I don’t know who first said “Dreams
die hard.” I’ve tried to find-OK, I
Googled-where or from whom this may have originated but find no original
attribution. From wherever it may have
come, it’s so permeated our vernacular that it now sits somewhere between cliché
and trite.
That’s not intended to deny that
there is truth to it. But what really
happens to our dreams? Do they really
come crashing down, falling in on us and in an instant change the direction of
our lives forever? Yes, that does happen
and you can take it from a man who has had such an experience. While the dream itself is of no consequence
to anyone except for me, I once found myself pulled over and puking in the
emergency lane of an interstate highway a mere 15 minutes after finally accepting
a dream’s demise- a jarring and permanent and profound death that was eulogized
only by vomit on the highway and about two years of drinking too much. (Call it a lost long weekend.)
There have been others that were
accommodated in what I daresay are less dramatic ways. Sleepless nights? No appetite? Withdrawl? Anyone with any life experience at all knows
the list and can probably add a few more items of self destructive behavior to
it. My point is we know what’s happening
and we deal with it via many avenues, healthy or not. The big ones, anyway.
But what of the million little ones
that together may have changed our world just as profoundly? They sigh and die silently. They drift around us, a snowfall within which
each flake is so delicate and alike from the outside, yet unique from
within. They dance around us on wings of
whim and want. They swirl and sparkle,
fighting against their white almost-weight.
They move us and sustain us and inspire us to have new ones.
Yet as one inspires another that
inspires yet another, we become unable to focus on them. And without attention their almost-weight
becomes real and the light that gives luster begins to dull their edges. Their buoyancy and beauty slowly abandon them
as the dreams softly settle to the ground, nestling with others of their not
quite the same kind. There the lucky
ones lie until reborn as a still pure raindrop in the springtime. They will live again as another dream of another
dreamer.
The rest? They are trampled underfoot into a grey
slush of blurred years and sapped spirit and weary apathy. They’re stamped off of your boots and left
forgotten on the stoop.
Do we determine their fate? Yes! So select dreams carefully. The frivolous can crowd out the more
worthy. Nourish them. Move toward them. Speed is not as important as constancy. In order to pursue them, one cannot fear
them. Some of us appear to prefer the
dream to its realization. As comfortable
as it seems, that's fear and fear paralyzes.
And as action begets action, so does paralysis.
Finally, speak of them. Giving dreams voice makes them real and
forces us to confront the disconnect between our lives and our dreams. It shows the difference between where we are
and where we need to be.
Photograpy courtesy of Red-LetterImaging. Visit at http://www.red-letterimaging.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment