Bird Droppings February 5, 2012

Thinking about dreams

 

“You are never given a dream without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however.” Richard Bach

 

It has been so many years since first experiencing and reading Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach’s whimsical tale of a seagull who dreams of more than simply eating fish entrails at the pier. I hear each day and listen to dreams as students talk of where and when. There are some who say whatever, that is so hard for me to hear. Generally it is a young person with no concept of tomorrow, often because today was dashed. John Dewey addresses as an educator we need to begin with prior knowledge contained within students. I have found this often is so limited and dysfunctional but we need to begin somewhere.

I recall several years back on a first day in a class when a student answered a simple graphic organizer goal sheet I use to start the semester. Question one was, where will you be in a year? The answer for most is probably still in school. Question two, where will you be in five years? The response was serious for this student, probably in jail. Finally the third Question, where will you be in ten years? I was somewhat taken back with the answer, dead. I have been keeping touch indirectly with him since he has spent the better part of the last eight years in and out of jail and currently is working as a motorcycle mechanic somewhere in Texas. He saw no future and when I talked with him back so many years ago about his answers he really did not want a future.

 

“Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you are alive, it isn’t.” Richard Bach

 

“I have heard it said that the first ingredient of success — the earliest spark in the dreaming youth — if this; dream a great dream.” John A. Appleman

 

So often when I meet people, or students who have little thought of a future there is significant past holding them back. When talking about motivation, intrinsic motivation which can be positive and or negative values.  The fellow above in my questions and answers was in this situation. Years ago as I did research for a graduate school paper I found in looking at 28 Emotionally Disturbed children in my study only two were still with biological parents only two had not had trouble with law enforcement. Of the group only four had not been on probation and or adjudicated.

 

“A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.” John Barrymore

 

“If there were dreams to sell, what would you buy?” Thomas Lovell Beddoes

 

I had not thought of this but what a question to ask young people what if dreams were for sale what would you buy? Often those that do not want to think ahead only see more of the same for my young man above death was actually something he was looking forward too.

 

“The moment of enlightenment is when a person’s dreams of possibilities become images of probabilities.” Vic Braden

 

“You’ve got to create a dream. You’ve got to uphold the dream. If you can’t, go back to the factory or go back to the desk.” Eric Burdon

 

For some of you the name Eric Burdon is insignificant but for a few of us, back in the sixties three British bands came across and stormed the United States, The Beatles, Rolling Stones and The Animals. Eric Burdon was the lead singer for, The Animals and is still around, although now living inCaliforniaand performing often solo or with his new band The Eric Burdon I Band. He has gone back to his roots, the blues. But as I read Eric’s quote and look at Bach’s quote coming from a fictional character the idea of dreaming and possibilities all tie into, you have to do something. You have to work to attain the dream, or here is a possibility, the dream and here are the opportunities. It is about life in general and that NIKE slogan, Just Do It, scribbled on your shoe.

 

“When you reach for the stars, you may not quite get one, but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either.” Leo Burnett

 

“There couldn’t be a society of people who didn’t dream. They’d be dead in two weeks.” William Burroughs

 

William Burroughs name in literary circles often falls with Allen Ginsberg as part of The Beat generation, spawned inNew York’s coffee houses and universities. But he also is often associated with Timothy Leary and Andy Warhol and in the early nineties before killing himself Kurt Cobian recorded an album with the then nearly 80 year old Burroughs reading his own words over Cobain’s guitar chords. A drug addict for most of his life, Burroughs’s tried to write himself out of where he was and many of his greatest efforts are reflections of his own addictions and reflections on the addictions and limitation others impose on themselves.

 

“Follow your bliss.” Joseph Campbell

 

“If your dream is a big dream, and if you want your life to work on the high level that you say you do, there’s no way around doing the work it takes to get you there.” Joyce Chapman

 

Trying to get teenagers to accept getting from point A to point B requires more than simply saying so can be a tough sale. Several weeks ago I was sitting talking with two students both who had dreams of college. One of the fellows said he was going to college and would get a scholarship to play football. I thought for a moment and said you have never played in high school how you will get a scholarship. He thought for a minute and said he would go out and because of his size maybe he could be a football player. Ok but you would still have to go to class and study and read. His dreams were dashed on that note.

It was for him that college was simply a football scholarship and you play football. I tried also to explain playing football meant practice four or five hours a day no TV, no video games, no four or five honey buns and a coke for snacks. He decided to change his goal, too much work, no fun, he wanted the glory of the football player but did not want the work as so many do.

 

“When your heart is in your dream, no request is too extreme.” Jiminy Cricket

 

I have always thought it interesting that a cartoon insect could possibly go down as one of the world’s great philosophers. When you believe you can, you can, I have always been told.

 

“We’ve removed the ceiling above our dreams. There are no more impossible dreams.” Jesse Jackson

 

“There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not.” Robert F. Kennedy

 

So often I find myself drawn back to an idea or quote. Kennedy’s quote is one of those about dreaming. Yet each time I find something new, a new piece to the puzzle or a new thought it always amazes me, as I am rambling through my day pondering on those moments, of new ideas, or a new direction. Today reading about William Burroughs and Kurt Cobain, both achieved the immortality of fame and genius; one lived to barely 30 and one to almost ninety only slight differences kept the parameters of their lives from being identical. I often speak of following a path we do at times have choices to make how far we can veer off the path how many times can we make a new path without getting lost.

Mathematicians hold the shortest distance between two points is a straight line however by expanding that thought if point A and B are next to each other that line makes a circle which has neither end nor beginning.

 

“Now, I say to you today my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: — we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

 

Finding a point to end on this morning is not that hard. Over the years, forty plus now I have heard this phrase in my head from Dr. King daily. My father had a worn tape of the entire speech; maybe sermon would be a better word, for it was a sermon to mankind not just theUnited States. We can fulfill our dreams but we have to do the work we have to strive to make that dream a reality be it small or monumental. It is our choice where we place point A and point B and whether our paths become simply line or a circle or a complex series of lines. So this morning one of my dreams is a world at peace. Please keep all in harm’s way on your minds and in your hearts and always give thanks.

namaste

bird