dream

All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.
T. E. Lawrence

I find I daydream a lot - never when I have something pressing to do - I'm not lazy or slothful. Nor are my dreams a means of escape - life is grand, and real. It's got that going for it. But I can't help but find myself daydreaming of the kind of things I would hope to see happen in my life, the lives of the people I know, the world around me.

I know it doesn't seem practical to be a dreamer, and at times it may look a little ungrounded. Why can't those crazy dreamers just exist in the here and now? The answer is quite simple really - the here and now will never suffice. We're made for more than what we have right now, and though this smacks of deep-seated discontent, it is really the longings of a heart that feels out of place where it is.

And so I dream. I dream of a place and a time when "slavery" is an archaic term. I dream of a time and a place where you can't buy kids for sex, where no one cares how much a particular stock is worth, when we stop texting and start actually talking, when all life everywhere is deemed precious, regardless of where it is from or even whether or not it is human . . . I dream of childhoods unmarred by war or abuse, of random acts of kindness becoming everyday life, and of an entire populace captivated by the beauty they see everywhere everyday.

Sure, it's a dangerous dream. If you have any investment in a company that makes millions on the backs of others, this dream is your nightmare. If you grow genetically modified animals, caring little for that which God cares much for, you take comfort that this is just a dream. And if your income depends on how many customers your stable of pre-pubescent kids can service in one night, then your wish is that I and others like me stop daring to not only dream that this world is possible, but make it happen . . .