Hughes Ch.5-8, Pearce Ch.8-9

Hughes brought up an interesting point about daydreaming and fantasies. He said first that “fantasies are the stuff of daydream or reverie, the state which Wordsworth described as being “both asleep and awake.” And Hughes also said that Freud identified fantasies as “unsatisfied wishes.” This stuff he is talking about is not direct, so it’s hard to know what kind of stuff he is referring too. But, one thing is I don’t believe fantasies are all unsatisfied wishes. Sometimes I believe your brain just has time where it continues to think about topics that intrigue you. Not all fantasies are wishes. Sometimes I think about moving into a big house in Hollywood, but the truth is I would actually never move away from Pennsylvania. It’s the interest of what it would be like if I was someone else, like a movie star. My dream occupation is not with acting at the slightest interest, but I believe people just grow intrigued in comparison to how other people’s lives are different from us. Among the other topics discussed in the assigned chapters, was creativity, under the topic of therapy. This is true, creativity can be looked at for majority of people as an out. Every person in the world has something they do, whether they notice it or not, which helps them just get into a zone, or give them a break from reality. Some zones could even last a second, like scratching a lottery ticket. For me, I can escape reality and just be creative while I am at work. My job deals with retail so constantly I change floor plans, which to me is fun. I enjoy configuring merchandise and clothing to make it more appealing and quickly accessible for customers. It’s like a big puzzle. Some days it works out great, it feels as if all my ideas just automatically click with each other, and then other days this mental zone or ease of creativity fades, when ideas are not working out, and I have to use one of my other “outs.” I know some people who find their out by playing sports. My one friend who is really great at basketball will just go shoot by herself for a while when she is frustrated. Another thing I enjoy doing is taking long runs in the morning. It could be freezing out or scorching hot, but if I am frustrated and need my “out,” I will go for a nice jog just as the sun is coming up, with no Ipod, or anything to distract me, and as I run just take in the peace of the atmosphere. It’s a perfect time to just see how beautiful the day is, even if after my jog I know I will be weighed down with assignments, work, and errands. Once I am done, I feel ready to face what is bothering me head on, and it helps me too to just have that quite time to figure out how. Sometimes it may not be easy running. Depending on how you physically feel, it may cause a lot of pain to your knees, cause side stitches, hurts your calves from running hills, the sweat may burn your eyes, you have cars going by who are getting a little too close sometimes, but at the same time it’s an addiction because I feel so good inside, as if weight was lifted off my shoulders after I am done. It becomes a feeling of relief, which I feel creativity is. In away I feel Pearce has a quote from his chapter that attributes. “The cause of the need is the cause of the fulfillment of the need, as Langer quotes Fluger.” (Pearce 136)