieve these things. When I look for the more realistic ones they're just not really present.

[Tahlvin]

I have plenty of "dreams" in terms of things I would like to do/accomplish. Have the house remodeled. Once the last kid is off to college, take some time for the wife and I to travel to Europe. I have my pilots license, but due to the risk and expenses involved in flying on a non-professional basis, I haven't really done much flying in the past 30 years or so. I would love to get back into it, and get my own small plane that I could putter around in. Once the youngest is out of college and we don't have to worry quite so much about what would happen if I died in a crash, and the expenses of owning and maintaining a plane are within our financial means, that may be something I'm able to do. But I also realize that my dreams have changed, and flying isn't as important to me now as it was 30 years ago before the cost became prohibitive, so if I don't pick it back up, that's fine, it will at least be my choice that other dreams have become more important. And of course I have plenty of dreams for our kids, to be healthy, happy, etc.

I do think it becomes important to have some sort of dream or goal you are aiming for, even if those dreams change to be more focused on your kids achieving their dreams and less on yourself. If you don't have something to work towards, you just become one of those people who drops dead within weeks of retirement because you didn't know what to do with yourself. As of right now, that's not a problem I see myself or my wife having when I retire.

[Phoebe]

I think that's very important too - your dreams can't all be related to one sector of life that could end and give way to another sector. So if you haven't developed any particular goals outside of work, and you function well while having a goal, then you will be bereft upon retirement. Or if your goal was to fly a plane and then suddenly you couldn't do it anymore... Replacement goals needed. Travel is a good one. I probably should be more excited about it - maybe part of the problem is that the pandemic thing has killed my desire to travel, but I've also been to most of the places I would have wanted to go. Remodeling is a nice kind of medium term but achievable thing.

I can't imagine myself ever being bored or not completely busy with things to do, but the problem is that they're all just day-to-day activities of the constant Sisyphean-churn type. The more pleasant ones are things like gardening or dog training or other regular events that at least indicate progress or yield results. Doing the dishes everyday doesn't really yield anything except more dishes. Becoming a better cook doesn't do anything for me except that I want to eat more of my own food, and occasionally the kids prefer the food I make them. What is all of it for? It used to be for the sake of having and raising kids.