If there was an award for "building sandcastles"...

...I'm pretty sure I'd be a repeat winner!
{To clarify: I do not refer to building actual sandcastles - oh yeah, that's right...I'm starting off a great big, whopping metaphor!}

When I was out in Morocco back in May, I had a conversation with my uncle Saad that led him to using the phrase 'building sandcastles' (it may or may not have been used in a sentence which included my name...).  I remember asking him what he meant, and unfortunately due to my poor, possibly selective memory, I couldn't recall what he said, but I had written the words 'building sandcastles' down, which I came across this morning (when I was pretending to tidy up).  So I did what any responsible adult would do when trying to avoid housework/work and googled it to confirm the meaning and I came across this...

"Sandcastles are very unstable, so this expression means to dream about something too far from real life.There is no real use from building sandcastles."

No real use in building sandcastles???  Pah...what kind of childhood did 'Brenda from Baltimore' have I ask you?  And what's wrong with "dream(ing) about something too far from real life"?  What are we to do...dream about real life??  Now that would be depressing.  Ok, so perhaps it wouldn't be the healthiest past time if you spent significantly more time dreaming than living life, but surely there is a benefit to dreaming...and yes that includes dreaming about stuff that is far, far removed from real life - how else would I be able to recall the hot affairs I had with Johnny Depp (2003 & summer of '08)/Rock Hudson (1994-present day)/Face from the A-Team (1983-1987), or enjoyed the time when I was discovered singing Karaoke in Hong Kong and went on to become a world-wide singing sensation (Autumn/Winter '06)??

More importantly, how would we cope with the aftermath of any challenging and unfair situations had we not the ability to dream about exacting revenge either by becoming a martial arts experts and kicking the living daylights out of the perpetrator or dreaming that one gets the opportunity to have justice whilst retaining the moral high-ground?  If life has taught me anything (and this is in addition to hearing my dad repeatedly telling me this as a child) life is unfair - it can be unfair when someone does something mean/nasty and you don't get justice (and learning to take it on the chin is no enjoyable walk in the park) or it can be unfair at the other end of the scale, where you got to have/experience/live/know wonderful things/experiences/people just by being in the right place, right time and all that (you shall never hear me complain about that!!)...but if your dreams can allow you to feel that you had 'justice' or the opportunity to make mincemeat out of some nasty eejit's face whilst not getting your hands dirty or gaining a criminal record then long live dreaming!!!

My point being that dreaming is really important - it is a coping mechanism, it is an escape, it is enjoyable, it is therapy, it (hopefully) stops us from doing stupid things in 'real life' (really wish I could claim that the last point was true for me...but there's too much evidence to the contrary I'm afraid).

Getting back to my memory of when my uncle was talking to me and used this phrase in the first instance.  I think he was making a point that if I spent less time thinking about things I can't change and focusing more on what I can, I may see more results.  I also think he was making comment that actual life plans can't be built on fleeting dreams (obviously dreams can be a source but you need to move things on from there).   This is fair - not that I've had much time to try out his theory this year as things have been really crazy since I started dating Gabriel Macht!!! :)

Too far.....???  :)