It was taunted as reality. It was dangled as a carrot. In terms

In the twilight realm between art and truth, the philosopher and humorist Martin Mull once spoke with a wisdom cloaked in irony: “It was taunted as reality. It was dangled as a carrot. In terms of people's hopes and dreams, to say that that is less of a reality than the daily grind they find themselves in is maybe not correct.” These words, though playful in tone, conceal within them the deep and ancient question — What is real? — a question that has stirred the minds of poets, philosophers, and dreamers since time began.

Mull, who moved with equal grace through comedy, painting, and music, saw what many do not: that what society calls “reality” is often merely routine — a pattern of repetition mistaken for truth. The daily grind, as he names it, can become a dull cage, so constant that people forget it is of their own making. Yet the dreams and hopes that society mocks as fantasy — those visions of a life freer, kinder, more luminous — may hold a truer form of reality than the drudgery to which people surrender their days. In his words, the carrot of aspiration, so often derided as unreachable, may actually be the soul’s most honest reflection of what it longs to become.

The origin of this insight lies in humanity’s ancient struggle between illusion and awakening. Long ago, Plato told of the prisoners in the Allegory of the Cave, who mistook shadows on the wall for reality. When one among them escaped and saw the light of the sun, he realized that what the others called “real” was but a pale imitation. Mull, in his modern way, gives voice to the same truth: that the dreams we chase — the shining images that “dangle” before us — may not be false lures, but glimpses of a higher light, distorted through the limits of our perception. The dream is not a lie; it is a whisper from the greater reality our spirits seek.

Consider the life of Vincent van Gogh, whose world saw him as mad, whose art was dismissed as delusion. The society around him clung to the gray “reality” of convention — of order, of routine, of what was safe to believe. Yet it was van Gogh’s dream, burning like a sun within him, that revealed to future generations a deeper truth: that beauty, not monotony, is the essence of life. His visions, once taunted as unreality, now define how the world sees color and emotion. The daily grind passed away; the dream endured.

In this light, Mull’s words become both comfort and challenge. He asks us to question the tyranny of the ordinary — to see that reality is not only what our hands can touch, but also what our hearts can imagine. For what is the office or factory without the dream that built it? What is the routine of a day without the unseen longing that gives it meaning? Dreams may appear fragile, but they are the seeds from which all worlds are born. To call them “less real” is to deny the divine impulse that shapes history itself.

Yet Mull also speaks with compassion, for he does not mock those caught in the grind. He merely asks us to look deeper, to see that the hope we chase is not folly but guidance. The carrot, though it seems just beyond reach, keeps us walking forward; it is the soul’s way of saying, “There is more than this.” The tragedy of life is not in dreaming too much, but in forgetting how to dream at all. When people lose their sense of wonder, they begin to die long before death arrives.

So let this teaching be carried forth: Do not let others taunt your dreams as falsehoods, nor let the monotony of existence convince you that meaning lies only in what is practical. The unseen, the unproven, the improbable — these are the landscapes of the soul’s truest reality. Work, yes, for sustenance and survival, but never cease to reach for the light that calls you beyond. The daily grind may keep the body alive, but only dreams awaken the spirit.

In the end, Martin Mull’s quiet wisdom reminds us of a sacred paradox: that what is most “real” in this life is often invisible — love, art, imagination, hope. These are not distractions from reality, but the forces that give it depth. So dream boldly. Let your hopes dangle before you like stars in the night sky. Chase them not because they are easy to grasp, but because they reveal the truth of who you are: a being meant not for mere existence, but for creation, for meaning, for the ever-unfolding wonder of becoming fully alive.