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Let’s Dream On
Lest we run out of air
It is natural to be derided for dreaming out loud. Moreover, sometimes those who love us are the first to try and ground us and convince us of the futility of imagining life beyond our current limitations or circumstances. An ancestral argument is that we can be so busy with our dreams that we might miss what is right in front of us. The beauty of simplistic arguments is that they can be countered just as simply: we can be too busy with what is right before us to have any time to dream.
I will always choose dreams precisely because they are flimsy and unreliable. Dreams aren’t real, and that is where their value lies. Dreams are endless potential, limitless possibilities and infinite iterations. Dreams are where our agency resides; they are the ultimate expression of the person we are and, more importantly, the one we might get to be. We don’t generate what lies in front of us: it is given to us by the world. The palpable reality that defies us is not ours but somebody else’s. The real world is messy, shared and inevitably conflicted. Our dreams will eventually culminate there, but we birth them in the mind, the fruit of our countless influences and our unique, individual touch.
Many people are scared of dreaming because doing so attacks their stability. Dreams are naturally disruptive, essentially destined to upend the status…