The I have a dream speech by Dr. Martin Luther King is probably one of the most quoted speeches in Modern American history. Mr Kings rhetorical skills made that dream reverberate in hearts across the country and sparked a civil rights movement, in spite of all the nay-sayers, that changed the face of America. Is racism still present in the USA? Yes. Is there racism in the rest of the world? Yes. Has the full force of Dr Kings dream come to fruition? No. Does that diminish the dream and his impassionate articulation of that dream? No. Dreams are the engines of the soul. Dreams are the fuel burned to inspire what is great and beautiful in everyone of us. Dreams drive us forward; force us to rise to greater heights than we would ever aspire to without them. Dreams change the human spirit in profound ways. Dreams have caused great civilizations to rise up and lack of dreams has caused them to fall. Nevertheless, a dream does not need to thunder across the planet to have meaning. A dream can be a simple and humble thing. When I was very young, I dreamed of having my own typewriter. I mean every writer worth his salt has a typewriter. I wrote everything down in ruled notebooks, but I dreamed of sitting at my desk, typewriter ready and a nice fresh sheet rolled onto the platen. I could see myself, face turned to the ceiling of my bedroom, searching for the first perfect word to grace this single most treasured sheet of pure white paper. I watched myself with fingers poised over the keys. Watch out Hemmingway! (See how little dreams quickly transcend to bigger ones?) I lived and breathed that dream for many months. Then one day my typewriter arrived: a big black clunker threaded with a brand new ribbon and ready for me to start. How it got there is lost in the mist between dream and reality. Memory doesnt help; Im blank on the details, though I am sure my parents had something to do with its magical appearance. The point is just that; dreams are magical things. If you live in the dream, long enough a reality shift occurs like something out of Star Trek. Time warps and space-time continuum fluxes constantly beset the crew. The appearance of my typewriter happened something like that. I think Scotty beamed it down from some 23rd century museum of outdated technology. I loved that heavy clunking manual typewriter with the little silver handle you had to push to bring the platen back into position for the next great sentence to tumble from my mind onto that remarkable piece of paper suddenly transformed into a translator for my soul. Today I am sure young, aspiring, writers dream of huge gigabyte hard drives and flat screen monitors, and the latest word processors. Yet only the hardware has change, the software, the dream, is the very same one. A dream is not a static thing. As the dreamer changes so changes the dream. As the dreamer grows in confidence, the dream grows in scope. As the dreamer reaches for the golden apple of his dream, he suddenly transforms his dream to an even higher aspiration. That is the nature of dreams and the beauty of the men, women, and children who first conceive the dream, throw it out in front of them, at the top of a mountain, then have a remarkable journey to the pinnacle way up there in the sky. What is your dream? Your dreams? Write them down, live them, breath them, sleep with them, eat with them, and be ready for the reality warp that changes reality into the dream. Remember the passion in Dr Kings voice as he spoke his famous words, I have a dream You have a dream too, put voice to it. Live long, and prosper. Nick Grimshawe |
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