You may say I’m a dreamer.
But I’m not the only one.
It’s a difficult path to have a dream and to chase after it. And while it’s incredibly fulfilling, it can be lonely. As a dreamer myself, I find that a lot of people don’t get me. They don’t seem to get why I just didn’t get that job in CompSci all those years ago and why I’m writing for basically nothing when I could be making tons of money and probably getting a lot more respect from people who, well, respect people with real jobs.
The decision in my mind was simple.
Becoming a software engineer wasn’t my dream, it was someone else’s.
The response to that decision, however, has been complicated.
Dreamers, we can feel alone sometimes, I think. Watching everyone else get settled in. Watching how their pragmatism affords them comfort and how their acceptance settles them deep into a haven of comfort. It’s beautiful thing to witness, really. I might even say I’m a little envious.
But.
I think dreamers are born to be… well, dreamers. We can’t help ourselves. We can’t help but want to look up into the sky and wonder not only if there is more, but also concoct “out of the box” crazy plans. Sometimes, they work out and a lot of times they don’t. But we don’t care. Because dreaming is who we are. It is our way of… being.
Furthermore, who we want to be seems so outlandish to the majority of people, we think we’re alone.
But, we’re not.
You are not.
Yes, you may think you’re a dreamer, but remember you’re not the only one.
Last week, I was explaining a game to Tariq that I used to play as a child.
It’s called, “The Farmer in the Dell.”
If you grew up here in the States, you probably played it, too.
Children gather around in a circle and one child, the farmer, stands in the middle.
Then the children [...]
Last week, I was explaining a game to Tariq that I used to play as a child.
It’s called, “The Farmer in the Dell.”
If you grew up here in the States, you probably played it, too.
Children gather around in a circle and one child, the farmer, stands in the middle.
Then the children join hands and circle the farmer and sing.
The farmer in the dell, the farmer in the dell…
The farmer picks a wife…
The wife picks a child…
The child picks a nurse…
And it would go on and on, until just one child was left.
The cheese.
And all the kids who were now inside the circle stood and sang at that lone child standing outside, “The cheese stands alone.”
The cheese stands alone.
Tariq’s response was unabashed horror.
A strong realization hit me right then.
Man.
That was a stupid game.
Or… was it?
Libya is far away. Most of us don’t know much about what’s going on except that the word “war” is being thrown around in the guise of the word “intervention.”
Here are some great places to start (or even end):
What’s Happening In Libya Explained (with daily updates) via Mother Jones
Five Arguments Against Intervention via CNN Blogs
It Takes A Village to Support A Military Intervention via the Economist Blogs, Democracy in America
There’s lots more out there, but I’ve tried to make this as easy as possible for you. I even timed myself. It took me eight minutes to read all three of these articles. Okay, I scrolled through the very end of the Mother Jones one and stopped only when I saw something I thought was interesting.
You have eight minutes, right? The least we can do for the young Americans who may be sent to Libya, the people of Libya themselves and ourselves is read three tiny, little articles and give this just eight minutes of our time.
The conviction and rationale behind opinions are far less important to me than the fact that they exist in the first place. It’s not important to me, in other words, to express what I think, but to make you think.
Our president will also be addressing the nation at 7:30 p.m. tonight regarding this issue for those of you who would like to earn extra credit.
Feel free to post links, opinions stated in a respectful manner, or exasperated declarations of “All I want to do is graduate high school, go to Europe, marry Christian Slater and die… it may not sound great to a sconehead like you, but I think it’s swell” in the comments section
That last line? That was for you, Earl.
From the monthly archives: March 2011
