It starts out simple...."what do you want to be when you grow up?" A question often posed to children. The answers vary with age, knowledge of the world and personal experience. But still the question remains. Perhaps though, the question we should really be asking them is....."who do you want to be when you grow up?" What experiences do you want in this lifetime that will shape you into the person you will become?
To take it one step further, how does one go about getting these experiences to occur in their life? Is it a continuous conscious choice? Or is it more than that? Is it predetermined to some degree? Do our souls decide this before we're born? Or is it completely random? Think of all of the experiences you've had since you were born. How many of those did you have conscious control over? How many of them just seemed to happen to you? How have these experiences shaped who you've become? How have they affected the way you dream, the dreams you have for yourself now? What are your dreams? Where did they come from?
I dream of being an artist, specifically a painter. I dream of going to Paris and spending my mornings at the Louvre to inspire me to paint masterpieces in the afternoons. To rent a flat with my husband who will write music all day while I paint. In the early evening we will dine at little french cafes and later meet up with our friends for drinks while listening to live music. How do I plan to finance this? I have no idea. I guess that's the nature of dreams.....if we knew how to go about living them instead of just dreaming about them then we wouldn't be dreaming, right? But there are different types of dreams, more practical ones, and many of us do get to live out some of our dreams. We make them happen. We come up with a plan and execute it.
Back to the questions now though, where do these dreams come from? How do they change as we grow older? What do we do when we have a dream and we're walking diligently down the road we think will take us to our dream and then suddenly there is a huge obstacle placed in our path? Do we simply find a way around it? Do we take a different road, find another dream? Is this a random occurrence or the universes way of telling us to get a different dream? Or have we just outgrown the dream we thought we wanted to live? I suppose it's different for everyone, the decision we make at this impasse. Some people will do anything to follow their dreams, some people won't, some people are flexible and their dreams change often, others lose their dreams and become old and bitter before their time. What does this say about the importance of our dreams?
One thing is for certain though, we must dream in order to become who we want to be. I mean if you think about it, it's a strange mixture of events that lead us to be who we become. How much control do we have over this process? Aimee Mann wrote in her lyrics, "I suppose I should be happy to be misread, better be that than some of the other things I have become". So what do we do when we've become someone we're not happy with? How do we change? Is it simply a matter of changing our dreams and following new ones? How do our dreams shape who we become?
As you can see I have a lot of questions and very few answers. It may be so complex a process that I can't even fathom the actual answers. What invisible hand guides our souls in this life on earth? Why are we even here? I think more and more that we're here to learn. To learn from each other and to learn from being in a physical body in a world of matter. That would lead me to think that as souls we are unable to learn these lessons in some other way. I mean who in their right mind would jump into a physical body on this earth having to deal with all the messes humans make? There must be some very good reason. There must be something that compels us to come here and do this human experience. Is it the quickest way to learn the lessons that as souls we hunger for? Is it just the physical experience itself, of interacting with matter, feeling and sensing? Is it some kind of game or amusement ride? Do we come out of death sliding into the afterlife begging to return as soon as possible?
But I digress....not really though....I mean what is the reason for this experience and without dreams would the experience be half of what it should be? I wish I knew the answers. I've been asking these questions, it seems, my entire life and still the answers I get are hazy at best. To see beyond the veil of forgetfulness, to see where we've come from and where we're headed....that my friends, is my ultimate dream.
I welcome comments (it lets me know that people are actually reading what I write) even if they disagree with what I may or may not believe, which changes frequently by the way. Have a wonder filled day and thanks for reading my thoughts.
