The Dreamseller_ The Calling - Augusto Cury [50]
Many jeered the dreamseller. I thought this time he had it all wrong. One scientist couldn’t resist. Laughing, he said confrontationally, “This is nonsense! Even the poorest student knows that average life expectancy has expanded because of new sanitation methods and vaccines.”
The dreamseller was no fool and knew what he was saying. Addressing the scientist, he replied:
“In Roman times the average life expectancy was barely forty years. In the Middle Ages, forty-five. Today we’re nearing eighty. But I’m referring to the average life of the mind. In our minds, we die earlier. Doesn’t it seem you went to sleep and woke up at your present age, ladies and gentlemen?”
And, raising his voice, he declared:
“Technology and science have their upsides. They have produced vaccines, antibiotics, water treatment plants and sewers, agricultural techniques, preservation of food, all of which have led to a longer average physical life. But the same system that has made us free has imprisoned our minds with its excesses. Do you understand me?”
We didn’t understand, at least not fully. He was often sparing with his words, speaking almost in code. We didn’t know what he meant by “excesses” of the system. To clarify, he once again did what he loved to do: He told a story.
“In 1928, the Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming was analyzing a fearsome bacteria in his lab,” the dreamseller said. “Distracted, like any good scientist beset by an overload of activities, he left the door open when he went home. A fungus found its way into the Petri dish, producing a mold. What seemed to be a disaster generated a notable discovery: The mold killed the bacteria. From that discovery came the first antibiotic, penicillin. Millions of lives were saved. But penicillin came to be used excessively and indiscriminately. The result? A disaster. The excessive use of antibiotics has produced resistant bacteria which are now much more dangerous. Penicillin, one of medicine’s greatest gifts to humanity, stands accused today of creating so-called superbugs. By the same token, the system that expanded average physical life, through its excesses, is burying us mentally earlier than in the days of smallpox.”
Pausing to take a breath, he concluded his story:
“We live longer physically than in the past, but time seems to pass so much faster. The months rush by, the years fly by. Many are in the infancy of their mental development but look at themselves and discover their bodies are seventy or eighty. Nowadays, eighty-year-olds have the mentality of history’s twenty-year-olds. And what about all of you? What are the excesses that have damaged you?” he asked his listeners. They shouted out answers:
“Excess of commitments.”
“Excess of information.”
“Excess of social pressures . . . excess competition . . . goals . . . demands . . . the need to keep up.”
We were the society of excesses, even an excess of insanity.
Bartholomew wasn’t about to be left out. Fortunately, he was on target.
“Excess of drinking,” he said. And because he never let anyone have the upper hand, he looked at each of us and added, “Excess of ego, of crookedness, of religiousness.”
We pinched him playfully.
People were beginning to see how excess had invaded our lives. They needed to buy dreams. And the dreamseller wanted to sell them.
“How do we turn back this eccentric, stress-filled life?” asked a worried man of about sixty.
The dreamseller was direct and to the point:
“Cut out the excesses, even if it means losing money and status. If you don’t want to be old people complaining about your lost youth, you have to find the courage to make cuts. There are no cuts without pain.”
I started thinking, “Had the dreamseller found the courage to make such cuts in his own life, or was he one of those theorists who talk about something they haven’t experienced? Can a person without experience open up the mind of others?” He made me see that my own life was passing me