Keep me where the light is
Enamored by possibility, this one’s about dreams.
Now listen up. <3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQLs8_YaCOs
I got dreams
Dreams to, remember
I got dreams
Dre-e-e-eams to remember
I got dreams
Oh-woh-woh-woh-woh I got dreams
I got dreams
To remember
To remember
Ohh gravity
Ohhhh gravity
Ohhhhhhhhh
Damn right I just quoted John Mayer. :)
(Please listen through that live version at least once before you keep reading!!)
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Now that the mood’s been set, let me ask this question:
What good are dreams if you never go after them?
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Time to rip off a bandaid…
For the first time in my life, I feel like I could just pick up and leave.
I’m talking leave everything and move somewhere completely new. Live, learn, share goodness elsewhere, and be completely okay with it. LOVE IT! And more than I already love the little life I’ve got carved out right now.
Who else out there is on a similar wavelength??
People talk about experiencing an “awakening”….. and, well, I think I get it now. But couldn’t you also call it an unraveling? As in, an unraveling of all the things that aren’t quite necessary anymore.
I don’t know about you, but in so many ways it always seems easier to ADD. As for SUBTRACTING – specifically, all the things that aren’t in line with your internal compass – it can get tricky. But maybe the better you know what lights you up – for YOU – the sooner, and more likely you are to recognize when the next step in your journey needs to go in a different direction. Or in other words, realize when IT’S TIME to go chase a dream.
Regardless of whether you’re adding/subtracting, holding on/letting go….. as I’m sure you’ve heard the expression before, we never really arrive, we just continue on on our journey.
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Let’s quickly talk about Of Mice and Men and Lord of the Flies. Having just finished units on both books at school, I think that both can offer insight and meaning when it comes to pursuing what it is that you desire most. My biggest takeaways:
Of Mice and Men: Dreams can give you hope and get you through the dark times. But at some point, an unfulfilled dream – or better yet, an unfulfilled attempt at pursuing a dream – paralyzes your reality, and leaves you nowhere.
Lord of the Flies: How how you live your life reveals how you navigate conflict between the rational mind and natural instinct; and, whether you believe man to be inherently good or evil. Taken a few steps further, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s theories on human development, particularly these two ideas:
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The noble savage– man is inherently pure in his most primitive state; kind and thoughtful. To expand on that, compliments of Wikipedia –
“Rousseau taught that men would be free, wise, and good in the state of nature and that instinct and emotion, when not distorted by the unnatural limitations of civilization, are nature’s voices and instructions to the good life.”
Rousseau’s analysis of self-love between amour de soi (a positive self-love; the instinctive human desire for self-preservation), and amour-propre (pride; esteem depends upon the opinion of others).
While I could go wayyy deeper with each of those concepts for awhile…. this post is already long enough. Hello, Google, for more!
Until next time… dream on, friends.
Go chase those dreams!
Keep me where the light is.
And as always, amor fati :)
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PS: One little excerpt from another Ray Bradbury essay. Because Ray kills it every time!
The Ardent Blasphemers (1982)
(Essay comparing Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea)
The logic that informs Ahab’s madness destroys him.
The logic that informs Nemo can build us homes on far planets circling more safely placed suns. Like Nemo, we may well find we need not destroy the horrific whale of reality; we may lurk inside it with machineries, plotting our destinies and going our terror-fraught ways toward an hour when we can lie under those stranger suns and bask easy and breathe light and know peace.