Is Violence the Engine of Progress?

Our emotions mature, but unable to find an outlet, they languish. Time passes, and we forget the reasons and circumstances that led to the emotion. However, it waits for its moment. And that moment comes. While we sleep and are unable to control ourselves, we are defenceless. The emotion, often intense, takes over our minds. It leads to surprising and sometimes wild images in our dreams. It is like a genie in a bottle. If it does not receive a task in response to its prompt, it will start to invent one for itself. And what a mess it creates.

Without control over our mind and consciousness, emotions in dreams lead to frivolous fantasies. Trying to make sense of them and drawing real conclusions is like trying on the "emperor's new clothes." We think we are dressed in the beautiful garments of our feelings and protected from prying eyes. In reality, the "emperor has no clothes." And he does not realise it until a child points it out to him.

Sometimes we want to solve a problem by relying on a dream. And when a mistake emerges, we think we misinterpreted our dream. If only we had done things differently, then everything in life would have worked out. Well, the self-deception continues. Everyone around us sees that the emperor has no clothes, but he looks at himself and marvels. After all, the tailor convinced us it would be the best dress in the world. He even took measurements and pretended to sew.

So it is with the dream emotion. It will haunt us and make us believe it is a true reality, which we simply do not yet see. "I am delicate and subtle," it tells us, "so much so that I am inaccessible and invisible to the crude and ignorant. You are not like everyone else. You must see and understand what others are incapable of understanding. Act as shown to you in the dream – it means such and such. You and only you can sense the reality of what is happening to you in a dream."

And here we are, caught. No one can prove to us the illusory and artificial nature of our emotions. We are convinced that our dreams are certainly special, prophetic. Without consulting or discussing them, we devise a plan of action based on what we saw in the dream. The emotion rejoices, as if to say, "Finally, you have understood me and come to your senses." It ignores the arguments of reason and pays no attention to the reproaches of our conscience.

From now on, our boss is possessiveness or jealousy, resentment or anger, suspicion, fear, or despair. Why is this emotion negative, you ask? Because positive emotion acts without violence, empathises – it is akin to our reason. Negativity imposes itself, compels us to agree with it, and forces others to do the same. And, in fact, it tells us, violence is the engine of progress. This is how great mistakes have been made, unfortunately, not in the lives of just one person, but of entire nations.

Anything can happen in dreams. Good things come and stay, without trying to destroy us from within. Negativity is a splinter in the memory. It sticks out until it is removed. But it can also become an abscess and pus. The longer the splinter lives, the more painful it is to remove. If you try to live with it, accept it as part of yourself, the splinter will develop into a tumour. Then surgery will be needed. It will help... until the tumour becomes malignant.

So, let us leave the story of today's dream for tomorrow's dream. We will soon see whether it was worth taking seriously. After all, it is not the last dream of our lives to worry about.