Dreamin'

There's a peculiarity to our dreams; they don't actualy exist, yet they fuel our self-perception, and therefore, infiltrate how we act with other people.  That's not to say that we cannot have thoughts about ourselves at all, or that, on the other hand, our self-identity always colors our interactions.  But it is to say that a rabid individualism and perception of oneself as unique, exceptional, or exempted, does seem to underpin a fair amount of interaction or self-presentation.  Why?  What is it about uniqueness, or distinction, that impacts us to action, that incentiveses behavior?  What is wrong with declaring ourselves somewhat mundane, middle of the road, and relatively average.  I ask, because, I think the truth is that most of us, as a rule, are more average than we like to admit.  And I'm not exactly sure what is so terribly bad about it.

If you'd like, I could frame it differently.  If you think that being better than average is better, what concrete steps bring you from, let's say, the consumption of more luxury goods to higher subjective contentment?  Perhaps, simply more consumption is the answer to this question, and it could stop there: being unique brings a greater capacity to consume, and we value options, and capacity more than we value narrowness and limitations.  That makes sense; still, something in the back of my head wants to say that the relation between consumption and unique self-image isn't exactly one to one, or positively correlated at all.