by Augusto Cury
“I know what loss is. There are moments when our world seems to come crashing down around us and no one else can understand it.”
The stranger wiped tears from his eyes as he spoke. Perhaps his scars were as deep or deeper than Julio’s.
Julio, once again moved, said, “Tell me, who are you.”
The stranger responded with a warm silence.
“Are you a psychiatrist or psychologist?” he asked, believing himself in the presence of an extraordinary professional.
“No, I’m not,” the stranger affirmed with assurance.
“A philosopher?”
“I appreciate the world of ideas, but I’m not a philosopher.”
“Are you the head of some church?” he asked.
“No,” the man replied firmly.
Julio asked impatiently, “Are you crazy?”
The stranger replied with a slight smile. “Now, that’s more likely,” he said, and Julio couldn’t have been more confused.
“Who are you? Tell me.”
He pressed the stranger who was now being watched from below by a confused crowd. The psychiatrist, the fire chief and the police chief strained to hear the conversation, but could only hear murmurs. Seeing that Julio was not going to back down, the stranger spread his arms, raised them to the sky, and said:
“When I think about how briefly our lives pass, about all that has come before me and all that remains to come, that’s when I see how truly small I am in the grand scheme of things. When I consider that one day I will fall into eternal silence, swallowed by the passing of time, I realize my limitations. And when I see those limits, I stop trying to be a god and simply see myself as what I am: a mere human being. I go from being the center of the universe to simply a wanderer searching for answers . . .”
The stranger didn’t answer the question, but Julio drank in the words. His answer made Julio wonder the same thing as so many who would encounter the stranger: “Is this man a lunatic or a genius? Or both?” He tried to fathom the depths of the stranger’s words, but it was no easy task.
The stranger again looked toward the heavens and began to question God in a way Julio had never heard:
“God, who are you? Why do you remain silent before the insanity of some believers and do nothing to calm the doubts of skeptics? Why do you disguise your will as the laws of physics and conceal your designs as simply random events? Your silence unnerves me.”
Julio was an expert in religion—Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and others—but none of it helped him understand the stranger’s mind. He didn’t know whether these were the ramblings of a bald-faced atheist or someone who was close friends with God himself. The renowned professor again wondered: What kind of man is this? And where did he come from?
The Calling
PEOPLE ARE PREDICTABLE. LEADERS, TOO. IN MODERN society, most people don’t inspire emotion or imagination. But what was lacking in “normal” people abounded in the mysterious stranger. Julio was so curious about this man’s identity that he asked again he who was. Though, this time, he asked knowing full well that he didn’t know much about himself, either.
“I don’t know who I am. I need to find myself, I know. But please, grant me just this. Who are you?”
The man flashed a thin smile; Julio was finally beginning to speak his language. And feeling that rush of inspiration, the stranger stood up and faced the horizon, spreading his arms to the fading sun, and said confidently, “I’m a dreamseller.”
Julio was even more confused. The stranger seemed to have plunged from lucidity into lunacy. None of this made any sense to Julio, but it seemed to mean everything to the stranger.
On the street below, Bartholomew’s ramblings reached a fever pitch: “Look, it’s the alien leader! He spread his arms and changed colors.”
The dreamseller looked down on the eager masses below and felt a deep, abiding pity for them.
Julio rubbed his face. He couldn’t believe his ears.
“A dreamseller? What . . . What is that?” he asked, totally lost for words.
The stranger had seemed so intelligent. He had shown such intrepid thinking, had shattered Julio’s preconceptions and helped organize his cluttered mind. And just when he had Julio convinced, this dreamseller had shattered the image with a single word.
The psychiatrist, who was standing about twenty-five yards away, heard the stranger identify himself and quickly sized him up for the police and fire chiefs: “I knew it. They’re both crazy.”
Just then the dreamseller looked to his right and saw a sniper in a nearby building, about a hundred and fifty yards away, aiming a rifle with a silencer at him. The dreamseller quickly pushed Julio to the side and the two fell next to each other on the ledge. Julio had no idea what was going on, and rather than scare him, the dreamseller just said:
“If that fall bothered you, just imagine what would happen when you hit the ground from this building.”
The crowd below thought the stranger had held the jumper back, but they all misunderstood what had happened. The dreamseller looked toward the horizon and saw that the sniper had left. Was he hallucinating? Who could want such a simple man dead? Then they both stood back up on the ledge and the stranger repeated himself, “Yes, I’m a dreamseller.”
Julio was still confused and thought maybe the stranger meant he was some kind of traveling salesman.
“Wait, what do you mean? What products do you sell?”
“I try to sell courage to the insecure, daring to the timid, joy to those who have lost their zest for life, sense to the reckless, ideas to the thinkers.”
Julio falling back into his staid thinking, told himself, “This isn’t happening. I’m having a nightmare. I must have died and didn’t realize it. A while ago, I was ready to kill myself because I couldn’t understand the source of my pain. Now I’m even more confused because the man who rescued me claims he sells what can’t be sold.” And to his surprise, the stranger added:
“And for those who think of putting a period to life, I try to sell a comma, just a comma.”
“A comma?” asked Julio.
“Yes, a comma. One small comma, so they can continue to write their story.”
Julio began to sweat. In a kind of sudden enlightenment, he realized that the dreamseller had just sold him a comma, and he had bought it without realizing it. No price, no pressure, no tricks, no haggling. He placed his hands on his head to see if everything that was happening to him was real.
The professor was starting to understand. He looked down and saw the crowd awaiting his decision. Down deep, those people were as lost as he was. They were free to come and go, but they were missing out on the sweetness of life. They didn’t feel free to express their own personality.
Julio felt like he was trapped in a movie, floating between the surreal and the concrete. “Is this guy real, or is my mind playing tricks on me?” he wondered, in a haze of fascination and uncertainty. No one had ever cast a spell on him like this.
Then this stranger made him a very real offer.
“Come, follow me and I will make you a dreamseller.”
Julio’s mind was racing, but he was frozen. His voice was stuck in his throat. He was physically paralyzed, but deep in thought: “How can I follow a man I’ve known for less than an hour?” he thought. But at the same time, he was drawn to this calling.
He was tired of academic debates. He was one of the most eloquent intellectuals among his peers, but many of his colleagues, and he himself, lived mired in the mud of envy and endless vanity. He felt that the university where he taught—this temple of learning—lacked the tolerance and creativity to unleash fresh thinking. Some temples of learning had become as inflexible as the most rigid religions. Professors, scientists and thinkers weren’t free to explore. They had to conform to their departments’ thinking.
Now he stood before a shabbily dressed man with unkempt hair and no social standing, but one who was a thought-provoking adventurer, a dissenter fro
m conventional wisdom, free to chase new thoughts. And this man had made him the craziest and most exciting of proposals: to sell dreams. “How? To whom? To what end? Will I be praised or mocked?” the intellectual wondered. He also knew that all great thinkers must travel unexplored paths.
Julio had always been sensible and had never made a scene in public—not until he climbed to the top of this building. He knew this time he had caused an uproar. It hadn’t been for show; he really was going to end his life. He was afraid of using a gun or taking pills, so he’d come to the top of the San Pablo Building.
But the dreamseller’s invitation continued to echo in his mind like a grenade blowing apart all the concepts he held true. A long minute passed. Conflicted, he thought, “I’ve tried to live my life sheltered in the life of academia, but it failed me. I tried to challenge my students to think for themselves but instead taught them only to regurgitate information. I tried to contribute to society, but sealed myself off from it. If I manage to sell dreams to a few people, as this stranger has sold to me, maybe my life will have more meaning than it has had until now.”
And so I decided to follow him. I am Julio, this extraordinary stranger’s first disciple.
He became my teacher. And I, the first to agree to this unpredictable journey with no set course or destination. Crazy? Maybe. But no crazier than the life I had been living.
The First Step
AS SOON AS WE LEFT THE SCENE WE WERE STOPPED BY ONE of those closely watching us at the top of the building, the police chief. He was a tall man, about six-foot-three, and slightly overweight, impeccably dressed, graying hair, smooth skin and exuded the air of a man who loved power.
When we stopped in front of him he barely noticed me. He was used to dealing with suicides and considered them weak and damaged. To him, I was just another statistic. I could taste his bitter prejudice and I hated it. After all, I was much more learned than this gun-toting buffoon. My weapons were ideas, which were more powerful and more effective. But I didn’t have the strength to defend myself. And I didn’t have to. I had a torpedo at my side, the man who had saved me.
The policeman was really interested in grilling the dreamseller. He wanted to know more about this character who fell outside of his statistics. He hadn’t been able to hear much of what we said, but the little he heard had amazed him. He studied the dreamseller from head to toe, unable to reconcile the image. The stranger seemed alien to his surroundings. Uneasy, he began his interrogation. I guessed that, like me, the policeman was about to step into a hornet’s nest. And he did.
“What’s your name?” he asked in an arrogant tone.
The dreamseller studied him for just a second, then said:
“Aren’t you happy this man changed his mind? Aren’t you simply overwhelmed with joy at knowing this man’s life has been saved?” And he gazed at me.
The policeman lost his footing on his pedestal. He hadn’t expected his insensitivity to be laid bare in a few short seconds. He stammered, then said in a formal tone, “Yes, of course I’m happy for him.”
The dreamseller had a way of making any man realize his insensitivity. He made them see how foolish they were acting. And then he launched another torpedo:
“If you’re happy, why don’t you show your happiness? Why don’t you ask him his name and tell him how glad you are? After all, isn’t a human life worth more than this building?”
The police chief was stripped naked more quickly than I was, and it was perfect. The dreamseller won back my self-esteem. He was a thought-provoking expert. Watching him rattle the police chief, I started to understand: It’s impossible to follow a leader like this man without admiring him. Admiration is stronger than power, charisma more intense than intimidation. And I had begun to greatly admire the charismatic dreamseller.
It made me think about my relationship with my students. I was a vault of information but had never understood that charisma is fundamental to teaching. First you fell in love with the dreamseller’s charisma, then you opened to his teachings. I was afflicted with the same disease of most intellectuals: I was boring. I had been dull, critical, demanding. Even I couldn’t stand myself.
The police chief, now shamed by the dreamseller, turned quickly to me and, like a child who has been told to apologize, said, “I’m happy for you, sir.”
In a softer tone, the officer asked for the dreamseller’s identification.
The reply was simple: “I don’t have any ID.”
“How can that be? Everybody needs some kind of identification. Without it, you have no . . . identity.”
“My identity is what I am,” the dreamseller said.
“You can be arrested if you don’t identify yourself. You could be a terrorist, a public threat, a psychopath. Who are you?” the policeman asked, slipping back into an aggressive tone.
I saw where this was headed. The dreamseller replied:
“I’ll answer you if you answer me first. On whose authority should you be able to know my most intimate secrets? What are your credentials for plumbing the depths of my mind?” he said flatly.
The policeman took the bait. He started to raise his voice, not knowing he’d be trapped by his own wit.
“I’m Pedro Alcantara, chief of police of this district,” he said, radiating a proud and self-confident air.
Annoyed, the dreamseller said, “I didn’t ask about your profession, your social status or your activities. I want to know about your essence. Who is the human being beneath that uniform?”
The police officer quickly scratched an eyebrow, revealing a nervous tick he’d hidden away, not knowing how to respond. Lowering his voice, the dreamseller asked another question: “What is your greatest dream?”
“My greatest dream? Well, I, I . . .” he stammered, again not knowing how to reply.
Never had anyone using so few words confronted this pillar of authority. He remained motionless. I could look into the dreamseller’s eyes and see what he was thinking. The police chief protected “normal” people but couldn’t protect his own emotions.
That’s when I began to see myself in him. And what I saw bothered me. How could a person without dreams protect society, unless he was a robot whose sole function was to make arrests? How could someone without dreams mold citizens who dream of being free and united?
Then the dreamseller added, “Careful. You fight for public safety, but fear and loneliness are the thieves that steal our emotions, and they can be more dangerous than common criminals. Your son doesn’t need a chief of police. He needs a shoulder to cry on, a friend with whom he can share secret feelings and who teaches him to think. Live that dream.”
The police chief was speechless. He had been trained to deal with criminals, to arrest them, and had never heard of thieves who invade the mind. He didn’t know what to do without his weapon and his badge. Like most “normal” people, including me, he defined himself through his profession. At home, he didn’t know how to be a father, only a police officer. He was unable to separate the two roles. He won medals for bravery, but was wasting away as a human being.
I wondered how the dreamseller knew the chief had a son, or whether he had made a lucky guess. But I saw the police chief squirming, as if handcuffed inside his mind, trying to escape from a prison years in the making.
The psychiatrist couldn’t hold back any longer. Seeing the police chief at a loss, he tried to trip up the dreamseller. Using psychiatry, he tried to rattle the dreamseller, saying, “Anyone who won’t reveal his identity is hiding his own frailty.”
“Do you think I’m frail?” asked the dreamseller.
“I don’t know,” replied the psychiatrist, hesitating.
“Well, you’re right. I am frail. I’ve learned that no one is worthy of being called an expert, including a scientist, especially if he doesn’t recognize his own limits, his own frailties. Are you frail?” he shot back. “Well?”
Seeing the psychiatrist hesitate, the dreamseller asked, “Which discipline of
psychotherapy do you subscribe to?”
That question came as a surprise. I didn’t understand where the dreamseller was going with this. But the psychiatrist, who was also a psychotherapist, said proudly, “I’m a Freudian.”
“Very well. Then answer me this: Which is more complex, a psychological theory, whatever it is, or the mind of a human being?”
The psychiatrist, fearing a trap, didn’t answer for a moment. Then he replied indirectly. “We use theories to decipher the human mind.”
“Fine. Then allow me one more question: You can map out a theory and read every last text on the subject. But can you exhaust the understanding of the human mind?”
“No. But I’m not here to be questioned by you,” he said dismissively, not realizing what the dreamseller was driving at. “Besides, I’m an expert in the human mind.”
The dreamseller took that opening:
“Mental health professionals are poets of existence, they have a grand mission. However, they can’t put a patient into a theoretical text, yet try desperately to put a theoretical text inside of a person. Don’t trap your patients between the walls of a theory, or you’ll reduce their abilities to grow. Each sickness is unique to the one who’s sick. Every sick person has a mind. And every mind is an infinite universe.”
I understood what he was telling the psychiatrist, for I felt in my own skin what he meant. When the psychiatrist approached me, he used techniques and interpretations that I immediately rejected. He dealt with the act of suicide, but not with the ravaged human being inside me. His theory might be useful in predictable situations, especially when the patient seeks help, but not in situations where the patient rejects help or has lost hope. I was resistant. First, I needed to be touched by the psychiatrist the man. And later, by the psychiatrist the professional. Because he had approached me as an illness, and not as a person, I perceived him as an invader and withdrew.
The dreamseller took the opposite approach. He started with the sandwich; he asked me deep questions to know more about who I was, like nourishment that reached down into my bones. Only then did he deal with the act of suicide.