Dreams

Dreams

By the Panhandling Philosopher

 

                Do dreams come true? Do dreams die or fade away? The answer to both questions is yes. Life humbles us. It humbles us in failure. It sometimes humbles us in success.

                I know some people considering their dreams right now. I know someone who thought of a dream for continuing education and when she inquired about taking a class at the university she considered, discovered that the cost would be staggering. I know someone else, only an acquaintance online. I imagined that she was wonderfully successful. Her photography is beautiful. Her spirit conveyed in photographs and words is astonishing. Her life story is inspiring. She has tasted moments of decent success but for now she struggles to pay the bills. She thinks she might quit her struggle to be a full time artist. I don’t want her to do that partly because I like to give her photography books to some people for Christmas gifts. If her photography books no longer are forthcoming, I will have to think about Christmas gifts for these people and I never can imagine a decent Christmas gift for anyone. But I do understand. The amount of people who are able live off their writing (not getting wealthy but paying their bills in middle class fashion), are in number roughly the same as the number of players in the NFL. There are plenty of athletes who got close to obtaining their dream of playing professionally in sports. I know someone who was on the way until a knee injury tore up the dream. There are athletes, artists, and others who pursued their dreams, got close, and it never worked out. If dreams were surefire successes they wouldn’t be described as dreams.

                I don’t know what to tell people who want to pursue a dream. I don’t even know what to tell myself about my dream. I think you should know a dream by definition is a long shot. A lot of dreams end in failure. But what is success? What is failure? Is success someone who is described as a success in life but carries within him a sense of a dream that he never quite chose to give a chance. Surprisingly the answer may be yes. He is often a wise man who realizes that the bird in hand was worth more than two in flight. There is that person whose family, children, and associates could depend on, even when the guy had a dream he never found time or the bravery to pursue. Maybe like Jimmy Stewart’s presentation of George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life” the life he actually pursued turned out to be worth more to everyone, including himself, than the pursuit of his dream would have been. But perhaps like dreams in the actual sense, those ones that take over when we are sleeping – we would be lesser creatures without them. It may be the decisions of the daytime that matter, but it is said, even if we don’t remember that that terrible things happen if there are no dreams in our sleep. I suspect the dreams we have, whether we give ourselves to them or they become the fantasies we keep to ourselves to make life bearable; the dreams they are essential. Without them we become zombies going through the motion, but where real life has departed. Sometimes like George Bailey the time comes to realize our fantasies were fantasy but our real lives are enough.

                For those with dreams, I can’t tell you what you should do. I have a dream. I don’t know what to tell myself. I enjoy writing. Occasionally I write a decent piece. Most of the time there are too many words and my editing is atrocious. Maybe with time I could hone the present mediocrity into something better. I’ve thought about retiring sooner rather than later to give the dream a chance. My work pays the bills. It is secure. I’m hungry to pursue my dream. My last blog got less than 25 hits but one of the most encouraging comments in a long time, from someone whose comments I respect. Less than 25 hits makes me realize that I am maybe Father Mackenzie darning socks and writing a sermon for Eleanor Rigby that no one will ever hear.

                I think of the two New Yorkers. One imagines going to school for a higher degree. It costs so much, and she wants to complete her studies if she starts them. Another has lived her dream, but the time comes when one gets tired of only with difficulty paying the bills. I can’t tell either of them what to do. For me, old age means with each year the possibility that sharpness of mind and ability to grow in creativity will possibly be lost if I delay throwing myself into the task. I’m not sure we should always pursue our dreams. I am sure that life without a dream would seem to me like no life at all. Life is sort of strange. There is that to like about it.