Requiem for a Dream

by Hubert Selby Jr.

I believe that to pursue the American Dream is not only futile but self-destructive because ultimately it destroys everything and everyone involved with it. By definition it must, because it nurtures everything except those things that are important: integrity, ethics, truth, our very heart and soul. Why? The reason is simple: because Life/life is giving, not getting.

But to believe that getting stuff is the purpose and aim of life is madness.

It seems to me that we all have a dream of our own, our own personal vision, our own individual way of giving, but for many reasons we are afraid to pursue it, or to even recognize and accept its existence. But to deny our vision is to sell our soul.

Yet I know, absolutely, from my experience, that there are no free lunches in this life, and eventually we all have to accept full and total responsibility for our actions, everything we have done, and have not done.

Theres sorrow and pain in everyones life, but every now and then theres a ray of light that melts the loneliness in your heart and brings comfort like hot soup and a soft bed.

I think thats one of the problems with the world today, nobody knows who they are. Everyone is running around looking for an identity, or trying to borrow one, only they dont know it.

There was a voice, loud and clear, saying they were hooked, but good, and they tried to shrug it away but it persisted, more as a feeling than a voice, that permeated their every cell just as the dope they were addicted to had already done, and they tried combating it with another voice saying so what, it was no big deal, they could stop any time they wanted to, it was no big thing and what else was there?

The enemy ate away at their will so they could not resist, their bodies not only craving, but needing the very poison that ground them into that pitiable state of being; the mind diseased and crippled by the enemy it was obsessed with and the obsession and terrible physical need corrupting the soul until the actions were less than those of an animal, less than those of a wounded animal, less than those of anything and everything they did not want to be.

Their disease made it possible for them to believe whatever lies it was necessary for them to believe to continue to pursue and indulge their disease, even to the point of them believing they were not enslaved by it, but were actually free.

A habit you do in your sleep. You caint think about it. You jus do it. An a habit create its own habits.