Day-dreamer

For the people that sit and stare

I’ve often fantasised about being able to take a step into the minds of others. Wondering if their minds are like mine. I’m curious to understand how others see the world and I wonder if their minds are as busy as mine is.

I am a deep thinker; in fact, the journeys I take along the many winding paths and twists and turns in my mind can render me exhausted. The world around me isn’t just a place on which to put my feet, it isn’t just a vessel in which to conduct my life. I’m transfixed by every tiny little bit of it. I am in it not just on it. I get caught up in the way a leaf falls from a tree or the way the light falls across the kitchen table, the sights, the smells, the feel of the space around me often forces me to pause. It sparks a journey inside of me that sees me disappear into my mind and not return for quite some time. I wonder if I should wear a notice around my neck that says ‘Not available, gone exploring.’ Sometimes what comes of that journey is something tangible to create: words, music, art. Sometimes it can deplete me of energy, and sometimes it can lift me up.

At school, they called me a daydreamer, and they were right. But it’s not the bad thing that some people think it is. Without the daydreamers, there would be no songs, art, or literature. There would be no mental-health support, the professionals that sit with those in pain and journey into another persons mind alongside them. I can spot a day-dreamer a mile off. Quiet on the outside and alive and busy on the inside. Don’t be fooled by the person that sits and stares. They are not unproductive, they are not lazy. They are on a journey, they are creating. Leave them be.

I love being a day-dreamer, I don’t need much, just my brain and an environment that inspires. My only frustration, nay, a sadness, is that I haven’t created anything massive from the journeys I’ve taken into my mind. I’ve tried over the years, but it hasn’t quite reached the many I had hoped or added value to the world around me. And I feel like something is missing from my life as a result; my mind can’t rest as it continues on many journeys to see if there’s something great and wonderful within that I can share with the world.

You see, there’s always a pull, a tug at the hearts of daydreamers, a need to go on exploring our minds searching for something, something big, something profound, something moving, something life-changing.

Maybe I’ll find it one day. Maybe I already have.

Or maybe I have brought something to a few, and that’s enough.