How the Adventures of Matthew McConaughey Will Inspire You To Write Your Way Through Life
And follow your wet dreams!
When I was 13, I had a diary which I wrote weekly.
Until one day, my Mum read it.
She was not amused.
I didn’t write in another journal again until March this year — 23 years later.
Matthew McConaughey also started writing as a teenager, yet he continued for 35 years.
When he recently decided to write a memoir, his journals provided the content — stories of adventure, insight, and philosophies he developed throughout his life.
Reading his book ‘Greenlights’ filled me with a renewed passion and commitment for writing.
Now I journal every day.
Writing Through the Hardest Years of Your Life Can Keep You Sane.
When Matthew was 18 years old, he signed up for a one-year exchange program in Australia.
Twelve months of sun, sea, and Aussie babes sounded like a blast. However, he ended up living with an odd family called the ‘Dooley’s, in a small country town, miles away from any sand or waves.
He described living with them like being in the ‘Twilight Zone’ and spent most of his evenings alone, taking hot baths, masturbating to poetry, listening to his Walkman, and writing to himself — sometimes up to fifteen pages of thoughts and reflection.
What he claims as being a year of ‘crisis’ and a ‘livin’ mental hell’, forced him to look inside himself and rediscover who he was and what he valued — and he was still just a teenager.
The writing and introspection helped him to push through one of the hardest years of his life and make sense of the world around him.
He now looks back at that time as the year he found himself.
“And while I was going crazy, I kept telling myself that there was a lesson I was put here to learn, that there was a silver lining in all of it, that I needed to go through hell to get out the other side, and I did.
We cannot fully appreciate the light without the shadows. We have to be thrown off balance to find our footing. It’s better to jump than fall. And here I am.”
Writing Down the Values You Wish To Live by Sets the Intention.
When writing his book, Matthew found a note in an old journal that contained ‘10 Goals in Life’ — written in January 1991.
He was aged 23, two days after finishing his first-ever acting role as ‘Wooderson’ in Dazed and Confused, and fourteen days after the passing of his father.
Take a look at what he wrote:
“1. become a father
2. find and keep the woman for me
3. keep my relationship with God
4. chase my best self
5. be an egotistical utilitarian
6. take more risks
7. stay close to mom and family
8. win an Oscar for best actor
9. look back and enjoy the view
10. just keep livin’
Writing his goals down on paper set the intention for years to come.
These goals weren’t ‘buy a house’ or ‘drive a sports car’. They weren’t materialistic.
Even point 8 was more about contribution than fame.
These were goals based on true values and despite not reading them again until aged 50, they were what intuitively drove his choices throughout his life.
“The arrow doesn’t seek the target, the target draws the arrow.
We must be aware of what we attract in life because it is no accident or coincidence.
The spider waits in his web for dinner to come.
Yes, we must chase what we want, seek it out, cast our lines in the water, but sometimes we don’t need to make things happen.
Our souls are infinitely magnetic.”
Writing Down Your Dreams (Especially Your Wet Ones) Can Lead to Deep Self-Discovery and Profound Experiences.
Dreams are thought to be your brain processing emotions, memories, and information from your day. Some also believe they are messages from your unconscious, higher self, or spirit guides.
I believe they are all these things.
I assume Matthew does too because he went as far as chasing two of his (wet) dreams, quite literally.
Both dreams were the same, yet dreamt 5 years apart:
“I was seeing myself floating downstream on my back in the Amazon River, wrapped up by anacondas and pythons, surrounded by crocodiles, piranhas and freshwater sharks. There were African tribesmen lined up shoulder to shoulder on the ridge to the left of me as far as my eyes could see.
I was at peace.
Eleven frames.
Eleven seconds.
Then I came.
I woke up.
Whoa.
All the elements of a nightmare but it was a wet dream.”
These dreams felt significant enough for him to pursue and seek meaning.
After the first dream, he traveled to South America and floated naked down the Amazon river. Then after the second dream, he traveled to Africa where he grappled with a village wrestling champion!
He views these experiences as some of his most spiritual and profound.
Most of us don’t have the means to find ourselves in the depths of the jungle, however, we can write down our dreams as soon as we wake and seek meaning in other ways.
When I make an intention to remember my dreams before I go to bed, it’s surprising how vividly I can recall them the next day. When replaying the dreams on paper I have been able to find meaning and messages within them over time.
A few years after his African trip, Matthew had another wet dream — and shortly afterward he met his wife, Camila.
“I’ve never cared much for the destinations.
The ideas of landing is too finite for my imagination and sense of song.
Give me a direction and a sixteen-land highway, with room to swerve and explore along the way.
Like jazz, I prefer to see life as a river.”
I Regret Giving Up Writing as a Teenager.
I should have found a better hiding place for my diary and continued to write daily. I wonder what pearls of wisdom and clarity may have unfolded over the years.
It’s not often an author (let alone an actor) that can make me re-read and reflect on their words — or leave me feeling so inspired to dive into the same depths of inspection with my own journaling.
Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey? I highly recommend it.