Dream the Impossible Dream
Dreams can come true by
working outside the box and understanding that life isn’t just black and white.
There are all kinds of gray tones in our world, and most of the time we, being
logical, have a hard time seeing the possibilities. Dualism can help us to an
extent, yet when we only see things in two ways we’re missing things. Let’s
open the box, play with all the colors inside, expand our ideas, and see where
it can lead us.
Most of us remember the movie the “Wizard of Oz”.
This movie starts in black and white, on a farm with a little girl who is
afraid. Then we see the winds turning, and suddenly color comes into play.
Dorothy is in pursuit of security, in color, not just black and white. By
facing her fear, she is no longer afraid. She has come home. She has found
herself.
Art has a gray scale, going from white to the deepest absence of
color, black. Using this as a metaphor we can understand how to capture some of
the true values in life (in between absolutes). We can know or see the lightest
to the darkest tones. Artist’s use these values in order to capture forms, light to
dark, and feelings. When we look at a color scheme, we can find many different
types of warm and cool values. They can appear where we least expect them, yet
retain the appearance of fitting in. Picasso was a world renowned leader as an artist, and yet late in
his life he saw the world through a child’s eyes, simplistic yet profound. He
came to the conclusion that the true artists were childlike because they were
not directed by technique, or as tainted by other’s opinions. There are many people who are artists, inventors
or scientists, inspired by observing what might be considered mundane. These
possibilities are the things of which dreams are made.
There are cultures that feel dreams are real experiences. The
aborigines in Australia believe dreamtime is not a mystical state of existence;
it is the waking life that is the illusion. There are other cultures that have
many of the same belief systems. And then other cultures believe their truth is
going into an alternate state of mind in order to find their path. Most
cultures use some kind of meditation or prayer as a common practice to connect
to consciousness. When integrating dreamtime, prayer, or meditation, let’s
ponder like those in some cultures, that these conscious realities may be an
illusion which can enrich our true selves. Let’s look at the many scientists
and inventors who have looked into their visions in order to find their
answers. Einstein looked at clocks and saw the potentials in time and space.
Some accounts even say he attributed the idea of relativity to his dreams or
meditations. Now it’s generally known as the theory of relativity; could you
imagine what would have happened if he did not share this with the world?
Albert Einstein, along with Leonardo da Vinci or Pablo
Picasso—these are just a few who allowed their imagery to give us the
possibilities. We look up to these famous people as prodigies and not just
regular people. All of them were just like many of us. Leonardo da Vinci was
from a very modest family. In his time it was very unusual for a man of his
status to become an artist, inventor, or visionary. Who would have thought to
ask a patent clerk what relativity was? Multi-dimensional ? perspective? Cubism?
Realities?
Look at the so-called normal people. The definition of normal, In
Merriam-Webster dictionary “a: according with,
constituting, or not deviating from a norm, rule, or principle b: conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern”. Normality is letting our
society tell us what we should believe in or see. In order to illustrate my
point I’m going to use” Plato’s cave allegory”. Once there was a man who
stepped out of a cave and found a different realization of thought and reality
(life out of the cave). After finding these new thoughts, he went back to the
cave to share them. The others in the cave did not want to listen to these new
ideas and demanded him to stop or they would kill him. So for survival, he
ended up stepping back into the role that he had held as a simple cave dweller.
We are all unique, yet fear is a big factor in speaking out about what we
learn. Fear keeps us bound to “normal,” acceptable standards created by a
society that may be living in that dark cave, but we adhere to them, keeping
our light under a bushel so we won’t stand out.
I want you to consider these ideas to help you expand your
beliefs. When we think we are the experts on a subject, we can stop growing.
Our mentors need also to grow and remember that there are new ideas. Even now,
we are learning and growing every day. We find that the theory of relativity
has extensions, not the end, but a beginning. Possibilities.
Most people we love as icons started as little children; they just
didn’t forget the prospects of becoming unique. If we step out of the box and
learn to use abstract thoughts, we all are leaders, artists, inventors and
scientists. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. Remember this word
strength. Understanding, as children, many of us used our imagination like
breathing. It was so easy for us, feeling that we could be anything. As
children we can look at a humble home and imagine it being a castle. The castle
has all the warmth and love that we want. There is an old saying “home is where
the heart is” yet as we get older we are
taught that this household isn’t a castle but just a home. We now turn into the
man who feared that his life would be taken if he talked about a new reality, a
cave dweller. Logic is sometimes important, yet it only leads to two places.
Maybe dualism is just a closed (black and white) thought system, and yet there
are so many other ideas and colors that are here to inspire us.
In conclusion, we can have our dreams and grow as people if we
don’t forget that we started life as children who used all the abstract ideas within. Dream the impossible dream and it can come
true. Just like the movie “Wizard of oz.” we started by looking at the world in
black and white. After a while color comes into play and enriches our lives
with new possibilities.
“Somewhere Over the Rainbow”
“Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high
There’s a land that I heard of, once in a lullaby
Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream, really do come true.”
Food for thought.