{"id":672,"date":"2009-09-18T07:49:38","date_gmt":"2009-09-18T13:49:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.14erskiers.com\/blog\/?p=672"},"modified":"2009-09-18T07:49:38","modified_gmt":"2009-09-18T13:49:38","slug":"dreams-deferred","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/dreams-deferred\/","title":{"rendered":"Dreams Deferred"},"content":{"rendered":"

Netflix is great. Our membership there causes us to watch movies religiously- movies that we may not otherwise watch. Lately, we\u2019ve watched a series of movies that have really caused my head to churn, especially a movie called Revolutionary Road<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Revolutionary Road<\/strong> is about the life of April and Frank, a couple living in suburbia with two kids. But, they are empty inside. The adventure, the passion, the zest for life has vanished. April suddenly realizes this one day and decides they should follow their long-lost dream of moving to Paris. So, they prepare for the move and their life is happy again, for the moment. But, and unexpected pregnancy causes their plans to come to a screeching halt. With Paris no longer feasible, their relationship plummets, causing April to spiral into a deep depression which eventually results in suicide.<\/p>\n

Sounds like a horrible movie, huh? I mean, who wants to watch a movie about someone committing suicide? But, I actually liked it. I liked it for the point it made. If you live an ordinary life, because that\u2019s what society tells you to do, then you might as well not be living. A life of emptiness and forgotten dreams is not a life at all.<\/p>\n

And then the philosopher in me got to thinking- Paris was their dream deferred. <\/em><\/p>\n

A Dream Deferred<\/strong> by Langston Hughes<\/p>\n

What happens to a dream deferred?
\nDoes it dry up
\nlike a raisin in the sun?
\nOr fester like a sore–
\nAnd then run?
\nDoes it stink like rotten meat?
\nOr crust and sugar over–
\nlike a syrupy sweet?
\nMaybe it just sags
\nlike a heavy load.
\nOr does it explode?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know about everyone else\u2019s dreams that have been deferred. But, my dream deferred- well, it exploded. Here’s the story….<\/p>\n

Like most children, I grew up dreaming my life away. I lived half my life in an imaginary world with imaginary friends in an imaginary house and a pretend name. I dreamed of what I was going to do, of what I was going to be. I didn\u2019t know exactly what<\/em> I wanted to do or who<\/em> I wanted to be. But, that was slowly taking shape. It\u2019s easy to dream when life hasn\u2019t punched you in the face yet. I was going to be an ordinary person living an extraordinary life\u2026. Someday<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n

I had a lucky life as a child. As many doors opened for me as I had to open myself. But, then more and more doors began to shut. Sometimes they were slammed right in my face. As life roughed me up I slowly became complacent. But, complacent is not the same as content and content is not the same as happy. \u201cSomeday\u201d finally came and I finally realized: I wasn\u2019t an ordinary person living an extraordinary life.<\/p>\n

The thought had been slowly creeping up on me for several years. My life was ordinary and I knew it, but I wasn\u2019t ready to face it. Then, one day I was listened to this Nine Inch Nails song.<\/p>\n

See the animal in his cage that you built
\nAre you sure what side you’re on?
\nBetter not look him too closely in the eye
\nAre you sure what side of the glass you are on?
\nSee the safety of the life you have built
\nEverything where it belongs
\nFeel the hollowness inside of your heart
\nAnd it’s all
\nRight where it belongs
\nWhat if everything around you
\nIsn’t quite as it seems?
\nWhat if all the world you think you know
\nIs an elaborate dream?
\nAnd if you look at your reflection
\nIs it all you want it to be?
\nWhat if you could look right through the cracks?
\nWould you find yourself
\nFind yourself afraid to see?<\/p>\n

The lyrics to this song woke me up out of the haze. I wasn\u2019t all I wanted to be. My heart was hollow and frankly, I just wasn\u2019t happy. I wondered how my life could be so full but yet so empty at the same time. I was just going through the motions of every day life. As Pink Floyd puts it, I had become \u201ccomfortably numb\u201d with the life I had built for myself. I was alive but not really living. Why were all the doors no longer open? Where had the passion gone? What had happened to all of my dreams? So, I decided, it was time to re-open the doors.<\/p>\n

My dream deferred had been to live in the mountains. This had been my dream since I was fourteen years old, when my father took me on my first backpacking trip in Alaska. I worked hard all through high school so I could leave Ohio and go to a school that would be closer to the mountains. I ended up at CU Boulder, which was an amazing place at the time. But, Boulder is at the foothills of the mountains, not in the mountains. I didn\u2019t want to be living in a cosmopolitan suburb full of yuppie-wanna-be-hippies, pseudo-athletes, and fake facades. I wanted to be where people were living real lives and real dreams.<\/p>\n

So, here I am in Crested Butte– my exploded dream deferred. I am finally an ordinary person living an extraordinary life. But, my life is not unusual by any means. I am an ordinary person, after all. There are 2000 other people in this community living the same dreams and doing the same things that I do on a regular basis. What makes my life so extraordinary? I am finally living the life that I want to be living. Only you can decide for yourself what will make your life extraordinary. Are you living your dreams? Are you pouring your heart and soul into something you love? Does your heart feel full of happiness? If the answer is \u2018yes\u2019 then you are truly living a life less ordinary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Netflix is great. Our membership there causes us to watch movies religiously- movies that we may not otherwise watch. Lately,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous","category-random-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":724,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672\/revisions\/724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}