Truth or Dare: Do you Dream?

12 Dec Truth or Dare: Do you Dream?

Be honest with me – when was the last time you dreamt? When was the last time you unhinged all of your obligations…all of your circumstances…all your worries, and let your soul run free?

So many times in our lives we get set on a path that we doggedly follow. We tunnel vision on that path, and, along the way, we lose track, forget, or sometimes consciously put our dreams down, so that we can satisfy our end goals.

It’s a pity that dreaming has no real place in contemporary adult life. When I was a young boy, there was no part of my imagination that I had not ventured into. Nothing in my child-mind was exempt from thoughtful consideration. Dreaming came easy.

I’m not exactly sure when it began to change, but I can tell you that I don’t dream very much anymore. I’m too scared to dream…so I plan. I plan and logically execute my way through life. I stick to the path like the protagonist in Robert’s Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”. Every once in a while though, I think about dreaming…and in my dreams, I arrive at diverging roads in a yellow wood.

Perhaps a definition of “dream” is in order! However, before we get into that, I’d like to assure you that I did not roll a blunt before I wrote this piece. It is 12.03 a.m., but that’s par for the course with me. Like the freaks, my best ideas come out at night. Writing at this hour may, very well, have something to do with the fact that ah REALLY not feelin’ to go to work tomorrow…but I digress.

By dream, I’m not talking about wha’ yuh go do if yuh win fifty million dollars! Actually, yuh know what? That’s a great place to start. Let’s say that the lotto jackpot is 50 million dollars…and you won it? Wha yuh go do?

Obviously yuh go get on real wotless like Kes, right? Big house, fancy car, trips all over the world, invest…all dat! But then what? What happens post “having EVERY need met”? What will you choose to do with your time? Essentially what I’m getting at is, what will you do with your life in the absence of fear?

For the purposes of this argument, fearlessness is manifested as 50 million dollars, but we’re all smart enough to know that 50 million doesn’t eliminate fear. So, by dreaming, what I’m implying is a way of thinking of your life without limits. What decisions will you make from THAT perspective? Are those decisions different from what you’re doing right now? If they are, do you see yourself bridging the gap? How?

I dunno ‘bout allyuh, but I find that to be incredibly fascinating! Ironically, I haven’t come up with an answer for myself. I think that’s because dreaming, as per my definition above, requires a psychological disconnection from the path that I taken thus far…which subtly implies that the path that I’ve chosen is a mistake. For me, that implication creates a LOT of anxiety, which , in turn, affects my ability to dream.

Doh worry. Ah workin’ on it.

That being said, it is very possible that I would have made different decisions in my life had I the courage to live my dream, which in this case, means living from a limitless place (without fear).

In his poem, Frost says, “Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back”.

How many of us have not dared to dream because it would mean potentially having to turn back around and start again? Lord Jesus, somebody better shout HOSANA, cuz Frosty is speaking the truth!

As I look back over the course of my life, it’s amazing to me the number of times that I have consciously/unconsciously (I’m not sure) sabotaged my dreams because they would have meant starting something new.

I had always loved music and singing. I remember that I had just arrived in Toronto, and had gone to audition for the choir at the high school I attended. I stepped up to the mike and sang. And this is a true testament to the amount of talent there is in our little country. I knew I liked to sing, but I never thought that I was particularly talented. Let me tell you, compared to the singers that I had encountered in Tranquillity Government Secondary, I was okay at best.

Anyway, I did my thing, and I ain’t go lie…I went into the SPIRIT singing that song! The choir director was floored! Wanted to know who meh mudder was…wanted to know where I got my training (I did a classical piece)…all ah dat.

Days go by, and the director tells me that he set up a recital for the choir, and I will be doing this massive solo…all kinda ting. We rehearse every day for months, and the day I was supposed to perform in front the whole school…I decided to stay home.

We don’t have enough time to deconstruct why I made such a stupid decision, particularly about something I LOVED doing. We just don’t…have…the…time. I wish I could say that was the only time I did something so dumb. But God is so merciful, eh. I had other chances.

In sharing this, the point I’m trying to make is that very often, we are the ones who stand in the way of our own dreams.

Christmas is quickly approaching, and with that 2012. Let’s not stand in our own way this upcoming year. Let us, the young talented people of Trinidad and Tobago, lay our burdens down as 2011 comes to a close, and SOAR into 2012!

We can do it!

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