Reality is like a picture. For some of us, the picture depicts a clear and crisp winter day and for others a quiet summer night; each of us has our own little version of the picture. Every once in a while in our lives we have moments when reality blurs. I'm sure you know what I mean; it's like all of a sudden the lights get really dim, and for a few moments you can't see anything. When you're finally able to see again, there's still a picture in front of you, but it's not the same one as before. Everything looks different. Sometimes these picture changes make you feel a little smarter, a little wiser. Sometimes the opposite. It's sort of a hit-or-miss type of deal.
Stuff like this had happened to me before, and during my first term of college it happened again. It seemed like this time, though, the picture changed a lot more, but maybe that's the way it always seems; I'm not really sure. It's kind of funny how a subject like shifts in reality can become entangled with other, seemingly unrelated subjects, like dreams and aspirations, but sometimes stuff like that happens.
Dreaming, or more specifically day-dreaming, has always been a particularly enjoyable activity for me. I can sit or walk or stand in any relatively quiet spot for hours and hours, just dreaming about all the possibilities of life. I've never really known what I wanted to do, per se, but over the years I have come to know what qualities I want for myself and for my life. I want Martin Luther King's oratory abilities and courage, Albert Einstein's genius, John Lennon's musical abilities, Larry Bird's awareness and heart ... I want a family; I want a loving wife; I want to change the world.
As far-fetched as these things may seem, to me these are not ridiculous goals. But though I've never thought of them as unrealistic, they've always been somehow distant, remaining a few years down the road. For the longest time this separation between me and my dream was understandable. I was a kid, a pre-teen who had trouble staying out of the principal's office. Certainly thoroughly capable of wreaking havoc on any unsuspecting, or even suspecting, teacher, but far from being ready to try it on the entire world. So where is this all leading?
Well, one day as the blurring of my reality shift was starting to clear up a bit , I looked up at my newly-forming reality and saw that for the first time in my life, my dreams were also a part of my reality.
Appearing large, and at first, rather unattainable, the sight of my dreams caused some initial panic. I thought, nearly all at once, "What am I gonna do, how am I gonna do it, have I been joking myself the whole time, do I have what it takes to accomplish that, or worse yet, do I even want all that?" Just a few months before, I was strolling down the walk of life thinking I had everything under control, and then all of a sudden it was like someone ran up to me, and said, "Hey buddy, your plane's leaving in ten minutes!"
The shift in reality took my dreams, dissected them, exposed their innards and strung them out like newly-butchered meat hung out to dry. They looked different than I thought they would. Kind of like how the flowers on the cover of the seed packets always come out different than the ones that come out of the garden. Like any dream really, the reality is often less romantic, though not always less spectacular.
Now I've recovered a bit from the initial shock. I'm beginning to see that my dreams are a lot more attainable than it first appeared and that in many ways my dreams are already being realized. Now that I can see them more clearly I know what it will take to live them, and that has given my life an immediacy that is extremely invigorating. It's exciting to see all the possibilities that once were only dreams, slowly merging with reality. Some dreams have been outlived, and the ones that have remained are continually being clarified as I see them more closely and from new angles. And still in my quiet moments I dream.
Eventually these dreams emerge at last on the harsh horizon, inevitably warped by time and reality. And if only a vestige of them remains under reality's sharp knife, I laugh and dream again. Through time I've come to know I never really expected to make music like John Lennon or speak like Martin Luther King. I just knew I'd need the strength and other qualities of their spirits to do what they did -- change the world.
