Inspiration
A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.
― John Lennon
You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us. And the world will live as one.
― John Lennon
A Father’s Guide to Wisdom
A priest once told me, what would the world be like without love. He likened it to hell, a place of utter hopelessness. I think we are seeing some of that occur in this day and age. What if we were in control of the destiny we undertake, both individually and collectively? What if we could simply will the hell we create on this earth out of existence? Can we?
I think we can with a few simple steps. First, we must re-establish the ability to dream and envision something greater than the present moment. For any form of change always start with a dream. Then the rest is simple, plan, execute, work hard, re-envision those areas that are not working, do not throw the baby out with the bathwater, learn the lessons found in any form of past failures, improvise, be grateful, attain, and then teach the system by which you attained the dream. Nothing long lived in life is easy. It only comes to fruition by dreaming, planning, action, and follow through.
Here is a little known fact about dreams. Nightmares are not always real, and the monsters created in their content are far less dangerous and omnipotent then the monsters that exist within the space between our ears during waking consciousness. But the symbolism of the dream in itself is not scary, for it mirrors and tells us the very things the psyche needs to work on to be individually and collectively healed. Dreams, even a nightmare have a place in the general healing of our psychological functioning.
Freud once said…
Dreams are the royal road to the unconscious.
Sigmund Freud
Jung also knew the power of dreams. and once stated…
The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the psyche.
Carl Jung
While the content of dreams can be scary, it simply mirrors what we are undertaking as a person or a collective whole. It buffers waking consciousness to foster individual and collective problem solving capacity individual and environmental growth. From this perspective, the monsters found within the psyche are real representations of the very problems being worked on at an individual and collective level. The main difference between a sleeping dream and waking dream, is that in deep slumber one at least creates a scapegoat. Because of our inability to control its content it acts as a readily available excuse that allows the person to ease the psyche back to a state of non-accountability. What excuse exists when one is conscious? There is none. The sacrificial lamb (scapegoat) ceases to exist when one begins to see that the symbolic content of both waking and sleeping consciousness are the same, for those who study the effects of the psyche know that what is experienced in sleepy time dreams is in fact the very essence of the problem created during waking consciousness.
I know, pretty bad new right? But there is always silver lining in every dark cloud.
Dreams are powerful beginnings to any reality we create. Purgatorio, Inferno, or Pardisio. To get to paradise, we must undertake purgatory and even break through hell. But at that moment we arrive, as the poet John Milton so brilliantly understood, paradise can easily be lost at the expense of another person’s hell.
John Lennon was a dreamer. We are drawn to dreamers, for their language fosters hope. Much of what he stood for continues to exists, even though it may be overshadowed by its antithesis. We can dream, but if we dream individually, it remains only a dream. However, if we dream together, we can create alternatives to the hell that may surround us in the moment. But the dream and the choice are always ours, and not to be scapegoated to others to bear the cross that is one’s individual responsibility. The responsibility of such cannot nor should not be displaced on others. To do that, would be to scapegoat accountability for personal action, which ultimately, in and of itself creates the very vacuum needed to allow the dream’s shadow to permeate the demise of the reality the dream sought to create in the first place. As Martin Luther King once said…
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Let us dream, but dream in a direction that unites, not divides. I hope you enjoyed the inspiration, and until next time my friends, my prayers and blessings are always with you. Believe, Achieve, and Advance Confidently in the Direction of Your Dreams.
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