Dreaming and Striving

You see it before you. It’s perfection. It’s your dream, and it’s just over there. So you consider walking towards it, and in this consideration, with this simple thought, a path appears, clear and delineated.

You want to go down this path. You feel it pull you, and your torso leans forward. But your feet stay glued to the ground.

You want to go, but you can’t. You need to go, but you won’t.

Because you know.

The path is an illusion. The dream is pure fantasy, and even if you were to follow such a path, and find such a dream, you would be disappointed.

You would be wholly unsatisfied.

The grandiose becomes pitiful, once at your feet. You look down on it and wonder how you could ever have thought it to be possible, to be attainable.

For a moment, a tear comes to your eye. You mourn the death of a dream and the person who once dreamt it.

Then you look up. There is a new path, and a new goal.

Unfortunately, you know it to be as illusory as all the dreams previous. Fortunately, inside of you a speck of hope flickers. It entreats you with promises. It seduces you with lies.

You carry on.