Yesterday I entered the last year of my seventh decade. After a certain time of life, birthdays begin to be sobering affairs as they produce an inevitable rumination over the meaning of life’s events. I begin to wonder what value I have added, always thinking of George Bailey and his angel Clarence and wondering if my guardian angel showed up and performed a similar miracle for me, what I might learn. Alas, this is mere daydream and never to be, leaving me instead to my own incompetent speculations.
But such thoughts never last long, since my focus has always been forward. While the length of the future has declined by a year, there is still enough of it left in which to chase dreams. Chasing dreams is a necessary part of life – a part ignored by too many of us. For only if we chase dreams do we have any real likelihood of catching them. I don’t believe in the concept of luck when it comes to living a life; those who seem to others to be merely lucky, are far more likely to be those who worked hard to position themselves to catch fate as it passed by.
Effective dreaming is much more than cogitation and pondering. Chasing dreams requires the expenditure of real effort. The dreams of which I speak are active affairs, the kinds of dreams that don’t simply exist in the daze of momentary distraction or in the deepest undercurrents of night. Daydreams are a dime a dozen and of little value beyond a momentary release from boredom or tension; those of the night serve the mind’s health, but seldom advance personal goals. True dreaming requires elbow grease, spit and polish, baling wire, duct tape, bits of discarded lumber, slightly bent nails, an old hammer with a well polished handle, used paintbrushes in an old tin can requiring turpentine to become flexible again, a notional will-o’-the-wisp, and the spark of will power.
Most dreams are hard to achieve because they depend in large part upon the assistance of others. For an author to publish a story or novel, the assistance of a publisher and maybe an agent is required. But unless the author first writes the story or novel, there is nothing a publisher or agent can do for him. So first he must write, chasing the dream in the solitude of composition. Fortunately, there is always satisfaction to be found in the effort: the sense of fulfillment coming with completion; the sense of achievement resulting from application of personal standards. The same is true for most endeavors, artistic or otherwise.
All I know with certainty is what I’ve learned in my 69 years: that I stand no chance with a passing whimsy if I make no effort to catch its eye; that I cannot attract serendipity if I am too unrehearsed to whisper enticing amusements into its ear if it ever appears.
