In Reserve

To be used but never used. To be kept for keep’s sake. A treasure no one is allowed to see or touch but still revered for its presumed existence. Who needs the gold that is stored in dark vaults? Yet, they are all craving for it, scheming to get hold of it and transfer it to their own dusty dungeons. Why?

Because sometimes a potential is more valuable than what is actual. What is, is only that one thing, whereas what may be, may be many things. Who would want to be limited if one can be unlimited? Possibilities are alluring because they open up for an endless perspective. The world is open until you close it, and when your gold is spent, the choice is lost.

It’s hard to let go of a dream even if it means that it comes true. It therefore seems better to keep it in store, unused but still a possibility; better than giving it away to reality. Therefore you wait, guarding your assets as something more valuable than what could ever be.

Sancta simplicitas! What an astonishing self-deception! Choosing the thin air of a dream rather than enjoying a tangible reality! But like all self-deception it provides comfort. If you think about it hard enough it is almost as if it is real, and you can revel in it without being constrained by that prosaic sobriety which always accompanies reality.

But one day you wake up and look at that naïve creature in the mirror; the poor bastard who has a chest full of valuables but nothing of value. You have kept it in deposited until that day when it could buy the clouds, but that day has now passed without ever having come.

You wish you had spent it while you could. It is there but no longer in reserve.

https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2020/07/24/your-daily-word-prompt-reserve-ydwordprompt-July-24-2020/