Feed Them on Your Dreams

"Teach your children well,
Their father's hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams..."

                  --Crosby, Stills & Nash

I recently received a video entitled "We Stopped Dreaming" -- you can see it yourself at http://www.wimp.com/stoppeddreaming/. The premise of this video is that our collective dreams enabled our nation to put a man on the moon; that dreams make tomorrow come; that dreams enable the world of tomorrow and the life of tomorrow; and that we have stopped dreaming.  Were I to believe this, I would conclude that tomorrow is as gone as yesterday, leaving the only gray sameness of today stretching into an interminable future.

This country was built on dreams: dreams of land, dreams of liberty, dreams of personal accomplishment.  Dreams are the substance of possibility.  If you can't visualize the possibility of something better, then, whatever it is, you can't make it so.

Dreams require an attitude of abundance, an attitude that says "I have everything I need to make my dream happen.  As a nation, we lost our dreams sometime in the late 1960's when books such as The Population Bomb told us that there weren't or soon wouldn't be enough resources to go around.  And we believed them.  We believed them even more after spending time freezing in the dark and waiting in gas lines during the oil embargo of the 1970's.  

Today, we are told that certain futures are "impossible" and we believe it.  We are told that if we have and use the resources we have to make our dreams happen that we are being selfish.  

How poor we are.  Of all nations, the most richly blessed are most fearful of scarcity.

"But," we are told, "by using more than 'your fair share', your are depriving someone else of enough." And, we are told "There may not be enough to last.  Scarce resources need to be conserved and hoarded or else shared equitably among all." Each variation of these statements is presented with an air of high snootiness. 

We are made to feel guilty for having achieved, guilty for wanting to achieve more, guilty of wishing for more and better and guilty for dreaming and striving to make those dreams -- our vision of a desired future -- into reality.

No dreams? What a crock of crap!  More like no guts to go and to dare what must be done.  More like too much contentment living within limitations we are told we have and not enough courage to live abundantly in all circumstances.

We haven't stopped dreaming.  We've have been brainwashed into living in a world where dreams are severely limited and where youth are taught to dream only that which they are told is socially correct and acceptable.  

When I was a youth, I dreamed of a world in which space flight was routine and mankind had colonized the moon and near planets.  I dreamed of a world where the land yielded abundant food and the transportation system provide the means for food to be distributed to each not according to his needs, but according to his wants. I dreamed of a life of adventure and discovery.  And I dreamed of a life in which I was free to work at something useful and left alone to enjoy the fruits of my labor.  

To the extent possible, I fed my children on my dreams and watched them thrive.

What are your dreams?

On what dreams are you feeding your children?

What shapes your vision of the future?