Icons

What does one make of this?

Snippets, glimpses, images, colours, places stitched together at the edges to form an icon that floats around in the head. But what is this icon, a dream or memory? Finding it hard to distinguish between the two at times, it is disturbing to learn that our first memory is a key that unlocks the adult persona.

'My earliest memory is of a dream. I must have been very young, four or so; I imagined going down to the shores of Lake Zurich and learning against the railings in a park near the city's central square. Suddenly, the railings gave way and I feel into the freezing water towards some sort of horrific fate vaguely involving being swallowed by a whale. The details are sketchy, because at this point, I woke up in the most terrified state.

The horror I felt centered on the idea that railings, which I trusted to be solid and dependable should give way without warning. The water and the whale stood for the terror always waiting in the wings the railings were the safety-nets of the adult realm, which didn't work as well as they should.

The memory captures my life-long anxiety about how things are going to turn out, and my difficulty in trusting that they will be OK. I permanently fear that the apparently secure railing is going to give way. I have become a writer in a semi conscious attempt to increase the number of psychological railings around me. Books are my safety-nets.'
~ Alain De Botton