Getting to know people / Dreams

Spork

Active member
I have some things I like to find out about people as I am getting to know them. So in this thread, feel free to either:

- Suggest things you say or ask as you're getting to know someone...
- Share opinions on the questions that I, or another poster, might ask...
- Answer any of the questions with your own input...

You get the idea.

One question I love to ask people is this:
"If you could instantly shape your reality with no limitations into your dream life, if everything were to be exactly the way you would like for your own happiness...no boundaries, no barriers, all your wishes come true...what would that look like?"

This tells me a great deal about the person, and my compatibility with them. I actually DO believe that most dreams are at least possible, or that one should live with the hope that one's dreams can be reality if one works hard enough to achieve them. And I dream in accordance with this belief, as nowhere in my dream reality will one find anything conditional upon the cooperation of a given other person. I fundamentally don't believe that one can rely on anyone but themselves, for something as critical as their own basic happiness. Others will come and go...but I have to live with myself.

Some aspects of my future dreaming exercises are fluid and uncertain. I like many kids of dwellings for instance, and while a log cabin of my own design in the mountains, or a condo on the beach, sounds neat...I really am a city girl and I love the industrial loft style apartments in some cities. They are insanely expensive here, though. I also love historical homes, old Victorians, cute artsy little cottage bungalows... So I think I could be happy with one of a variety of housing outcomes.

The important stuff, though...I want a profession where I make, build, create, and network. I want to buy and sell weird art, and I want to make stuff to sell also. I have a deep need to work with my hands and make things, and I don't do enough of that...but at the same time I doubt I could create enough to make a living, and I am hyper-social and love huge networks/communities, and I know tons of weird, creative people. So I want to do something with all of that stuff. I would ideally travel to conventions and trade shows and events and meet, and do business with, people from all over the world. And then write off all of that travel on my taxes. It'd be great.

I'd be able to maintain a good balance in my relationships between committed and casual, and stay more or less poly, though I expect that the individuals that I had relationships with, would come and go over the years. I'd maintain my own home with no one else living in it (whatever kind of home it might be) and have tons of friends.

And in grandiose dream terms, I'd be able to plan, organize, and host the most amazing party events. Whether I had the property to do it, or had to rent a place...it would be part music festival, part cookout and chill around the fire pit, and part Burning Man. I'd get hundreds of people there and serve amazing food, I'd have not only my favorite musical acts but all kinds of circus type performers, fire spinners and jugglers, body painting, burlesque acts. All the fun things. And since money is no issue in this dream, I'd be able to afford to transport in all of my friends who couldn't afford to be there on their own.
 
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"If you could instantly shape your reality with no limitations into your dream life, if everything were to be exactly the way you would like for your own happiness ... no boundaries, no barriers, all your wishes come true ... what would that look like?"

One word: immortality. (Invincibility would make it even better.)

More info available on request ... :)
 
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One word: immortality. (Invincibility would make it even better.)

More info available on request ... :)

I dunno man, did you read the Anne Rice "Vampire" books...? It's always been part of the angst behind the vampire concept that immortality is like...really hard and stuff. ;)
 
Haha, I'll take my chances. Bite me vampire!
 
Perhaps I just lack imagination, but my dream life looks pretty much like my real life but without the niggling inconveniences related to lack of time and money.

Back in the tumultuous times when Dude and I got together and things went sideways (temporarily) with MrS, I had this daydream that we could somehow just ... work things out and live happily ever after. So, THAT happened:p! (OK, "ever" is a long time - but 5 years is a good start.)

I bought my Forever Home, and have plans for additions and enhancements. If I won the lottery, those things would just happen faster.:rolleyes:

So the plan is - work, play, rest. Meet interesting people, go on interesting adventures, eat good food, drink good beer...love and be loved.
 
....one's dreams can be reality if one works hard enough to achieve them. And I dream in accordance with this belief, as nowhere in my dream reality will one find anything conditional upon the cooperation of a given other person.

I absolutely know that our dreams can become our everyday reality and that this is never dependent on one's circumstances or on cooperation from others. It's not hard work that gets us there, but our own self perception and what we tell ourselves to be true, every minute of every day. Whatever you think is true is what you'll see come alive before you because our outer world always reflects our inner world. Dreams aren't made manifest by hard work, but by consistent and confident vision, free of doubt and fear. Work certainly flows out of this confidence, but the work isn't what drives the manifestation of the dream.

As I say ad nauseum around here, the way to change relationships (or achieve dreams of a better love life) is not to have endless negotiations and adhere to tropes like "communication is key." Talk is nothing, but the energy behind them is everything. Talk really is cheap. We can move mountains by taking the focus off of "talks" and "hard work" and putting our thoughts into a steadfast and sure footed vision of what is possible. The reason many of us meet with failure (in relationships or in any aspect of life) is always and only because we include an awful lot of fear and doubt in our thoughts of what we believe to be true and possible. It's always our perception of what we believe to be true that creates what we experience in our world.

How all of this relates to getting to know people: If someone lives a very circumstantial life and especially if someone is bent on blaming others, bad luck and "life" for his/her unpleasant experiences, that person is likely not someone I'd gel with or hang out with for very long. I gravitate toward people who know that life is what you make it and tend to look further than the everyday and see possibilities.
 
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"If you could instantly shape your reality with no limitations into your dream life, if everything were to be exactly the way you would like for your own happiness...no boundaries, no barriers, all your wishes come true...what would that look like?"

My life is as I would dream. I have the skills and knowledge to do the voluntary work that interests me. I have paid work that fascinates me on a number of levels. Good social time. And - plenty of free time to spend as I choose. Enough money to do the things that interest me and little enough money that I don't lose sight of how lucky I am to be in the position I am.

I don't agree that working hard is the way to achieve dreams. I don't focus on working hard and never have done. I focus most on doing things that interest me.
 
I've learned that dreams can be very limited and self-limiting. In actuality, life can bring us riches far, far beyond what we can ever allow ourselves to dream or imagine, so the key is to be open to possibility and not hold on too tightly to the dreams, or we'll miss what is right in front of us. A dream is only an inkling, a beginning.

On the topic of questions to ask when getting to know someone, I don't have a script. It will depend on the person, the environment in which we met, things that they've said or done, and so on. I don't like how impersonal it feels to me if someone is asking me a standard get-to-know-you kind of question they've devised ahead of time.
 
One question I love to ask people is this:
"If you could instantly shape your reality with no limitations into your dream life, if everything were to be exactly the way you would like for your own happiness...no boundaries, no barriers, all your wishes come true...what would that look like?"
Not having a physical body. Floating around as some kind of StarTrek-y "energy life form", communicating by telepathy. Also, being able to perceive reality objectively, without any kind of sensory, mental, or psychological bias.

(So, in short... I obviously don't like to be a human being, and am, at my core, constantly and irreparably frustrated. *sigh* )
 
Worth noting: Despite my relentless pragmatism, when I say "hard work" I do not necessarily mean toiling away miserably, sacrificing happiness today in the hopes of a happy tomorrow. I mean being patient and continuing to put your energy into your goals--so I mean something more like dedicated effort.

As an artist and maker, this is an important concept. I'm way behind on my art obligations, and it's actually really challenging for me to get started and get my projects accomplished. One might think that my art, not being a thing I went to college for and not being a thing I do as my primary profession, is recreational much in the same fashion as reading a book or playing a game. It's not, I have to stop procrastinating, and devote the time and effort into making what I want to make, shut out a million distractions that would otherwise occupy my time, and DO THE THINGS.

I have goals that are directly tied to my productivity and reputation as an artist, and if I just don't make much stuff, those goals will never come to fruition. What I put my energy into, my time, my "hard work," will dictate which path my future takes and whether I realize my dreams or not. Because alternately, I can put that time and energy into finishing my accounting education and furthering my career in this field. That might bring me the money to achieve some of my other dreams and goals, though.

And my dreams are not remotely limited or limiting...they are constantly evolving and morphing as I live life. My dreams are free to change and they do all the time.
 
My dream life looks a LOT like JaneQSmythe's real life. :) <3

That said, I approach it more like nycindie - based on the situation, what I know, etc.

That said, I like this for a question:
What would you do if you knew you could not fail?
 
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"What would you do if you knew you could not fail?"

Develop and implement life extension. (Repeatedly.) I know, I'm boring. :cool:
 
My dream life looks a LOT like JaneQSmythe's real life. :) <3

:D Just living the dream! :p

That said, I like this for a question:
What would you do if you knew you could not fail?

I'd be a science-fiction novelist. But that is my "retirement plan" anyway and it won't matter if "fail"..:rolleyes:

(I'd also like to know that I could "master" off-grid living as an Alaskan bush person...but I am too lazy to bother. Reminds me of Heinlein's story: "The Man Who Was Too Lazy to Fail")
 
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As an artist and maker, this is an important concept. I'm way behind on my art obligations, and it's actually really challenging for me to get started and get my projects accomplished. One might think that my art, not being a thing I went to college for and not being a thing I do as my primary profession, is recreational much in the same fashion as reading a book or playing a game. It's not, I have to stop procrastinating, and devote the time and effort into making what I want to make, shut out a million distractions that would otherwise occupy my time, and DO THE THINGS.

I 100% get this - I, by some standards, am a professional artist too (freelance graphic designer, although most of what I do is corporate enough that I'm a bit fuzzy about it being art). But I so rarely have any creative energy left for personal art projects, I read books and FB and socialize instead which is awesome and yet I do miss doing personal art.

As for the original question? With unlimited resources I'd be a restaurant developer (other people would do day-to-day management, I'd provide vision and capital). That, and I'd have a live-in childcare person so I could go out after my son went to sleep whenever I want (I'm a night person, he doesn't usually get up after he goes to sleep, so I get very frustrated at being stuck at home a lot in the 8-12pm time frame...)
 
Hm also...given the ability to make any dream come unconditionally true, I would get the chance to have kinky sexytime with the two famous Peters that I am totally, droolingly smitten with... Dinklage and Capaldi. Shameless fangirl here.

That tousled hair, those smoldering expressions...yar...

And a cynical, cocky older guitarist with a Scottish accent? :cool: Mmmm hm.

No coincidence that they both play very clever men on my favorite shows, either.
 
It's always our perception of what we believe to be true that creates what we experience in our world.

Oh, so when somebody is not paying attention while driving and I'm crossing (walking) in a crosswalk (with the walk signal saying it's my turn to do so) and they almost run me over in the crosswalk (I leap to prevent myself from a hospital visit or the morgue) my perceptions and beliefs somehow *caused* this to happen? It happens to me all the time, so I suppose it has nothing to do with other people not paying attention to what they are doing at all, but rather is a fault in my perceptions and beliefs -- which makes it about me and not about a society in which millions and millions of people think it unnecessary to look where they are going while driving.

Climate change (global warming), nuclear proliferation, war, corruption in politics and government, and the guy with the bad attitude at the local coffee shop, too, are about my mental / emotional state, and never about other people and THEIR stuff.

Well then, none of us need pay any attention while driving, then. Okay, got it.

there are no real social problems, or real problems or challenges at all, for it's all a big dream in which people experience only what's going on in their personal perceptions and beliefs. The entire world is a kind of mirror of me, of you, of whomever..., in which nothing is ultimately real and true or factual at all. If a fire happens in an apartment building and people die in that fire, it was not caused by a match, a cigarette or a faulty gas stove, but by a faulty perception or belief.

Okay, right. Got it.
 
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I should add that it is to me rather obvious that we in fact do have a tremendous, largely unacknowledged, power of influence over our lives vis-à-vis our beliefs, attitudes and assumptions. A really good example would be if Bobby deeply believed "no one likes me" he will surely behave toward people in such a way that there will have a strong self-fulfilling prophesy component. Bobby would be off-putting toward those who might like to get to know him, overly skeptical and suspicious toward signs of affection..., etc. It's very difficult to befriend a person who is sure nobody could be his or her genuine friend! The reverse is also true. If I expect people to like me, a good many people probably will -- provided I treat them with kindness, dignity and respect.

Self-fulfilling prophesy is a profoundly powerful force in our world, but it doesn't determine EVERYTHING, all the time. And thinking that it does is more than a little nutty. I do not create the weather, for example, with my perceptions or beliefs. I do color how I experience the weather with my beliefs and perceptions, attitudes..., though.

To think that we create the whole of reality with our individual minds has a name: solipsism. Solipsists, of course, are always right about everything -- because they are not in relationship with others at all, and therefore cannot be wrong -- or learn from others. For the solipsist, there ARE NO others; there is only oneself. And there's no way to prove a solipsist wrong, because you are merely a dreamy figment of their imagination, after all.
 
Let's not be TOO heavy here, this question isn't all about reality and hard philosophical stances.

I love to have imagination, daydreams, fantasies, they sort of morph into semi-plans and some of them become possible, some fade, sometimes I grow and realize I wouldn't actually like that after all...and all of that is ok! I just find that asking someone this, if I can get an answer, often tells me some things about their personality.

Like I knew one guy who said he would have a house with a big basement pool and lots of nude models who would be well paid to stand around like statues, until he or a guest demanded a drink, at which point the gorgeous naked statue would "come to life" and go get the beverage and serve it. And he would accomplish all of this via a combination of playing his guitar and streaming videogames on Youtube. He would have endless pot to smoke every day and drive a Subaru WRX, blue please.

Well... This man happened to be a cute but rather shiftless 38 year old with no job, no home, no prospects, not much education, serious emotional problems and a daily habitual addiction to the weed, so it shouldn't shock me that his dream future read a little bit like something a 15 year old would tell me he wanted in life. Videogames, drugs, and boobies...yeah...boobies.

OK so I would not judge an otherwise functional adult for having the fantasies of a teenage boy. But coming from someone who was distinctly NOT very functional...it felt like confirmation.

I live my life striving for a combination of pragmatism and openness to possibility. I love my dreams. But I won't be crushed if they don't materialize. I am optimistic that whatever comes about in my life will be good...maybe I will accomplish some of my goals, maybe the reality will be better, but certainly it will be interesting. Lovin' the journey, not really worried about the destination over here...
 
Playful imagination is wonderful! And good!

Still, water flows down hill and never up hill (without pumps and pipes).

Both are true. Nature works as nature works, regardless of what we imagine. But imagination softens and opens everything up, as well it should. :p
 
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