Changes...

I mentioned a little about this in the last post, but, since it’s all still fresh in my mind I thought I’d ramble on a little about the changes life seems to always have in store for us. How I believe that dreams, hopes, imagination are tools that help us cope and adapt to everything that comes our way.

I have a good friend that once said to me that ‘hope’ was one of the worst of all things the human mind is capable of. I discussed (ok argued) that with him (as was our normal inclination) for some time, as I see hope as one of the greatest things our minds produce. In the end neither of us changed our minds, and as with many ‘items’ between good friends it just became one of those things we agreed to disagree on.

I still think that hope; dreams really, are the root of everything wonderful we enjoy in our lives today. Cars, electric lights, movies, stereos, televisions, you name it, if it didn’t exist in nature, someone dreamed it up, and then made that dream real.

Webster’s delineates between hope, dream and imagine by adding ‘expectation’, that hope is aspiration with expectation of achievement. I don’t see that line… to me, to dream without anticipation, belief, or expectation of achievement, would be a very empty endeavor. To dream, big dreams, without ‘hope’ of attainment, where’s the fun in that?

Two of my favorite historical people are Edison and Einstein, and not necessarily in that order! In reading about them, these two men shared one important trait. They were dreamers, they dared to imagine. Both dreamed, imagined, what were thought of as impossible dreams by the folks in their own era. Edison spent years developing an electric light bulb, for a world that did not yet have electricity in most buildings. An item that once he’d perfected it, he gave away to government agencies as no one saw the ‘need’ for it. If I was trying to do that today, people would say I was crazy.

Maybe he was a little, crazy, by conventional standards at least. I contend the world needs more, not less, folks who are ‘Edison’ and ‘Einstein’ crazy.

Both Einstein, and Edison, believed that if your mind can conceive something, it is also therefore, something you can achieve. That it’s impossible for our minds to ‘dream up’ or imagine anything, and allow us to believe it, that we can’t actualize. That’s why I believe in ‘hope’… to me, hope is just another form, an extension, of dreaming… when people say they ‘hope’ something will happen, it means (to me anyway) that they’re dreaming of it… imagining... they’re visualizing it, becoming real, in their mind.

How is that different than Edison dreaming of an electric light bulb, or Einstein imagining the theory of relativity? Remember, Einstein said he “knew” or believed the theory to be true long before he could prove it… his dreams told him it was that way and he ‘believed’. What if he hadn't believed, expected, he could solve the riddle? Or Edison for that matter?

Einstein once said: “Imagination is more important than knowledge”. When I read that, I believe that what he meant was that knowledge doesn’t create anything new… imagination, dreaming does. It’s when we dream, and believe in those dreams that we find the strength to pursue them.

So yeah, I let go of a dream on Sunday, the ‘Beast’ as one of my friends called it, is gone. It was a beast, of sorts, in a couple ways, although I’m not sure if he knew that. It was a beast of an automobile for sure, 2500 pounds of snarling, thumping, snorting, asphalt ripping, tire shredding, white knuckle inducing beast for certain… what the dream held back… that was a beast as well, one of those beasts that dwell within, in places we rarely go because the memories tear at the fabric of the reality of today… so different, so distant, yet so tangible and real.

I actually realized yesterday, as the car was leaving, that so was that ‘beast’, the one I’ve kept caged, locked away. I could feel it leave, like dropping a heavy bag, a gust of wind on your back, the splash of water on your face in the morning. Transient it was, yet palatable all the same. As that car slipped over the hill, I swear I could feel the cords that bound us snap, and the beast was really gone.

As I walked out the door this morning, headed to work, for the first time in 10 years it wasn’t there. I didn’t even miss it.

I’m working on a new dream now, not sure where it’s going to take root, or what it will be, but the wheels are turning that’s for certain. It may be another shop project; it may be that back yard patio... well not a ‘patio’ more of an outdoor conversation, relaxation, enjoy the day kind of thing with a covered gazebo at one end so we can enjoy it even if it rains… or maybe, just maybe, I’ll find the muse and get back to work on the book, I still don’t know.

Once again, thanks for reading. I’d love to hear your thoughts, comments and reactions.