October 2, '98 By Nina Al-Misnad
Close your eyes for a moment and imagine what life would be like without hopes and dreams, and what the people around you look like. Does anyone look happy or excited? Would the word excited exist without dreams? What would you become truly excited over if there was nothing in the future you hoped for or wanted? It's hard to imagine a world without dreams because we are so used to them. Dreams are such a normal part of our lives and we are so accustomed to them that we usually don't appreciate them like we should. I mean dreams attribute so much to our lives that we don't even realize! Dreams are elements that keep people sane and able to live their lives because they have something to look forward to and work towards. "Reach high, for the stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep for every dream precedes the goal." Ralph Vaull Starr said this and it is very true. If you dream about a goal you want to reach, you are already working towards it because you are thin! king about it and building up the courage and need to achieve it. Without motivation, which dreams can be classified as, the drive to achieve is not very strong.
"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; there is where they should be. Now just put a foundation under them." I really like this quote by Henry David Thoreau because it makes me mad how dreamers are usually thought of as lazy people who just sit around and talk or think about how great something would be if only this and that happened. George Bernard Shaw said "You see things and you ask Why? But I dream things that never were and say Why not? This is what I think dreamers really do. They come up with thoughts and ideas that benefit others or/and themselves. Whether it be something as personal as marrying the love of their lives, as simple as wanting to change the paper used in schools from regular to recycled paper or as big as finding a cure for Aids, they're all important dreams and goals because they make someone, whether it is a bum on the street or a millionaire in his vacation house in Sicily, they still effect someone in a posit! ive manner.
I don't think there are any bad dreams. Image that someone is addicted to drugs and dreams of having an endless amounts of drugs. You would call that a negative dream right? Wrong because if you really think about it what would their dream be like? Do you think they would include the painful parts of shoving a needle in their arms to shoot in the heroin or the extensive joint pains when tripping on acid? Not likely, what they are really dreaming of is the feeling of having a lot of something they love, and because they are addicted, all they would know at the time is drugs. When you are addicted to something it is your world and it's all you can think about. Therefore, these dreams aren't bad if you really look at them because they are just a distorted dream of having something that is perceived as valuable.
I dream all the time about stupid little things like the day I get to hang out with Kalifa and Jacqui again and all the fun I'm going to have when I go to college and finally get freedom. I think simple dreams like these are healthy and necessary to make people look forward to the future with a smile on their faces. Then there are the bigger dreams like Mother Teresa's dream of helping people in the world or world peace. These are the dreams that push people to do some of the things they do and create harmony and love in the world. These are the dreams that cause change to come around. I think this dreams are important, although no more important than the simpler dreams because they are both necessary to give people hope for the future, the joy to be alive and to truly feel as if the have a reason to live. The only hard part sometimes if dreaming of achievements that are very difficult to achieve.
"Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground." was said by Theodore Roosevelt. It simply means dream of things that may seem impossible and out of this world, but keep in mind your abilities and limitations.
So, I think dreams are a beautiful part of life that would be incredibly empty and almost useless if they never existed. I personally don't can't even think of how I would have gotten through my hard times if I didn't have my dreams to look forward to and want to stay alive for. After all, "Dreams are feathers woven together used as angels wings."
"What would you attempt to do if you knew you would not fail?"
Dr. Robert Schuller
This question brings up alot of inner controversy within me and I think anyone who really sits down and thinks about all this. It's really hard to pick out one thing you would do if you could accomplish it with no doubts in mind. First issues you'd think of would be saving the rainforest or creating world peace. Afterall, if someone is giving you this ... I Don't Know ... gift of ... having this power you would feel as if you owe it to the world to contribute this power to it. It reminds me of the quote by Laurence Lee. "The world does not pay for what a person knows. But pays for what a person does with what he knows." It's the same in this case, it's not the gift that will make the difference but what it is used for. Hitler was a man who had an incredible gift of speech, but instead of using it for good, he choose to use it to hurt the world. I think that is a huge tragedy in the world today. You see people with these great abilities and talents that could benefit the world, but instead are being wasted or used for wrongful actions. It is like the typical movie scenerio of smart teenagers who sell drugs on the streets instead of going to school even though they would be very sucessful. It's really sad, but you can't save everyone from ruining their own lives and destroying themselves.
Back to the original topic. My one aciton I wanted to achieve was to take away 99.9% of the worlds suffering. I don't mean suffering like someone who's upset about their boyfriend or (little things) insignificant worries like that. I mean war, murders, abuse (physical and mental), starvation, disease, etz. I would only want to eliminate 99.9% of the pain so the world would not become a utopen and some saddness would still exsist. When I think critically of this it's actually bad for the world. As a result of dissapating the pain, excessive starvation would occure because of over population. Strong emotions of joy and happiness would also disapear. It goes right back to Heraclitus's theory of opposites.
"If we were never ill, we would never know what it was to be healthy. If we never knew hunger, we would take no pleasure in being full. If there was never any war, we would not appreciate peace. And if there were never winter, we would never see spring."
Saving the world from pain ... nice thought, but reality destroy's the thought.
Something you could do without failure is a really hard question to ask because a human can only be human and you would want to do something nice for yourself, but then you feel selfish. It is kind of hard to think of something nice you could do for the world that wouldn't take away from it as well. Even getting rid of all enviromental destructions/disturbances would take away from lives. For example, if there were no pollution, a lot of people would be out of jobs looking for ways to decrease air pollutions, and take away people's lifetime battles to educate public about pollution's hazards.
I don't know the more I think about it, the more confusing it becomes ...
I think my new "do anything" would be to find a way to make sure everyone in the world, no matter what age, race or religion, dies happy and content with their lives.
Nina wrote the above for English (Copyright)
