[Disclaimer: Everything depicted in this story is fictional and solely the product of the artist/author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or people is purely coincidental.]
Background:
From his shadow's point of view, this story contains the poignant events from Raymond Kohl's life that made him what he is today, a self-made tech multi-billionaire.
Somewhat of a recluse now, Mr. Kohl's early public persona was that of a stoic, ruthless, robot-like businessman.
This story reveals the private, very much human side of Raymond H. Kohl.
"Abandoned Passion Rediscovered"*
Unless Raymond got sloppy drunk or swallowed a triple dose of his prescription sleeping pills, he could never sleep through the night.
This condition prevented him from dreaming normally.
In fact, he remembers having only two dreams in the last 40 years. And even those were brief, incoherent fragments that simply made no sense to him at all.
Then it happened.
He had a vivid dream while sleeping for a straight 7 hours!
Oddly enough, even though everything in the dream seemed very real, Raymond somehow "knew" he was dreaming and could influence how the storyline unfolded.
Later he learned that what he experienced is called Lucid Dreaming.
Sadly, in spite of many years of training, most people never achieve their goal of experiencing Lucid Dreaming.
Raymond's Lucid Dream was, ironically, both tragic and hopeful.
Tragic because at 45 years old, it reminded him that the last time he was truly happy was over three decades earlier and a skinny sophomore in high school.
Art was a passion he abandoned long ago, acquiescing to parental and peer pressure to focus on business; namely, "Go get an MBA!".
But the "hope" aspect of the dream was that it made Raymond remember the great joy he felt whenever he created art.
The message was clear: It's never too late to return to Art and hopefully, feel that special joy again.
From the moment he could work a crayon, Raymond loved making pictures.
Art was the one activity in his life that caused Raymond to easily lose track of time; often forgetting to eat or sleep.
He possessed eidetic memory; the ability to vividly recall an image in spite of seeing it for a brief moment, more commonly known as "photographic memory".
That's why little Raymond had the uncanny ability to make detailed drawings of anything he saw - even if years had passed since he'd last seen it.
In his Lucid Dream, Raymond was again a high school sophomore studying abroad as an exchange student at Italy's foremost Academy of Fine Arts.
The story of how he became an exchange student and got permission to attend the elite academy always makes Raymond smile.
You see, when Raymond read the flyer about the exchange student opportunities on the school's bulletin board, he immediately snatched it.
Then he went to the four remaining bulletin boards on the campus and pulled them down too.
Next stop was the Admin office to get all the necessary paperwork for exchange student applications.
Before going home, he visited the school library and printed out some pages from the Academy's welcome aboard packet.
It was created for prospective students and their parents.
The packet had a detailed breakdown of average student costs for the previous academic year and also illustrations of projected future costs, separately adjusted by rates of annual inflation ranging from 6% to over 100%.
The charts made Raymond roll his eyes.
Anyone with an inkling of what an economy is and how it behaves will tell you that although being beautifully rendered, the pretty projection pictures were utterly worthless for financial planning.
That's because economic predictions based solely on one factor of a multi-member, interactive system are basically forecasts for fools.
Raymond's former math teacher used to say, "Better to disregard any prediction that disagrees with your gut and use the napkin or toilet paper it was written on to wipe your ass!"
Drastic or subtle, huge or microscopic, everything in a system has an effect (a la "the Butterfly Effect").
Everything matters, especially at the beginning.
And according to Chaos Theory's "hyper-sensitivity to initial conditions", tiny errors at the start of anything, like wrong or incomplete initial data and assumptions, only grow larger as the time passes and the distance from origin increases.
Even the so-called economic experts and financial gurus can't agree on which and how many factors are needed to get a more accurate prediction than the ones from gazing into a crystal ball, throwing darts at a chart/map or tossing down some chicken bones.
The printer's beeping pulls Raymond back to the present task at hand: the Academy material printouts.
Although an English version was available, Raymond's selections were all in Italian.
When he told his parents about the exchange student opportunity, he handed them the application papers and began showing them the pages he had printed.
He kept steering his parents' focus to the page displaying the Academy's crest and motto: "l'attività di crear."
Earlier that day, during the download and image editing process, Raymond purposely positioned the Academy's crest and logo with a slight tilt and noticeably off-center.
The printout was exactly what Raymond wanted - an unaltered image that looked like the amateur work of an apathetic student in a hurry to end the school day.
But most importantly, in the skewed image, the school's full motto "l'attività di creare musica d'arte e danza" (the business of creating art, music and dance) is truncated, keeping the last words of the motto off the page.
The visible end result was "l'attività di creare" (the business of creating).
So, when his parents asked about the motto in the printed image, he truthfully told them that it meant "the business of creating".
Just as he expected, his parents automatically applied conventional syntax rules to the motto.
Simply put, applying conventional syntax rules to most Latin based languages makes "la macchina rossa" (the car red) have a final English translation of "the red car".
Consequently, Raymond's parents had convinced themselves that "l'attività di creare"' (the business of creating), really meant "the creation of business" or "creating businesses".
After listening to his mother point out Raymond's erroneous translation and then "correcting it for his own good", it was time for his father's turn at the proverbial podium.
Raymond sat patiently as his father explained, "In language, 'syntax' is a group's agreed upon order or sequence of words within a sentence, plus the rules governing such things as prefixes, suffixes, modifiers and other enhancers like adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, etc."
Continuing the lecture, his father was so full of himself that he was sounding like a Southern Baptist minister delivering a rapture-inspired, sermon to all of his flock sitting under the filthy, borrowed circus tent cum Pastor Kohl's "Chapel of God's Glory".
"Son, never forget that syntax is crucial for an accurate description of anything (i.e., people, places, things, emotions, events, etc.), communicating effectively and aids in keeping misunderstandings to minimum.
Feeling rather satisfied about their individual teaching performances, Raymond's parents smiled as they eagerly signed all the forms regarding parental permission, emergency medical care authorization and the travel and health insurance required for traveling students abroad.
If not already in possession, additionally forms were needed for a visas, passports, immunizations card and instructions for setting up an account for automated monthly stipend deposits.
"Note: funds must be easily accessible in the foreign locale of his studies; including but limited to off-campus museums, open air exhibits, conferences, conventions, competitions, etc.
Analysis of historical and anecdotal data suggests the best way to meet the aforementioned accessibility standard is with a globally accepted debit/credit/ATM card.
Although not mandated, we strongly recommend going the debit/credit/ATM card route. It helps students stay safe and decreases parental worry."
(Signed)
M.S. Velasquez, Director, U.S. Department of Education
A month later, Raymond was on a plane bound for Italy.
If his parents ever learned about Raymond's ruse, they never mentioned it.
Maybe they were too embarrassed to admit they'd been tricked?
Or maybe they realized that their own obsession with making money made it easy for them to be fooled?
Who knows?
But one thing's for sure, his parents would have totally flipped if they knew just how "progressive" the Academy's curriculum really was.
He only attended classes in the morning and was released before lunchtime.
The afternoons were to be spent creating art for the next morning's discussion and critique by teachers and fellow students.
At the end of his dream, Raymond was a world renowned artist.
And couldn't be happier.
[Back to the present.]
When Raymond arrived at work and entered his office, he cancelled his morning CEO briefs; telling his secretary that he was not to be disturbed until lunchtime.
Instead of scanning the usual market trends, tech news and quarterly business reports, he searched the web for "How to make your first NFT"...
[Submitted for your entertainment.]
May you and yours be well and loving life today.
In Lak'ech, JaiChai
*The "Abandoned Passion Rediscovered" NFT is from the Opensea Collection named "La Silhouette Se Souvient" (The Silhouette Remembers) - https://opensea.io/assets/matic/0x2953399124f0cbb46d2cbacd8a89cf0599974963/63477199864332346876047430691250883279803745216811129316337883301602907914241/
[See more of my NFT collections on OpenSea: Exquisite Women of Color II; Filipina Allure; Empyrean Beauty; Viking Women Warriors; Proud, Strong and Beautiful; Exquisite Women of Color; Exotic Allure; Assassin's Exotique; Orbiting Outliers; Quae Volant and Ancient Alien Digs]
(JaiChai 01 Nov 2022. Simultaneous multi-site submissions posted. All rights reserved.)