inception – Anthony Otero

The Vague Truth

The truth of the matter is that many of us spend to much time talking and not enough time doing. It is very easy to list out goals and things we would like to do. In fact, there are movies, blogs, and books just dedicated to the pursuit of dreams and what to do in case of the “what if” becomes reality. The question is when do we start to walk the walk that we happen to be talking about?

I have grown tired of the talk, so tired that I have been really slacking in the amount of blogs that I have been writing. I cannot get into, yet another blog, about my dreams and goals because it is not getting me anywhere except for one way ticket to Inception. At least in there you can live out your dreams in an actual dream, but this real life where many people do not seem to dream anymore.

My reality is based on haves and have nots. I know what I have and I know what I do not have. I know what I can live with and what I can live without. There is a measure of sacrifice that we all must have. With sacrifice comes humility. I can be truly humbled by what opportunities come my way because despite wanting to be recognized and revered on some levels, I never come to expect that. With humility comes the ability to connect with others. Sure, people can respect your gangsta. They can respect how you get things done and how you go about climbing the ladder of life, but if you cannot be humble then people will always try to bring you down a peg.

I look at this year so far and I recognize that I have placed all my pawns on the board in front of my real intentions. I have been calculating to a point of being ruthless because I have leaned to be 5 steps ahead and anticipating all the things that may happen. I have been strategic with my decisions with no apology. I have gotten to an age where I cannot care what someone thinks about me, however, I have not given anyone the opportunity to think anything but the best of me. Yet, if they do think about me in a negative way, I am willing to bet money (that I don’t have) that they have either misunderstood me or failed to comprehend the situation.

There are actually four sides to every story, your side, their side, the media distortion, and the truth. When I say media distortion that can be the actual media or a person’s distortion of a Facebook post or Tweet. The truth is always a vague one. I feel sorry for those who see the world as Black and White because in reality we are all various shades of gray (no pun intended).

divorce, inception, love, my life, no regrets

Regret vs. Remorse

Don’t you want to take a leap of faith? Or become an old man, filled with regret, waiting to die alone! – Saito (Inception)

In my last post, I mentioned that I do not have any regret in my life. That is because everything that has happened has happened for a reason. I do not live in the past in order to find solace or answers because my life is what it is. I know that my experience have shaped me into who I am right now. The question that I got yesterday was…do I feel remorseful for all that has gone wrong? Well, yes I do. But, there is a difference between remorse and regret.

If I regretted anything then that would make it very hard to live for the moment and plan goals for the future the way I do. Remorse is more of feeling bad due to a sense of loss. Trust me, I lost a lot. I have lost a marriage and a certain way of life. That itself was so hard to deal with for such a long time but, all things get better with time. It is my opinion that regretting the end of my marriage would mean regretting getting being married.

I am a culmination of my experiences. A total of my decisions made and not made. I cannot think about “what ifs” because there is no point. Of course, there is the fantasizing of what could have been, but many times that may hinder life in the moment. Perhaps it is better to just believe there are millions of parallel earths where anything that could have happened does happen. Which means that the reality that we live in right now is the one we need to deal with.

I do not want to live a life of regret. That would just not be the way to go. We all have peaks and valleys in our experiences. A life without issues would frankly be boring. There is nothing to learn if we did not have stress to overcome. It is ok to remorseful for a loss of a love, a loss of a job, or a loss of a dog (I still think about Rusty and I still, to this day, cry just a little bit…). But regret? Where does that get me?

I love the fact that I have had the experience I have had. I have been in love so many times and have had my heart broken many times. I have lived through the horror of 9/11 first hand. I have survived rolling my car and totaling it. I have seen the beauty of a glorious sunset in places that are not in this country. I have pulled people from a car wreck. I have let people cry in my arms and I have cried in others. How can I regret living a life that allows me to express my emotion through writing?

I am not saying I do not have a heavy heart. I love hard. I just could never love right. I am trying to use every last bit of experience to do things the right way. So, I can love my family the right way, so I can love Rocky the right way, so I can love the next woman the right way, and maybe…just maybe..if I get lucky enough, I can love a child the right way.

See, I cannot regret my past. Everything and everyone has played a critical role in my life to get me where I am today. So that I can love myself and have the courage to go out and get what I want from life. So I do feel remorse for what was, but I cannot let that feeling own me because then that would lead to regret for what could have been.

I am not saying that I need to forget the past but I refuse to let it own me.

“I miss you more than I can bear, but we had our time together. I have to let you go.” – Cobb (Inception)

inception, love, my life, women

Projections (Inception)

“Dreams feel real while we’re in them. It’s only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange.”

One thing that I have always been fascinated with are dreams. I feel that this is the one thing that I have always had in my life. When I was a kid, most of my dreams were outlandish and vivid. I also feel that I have had more nightmares as a kid than normal dreams. In taking dream courses in college I have learned a few things about how the mind works when sleeping. I really believe that the answers to all of personal problems are locked away inside for us to figure out. Our subconscious feeds us these answers bit by bit until we can understand.

I have been a bit obsessed with the movie, Inception. I do not plan on shedding details for those who have not seen it, I will say this, to me, Inception is a must see movie. Sure, there is a lot of action and the special effects are off the chain, but the concept of the movie is what gets me. Essentially, we are talking about the birth of ideas and human thoughts. Do most of these things manifest themselves through dreams? I am not really sure but how many times has someone has said, “sleep on it” before you make a decision? Perhaps there was a time when a situation became clearer after a nap.

Dreams are just as important as sleep itself. We always dream. Many people will say they do not dream, but that is not true. We do dream but our minds do not always remember them. I know that I have come accustomed to interpreting my dreams and the dreams of others but, only we know the true meanings of our dreams if we break them down. The funny thing is that we may dream of specific people but dreams are rarely about specific people. Often times, the people we dream about are projections that represent something else, we just need to figure out what that is.

Projections and the acting of projecting are psychological in nature. In dreams, we project our own characteristics and natures onto other people. So we may see them for what they really are or what we may want them to be. Other times they are just a mirror looking back at us and portraying the things we least like about ourselves.

What makes projections unique is the fact that we can do this when awake. I have often talked about the ability that people have to lie to themselves. When people project their fears and undesirable qualities on to other people, this makes for this type of fuel. Many of us know people who think that nothing they do is their own fault and will blame others for their failures. Although many of us will say that they are completely honest with themselves (and indeed some of us are), keep in mind that we all project. A good example is telling a story in a certain way to make someone look good or bad. We are projecting whatever qualities to create a desired outcome.

We can project based on our own insecurities. Ever see a man who is known to cheat on his women be completely jealous of all the attention she may get from other guys? This person is the type to believe that because he cheats that everyone must do it. That all the things he has done is not his fault because that is the way life is so, no matter how honest the woman, she must have those same qualities and will thus do the same thing he did. Clearly he is living in pure denial that he is doing anything remotely wrong.

This is also very similar to the woman who thinks that certain men are a challenge. Because he is a bad guy, she can change him because she sees the good qualities in him. Not to say that a man like that does not have any good qualities, but often times she is projecting the qualities she wants him to have in order to justify her attraction to him. This may in fact play to her insecurities that she is simply not good enough or worth the affections of a good man.

How we view people in our dreams becomes very important. I know that when I was a little boy, I had dreams of meeting a woman that would complete me. She had a golden brown skin tone and the most beautiful hair that I could ever imagine. I think that I may have placed my projection of her in some of the women I have fell in love with thus placing some on a pedestal they may have never deserved. That is my issue and I own it. The problem with this is me not imagining the complexities and imperfections that make a woman so flawed and yet so very sexy.

We just need to manage our expectations of people and ourselves before we place the wrong projection on the wrong person. If you have not seen Inception, you need to and perhaps what I just said…will make more sense.