Believe in Your Dreams as an Act of Rebellion

Why you literally can't give up, sweetie.

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Okay, so. Howyousay… Shit’s fucked up.

I don’t care what side of the aisle you’re on, things are particularly overwhelming lately. The Everything Problems of Everyday Life follow us through our daily routines, to coffee, to work, to the toilet, to bed. News is airborne; we inhale current events like spores. Up through our nasal cavity, the news spores find and attach to the folds of our brains where they mutate from information to stress to malaise.

But there is something you can do. It won’t solve everything, but—

(What is it?!) (Tell me, sorceress!!) (What can I do?!)

Simple: I’m gonna need you to believe in your dreams, honey.

(What the fuck?) (How does that help?) (Lol what dreams)

I know, I know: Who cares about your silly little goals when all this Big Impossible Horrible Stuff is happening? Perhaps you feel your life is inconsequential. Perhaps you don’t see a point to your dreams because they feel impossible to achieve; casualties of the impossible job market or AI or general hopelessness or all the above. For whatevermany reasons, your dreams have been drained of their color. Transparent jellyfish, dead on the shore.

Unfortunately, I have news for you: you can’t give up.

Sorry! You’re simply not allowed to. If we’re going to get past this Unpredecented Time™ where inflation keeps inflating, haters keep hating, and planes have stopped… planing(?), I’m going to need you to conjure the spirit of what gets you up in the morning and let it fill your blood and bones body.

But why? Why not just sit your tired ass on the bench for the rest of forever? Because we need you, champ. I’m demanding you look away from the scoreboard and get back in the game. Having a dream? In this economy? Is the sweetest act of rebellion you can have when the system in which you live is telling you Game Over and/or changing the rules of the game entirely.

Dr. Martin Luther King (remix, 2025 edit): I need you to have a dream.

Let me explain.

I. Nihilism

Nihilism will be the death of us, if we let it. I’ve always said this. Always. Lol. Me, 5 years old in my little overalls, preaching to my preschool class like a tiny tyrant: Nihilism will kill us all. Expelled immediately!

To break it down, if you’re unfamiliar or need a refresher:

• Nihilism is “the philosophical belief that rejects the fundamental aspects of human existence, such as knowledge, morality, or meaning.”

• There is no justification for life, but also no reason not to live.

• Those who claim to find meaning in their lives are either dishonest or deluded.

• It's often associated with extreme pessimism and skepticism.

Perspective-wise, nihilism can go one of two ways:

1. Nothing matters —> I’m free!! I can do anything!!

2. Nothing matters —> What’s the fuckin’ point? Burn it down.

Let’s focus on #2, because that’s the perspective that’s poisoning the waterhole. And by waterhole I mean CNN, the New York Times, and most other mass media machines. It’s hard to feel like anything has a point when our systems don’t work and everything is bad news.

I’m not saying there isn’t bad news or that we should tune out bad news. There’s a lot of bad news. Dare I say there’s too much bad news. (Controversial, I know.) But what I rarely see? Is a narrative that suggests how things can improve. That highlights how things have improved. Giving us some sort of footholds on the rock climbing wall of Life that allow us to continue ascending instead of just a slippery blank wall of hopelessness.

So what does this have to do with your dreams? I’m getting there…

II. APOCALYPSE NOW!

If nihilism were Pikachu, then the apocalypse is Raichu.

Raichu is the Pokémon that Pikachu evolves into, are we following? I should have used a more recent reference. Gah DAMMIT Nat, you’re dating yourself.

Raichu is on the right and then they gave Pikachu a little brother?? What’s his name… Chikapu?

What I mean is, nihilism evolves into apocalypsism. If we think “life has no point so who cares, give up,” it’s easy to free-fall backward into the “well, I guess it’s the end of the world so who cares, give up.” People love imagining the end of the world. We can’t get enough of the idea. For centuries, humans have got off on this idea that the world as we know it is coming to an end:

• The Roman Sibylline Oracles predicted Rome's fall and world's end through divine punishment

• Montanism in the 2nd century CE predicted the imminent descent of the New Jerusalem in Phrygia

• The year 1000 CE saw widespread (though not universal) apocalyptic fervor in Europe

• The Black Death (1347-1351) sparked numerous end-times movements and predictions

• The Taborites in 15th century Bohemia believed they were living in the end times

• Various Muslim movements, like the Almohads, had strong apocalyptic elements

• German Anabaptists in Münster (1534-1535) created an apocalyptic commune believing the end was imminent

• The Fifth Monarchy Men in 1650s England believed Christ's kingdom was about to be established

• The Great Disappointment (1844) when William Miller's followers expected the Second Coming

• Various Native American religious movements like the Ghost Dance incorporated apocalyptic beliefs

• Jehovah's Witnesses made several predictions about the end times (1914, 1925, 1975)

• The Heaven's Gate cult believed the world would end with the arrival of the Hale-Bopp comet (1997)

• Various environmental doomsday predictions throughout the 20th-21st centuries

I mean c’mon… remember 2012?!

According to The Atlantic’s article “Apocalypse, Constantly,” “56 percent of people ages 16 to 25 agree with the statement ‘Humanity is doomed,’ while nearly a third of Americans expect an apocalyptic event to take place in their lifetime.”

The article goes on to say, “Young people today are no less obsessed with climate disasters than Gen X was with nuclear war. Where we had nightmares about missiles, theirs feature mass extinctions and climate refugees, wildfires and water wars. And that’s just the beginning… wherever you look in contemporary pop culture, humanity is getting wiped out—if not by pollution and extreme weather (as in Wall-E and The Day After Tomorrow), then by a meteor or comet (Armageddon, Deep Impact), a virus (Station Eleven, The Walking Dead ), or sudden, inexplicable infertility (Children of Men).”

Assuredness in the apocalypse bubbles up like acid reflux in our collective gut during periods of social upheaval or rapid change. Just like with nihilism, this feeling leads into forked perspectives:

1. Apathy (bad): The world is ending, so WHATEVER. Spend your final days Clockwork-Oranging yourself with memes and repeat episodes of Theo Von’s podcast! Eat congealed Postmates takeout as you dissolve into your couch like a greasy little butter pat while the world around you crumbles to ash!

2. Motivation (good): Let’s reform the bad things that make us feel the apocalypse is inevitable.

Your dreams drive perspective #2. Okay let’s bring this all home:

III. Oh Captain, my Captain?

So what does all of this have to do with your dream of opening a cat cafe or an auto body shop or starting another startup that delivers food or having a beautiful bouncing baby child?

Pursuing what gives your own life meaning contributes to the greater meaning in all of humanity. (Go tell this to someone on mushrooms to absolutely blow their mind.) And giving up? Allows the six or seven or howeverfew people are at the very top of the socioeconomic totem pole to drive our 8 billion person minivan into the ocean because we’re all just passive passengers who don’t care where the car goes because we’re already convinced it’s destined for hell. No bueno.

In other words: How do we emerge from the I Give Up hole? Together.

Life is a team sport, believe it or not. American culture might have you believe otherwise. “Every man for himself! Looking out for each other is gay!!!” (a quote from someone in Trump’s cabinet, probably.)

It makes me think of playing college soccer. During my time on the team, we’d won a National Title and been to the Final Four every year, but come my senior season we weren’t doin’ as hot. We had all of the talent, but didn’t have a solid leader. A team captain to assure us post-loss that we could emerge stronger. A loss beget another loss beget more weird uncharacteristic losses. We limped into the playoffs and piddled out from there because nobody really believed that things were going to get better. We manifested our own apocalypse.

Against any odds, believe in your life. The world will only end if everyone lies down and dies. I’ve been disappointed and kicked in the shins a billion times over and I know so many people who’ve been kicked harder and more often and still persevere. Together we can rise up… and lower the price of eggs. FOREGGVER!

(Forgive me.)

I mean it: your personal dreams are important. They’re leaves on the tree of the group dream. The I Have a Dream level society-big dream. The dream, nay the belief that tomorrow is going to be okay. Or at least, tomorrow is going to exist. Because it will. Because it has to.

IV. Ok that’s it shut up

DO YOU BELIEVE IN YOUR DREAMS YET?? It’s your duty.

Go forth, pour CNN into your eyes first thing in the morning, but only insofar as it’s not paralyzing or morale-destroying.

Love y’all.

nat