Step One: Find the Dream -- or fix one.

 Having established that dreams are both fickle and slippery bastards, the idea of chasing one seemed beyond daunting at first. This isn't the first mad task I've attempted in my time however and, if I have any say in it, won't be the last either. This is really only natural when you look back at the world in the last decade. It's 2001, ten years since the American Dream was violently seized in a police state of racism and terror. You can't even run anymore without the proper documentation & without the ability to run, dreaming gets remarkably difficult.

For too long now the days been wasted, wrapped in stone, howling madly at the moon. Adulthood was found on the heels of terrorism and social vice grips crashing down on all sides, and the pattern has carried it with it some vicious, violent, animals. They've all broken loose from their cages and run amok, shitting values and pissing the fear down on the fading parades of youth. They say that growing up is never fun, that the experience hits like a bomb and never leaves you the same. I was given the shortest of moments that shook the world to its very core.

It seems to be an attitude I've applied to many of my days since. Play hard, play to win, hold nothing back for the journey home, or don't play at all. We're all climbing borrowed ladders up the rungs, just trying to keep ahead of the rising oceans of deification. Some of us make it, and even those knee deep in piss manage to raise their hands in cheer for them. Some of grow weary and tired, but we try and press on. Others of us still are content to remain on the lower levels, chin deep in the brine of humanity, ready to provide a helping hand to the climbing souls. Me? I've been all of the above, save those cheering down the bellows of encouragement from the top. So many sunsets over this ocean of waste..so many moonlit nights...

But it's in these ponderous hours, those have been spent peeling back the layers of skin covering up the dormant, dreaming mind, that I've made some of my best discoveries recently. What's been uncovered is both curious, dangerous, and highly enticing. It's got the warm grip of white sand pouring through your toes, but carries with it there's a serpent spilling through the grains. It's understood there's danger there, so thick you it could jam up an electric turkey carver, but it's also known that the greatest gains in life carry with them the greatest risk.

I've long preached about the edge and more than once have I let my toes teeter blindly on the precipice of a free fall. I've done it again, ran screaming blindly toward the cliffs, my arms flailing about as lungs belched forth the most primal of sounds from within. I've felt the iron fist of fear clench around my insides like an Amazonian constrictor. I've felt the burning pain from a lack of oxygen, the crushing weight of life being pressed out of my pores in a mixture of Kentucky Whiskey and sweat. I've pushed myself further and farther, harder and faster, than I ever have before..


 It seems only natural then, that the only way to find a dream is to create one. Simple seems better, but in the grand scheme of the universe, nothing is ever simple. Drinking a glass of water seems like nothing, until you work out the exact physical science behind it, never mind all the fucked up molecules that make up you, the glass, and the things that float in the town water. Taking a page from the Dictionary and Wikipedia, we'll look at the classic 'American' Dream.

Wikipedia, the hallmark of American internet knowledge, provides the following information:

Historian James Truslow Adams popularized the phrase "American Dream" in his 1931 book Epic of America:

"The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, also too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position."

While the Dictionary has this to say:

American Dream

–noun

1. the ideals of freedom, equality, and opportunity traditionally held to be available to every American.

2. a life of personal happiness and material comfort as traditionally sought by individuals in the U.S.

Looks great on paper, doesn't it? What does that really mean though? I've got to agree with Truslow on this one, at least in part and raise a middle finger to Marian Webster. The America Dream isn't designed to be one filled with the fastest cars or the biggest bank account -- even if that's what the fat swine will try and tell you it means. Capitalism and Dreaming are really ill suited bed mates. One's a passionate and fiery lover, while the other is a useless, vanilla, wafer that's happy to fuck it's way blindly to an orgasm, suck down a dry spell of it's own cancer, and go to sleep.

Truslow later wrote:

"The American Dream, that has lured tens of millions of all nations to our shores in the past century has not been a dream of material plenty, though that has doubtlessly counted heavily. It has been a dream of being able to grow to fullest development as a man and woman, unhampered by the barriers which had slowly been erected in the older civilizations, unrepressed by social orders which had developed for the benefit of classes rather than for the simple human being of any and every class."

See? There. There's a glimpse of the idea of it right there but, slowly, we've beaten and eroded it down.  'It has been a dream of being able to grow to fullest development as a man and woman, unhampered by the barriers which had slowly been erected in the older civilizations'.. It's right there. The dream of being able to grow to the fullest development unhampered by barriers. That's the ticket and the ride, and it's one we're all waiting in line to get on -- that or scalping our tickets because we're just not that interested anymore. Of course, this was Eighty years ago. Times change, but has the Dream really grown to reflect the slumber? It surely doesn't look like it from where I'm standing...and, Sweet Jesus, it's long overdue.

So this is my proposal, as suggested by the first entry on this damnable quest. Redefine The Dream. Since we've pounded it to death with the Sledgehammer of Terrorism and Conspiracy -- fucked it's brains out in the midst of the War on Drugs -- and never mind the Water boarding of the average television programing. It's all boiled down to getting a bag tossed over you head, smashed with a bat, and then being crammed face first into a toilet nobody's bothered to clean in years. It just doesn't work for the modern generations. We've taught them the wrong set of values and abandoned the bastions of Freedom that are the supposed cornerstones of our civilization.

Suggested Revisions to 'The Dream'

Point One: The Dream should represent a life of personal happiness, uninhibited by social cares and political correctness. Opinions should be freely given and encouraged to be freely countered. Material comfort should be just that, comfort. Comfort is not excess, but enough.

Point Two: The  Dream  in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each regardless of ability or achievement. 


Point Three: The Dreams should entail the following: Life, Liberty and Happiness -- any moment that extols any of these virtues -- without infringing upon this right for another -- should be gripped tight with both hands and held until the moment passes. It should be encouraged to everyone, from the newborn to the Elderly that life should not be an endless series of dishonest toil. It should be taught that life is made of what we build it to be, and that nothing less than everything should ever be acceptable.
 
Point Four: Freedom and Liberty are not luxuries, nor should they ever again be defined as 'inalienable' if they are not such.

Point Five: The Dream should be encouraged at every moment.

I'm aware this undertaking has been made before, and that I'm not walking down a path that is even remotely original -- but that's the point of dreaming. Everyone has dreams where they can fly, everyone has dreams where we're superheros. We all have nightmares where our loved ones burn, but no matter how many stories we tell about dreams, the feeling is always different. The purpose of this isn't to be original, but reignite the dying spark of hope that will keep the future generations alive.

So forward I go, swallowing down the Silver-back that's taken up residence in my throat, feeling it crash around in a rabid frenzy all the way into my bowels. When I hit the bottom? I'll shit a Gorilla and just keep moving on and -- with a little bit of luck -- there will be a whole new set of experiences to carry with me as I wander out into the surf of a whole new ocean. The waters are dark, deep, and full of sharks. The waters are murky, turbulent, an unpredictable. They're unforgiving and have no tolerance for hesitation. They'll sap all your strength and ask more of you than you've ever given. If you can conquer the waves thought, they'll carry you anywhere you want to go.

I will own it, I will claim it. I will pack my flag and plant it deep, waving the 'V' held high in a two handed displays even. Worst case scenario? It'll be the fitting epitaph for a man who knew just how far he was willing to go -- stealing the gesture back from a crooked man, just like I'm trying to thief back the principles of dreaming.