Essay Five- Dreams

            While flying may be the most beautiful thing you can do, and a pet may be the best thing you can have, a dream is the most beautiful thing you can have. Hopefully, everybody’s got one, whether it’s to one day know, beyond a doubt, how a doorknob works, or whether it’s something entirely out of this world.

            Now mine, as some may have guessed, is definitely the latter. You see, I want to be one of the first men on Mars. No use hiding it, it’s just my dream. I want to go into the Deepness (Vernor Vinge, yeah!) of space, and find my destiny. I believe it to be man’s destiny too, but whatever.

            But you see, dreams are the most amazing things in the entire world to have. They give hope, they give a goal, and they make us always strive for something better.

            Actually, immigration wouldn’t be such a problem in our nation (U.S.A., just to clarify) if there weren’t dreams. Fortunately, there are. People pour in to find the promise of America: happiness and safety. Of course, this is a bit silly. But hey, so is being one of the first men on Mars! Immigrants come here in the hope of something better, for them, their families, their children, and life. They come here to work hard so that their kids can have a future, and their kid’s kids. It’s interesting how you could say that the dream of an immigrant is to have their grandchildren be happy and safe, but it definitely isn’t false.

            Dreams also give people goals. Maybe your dream is to best everyone you know at paper football. No matter what, you’re going to gain something from this. Maybe you learn how a paper football flies under certain conditions, or maybe your fingers get hella strong. Point is, it gave you a goal, and you tried to achieve it. For me, the same thing happened when I finally made my mind up to be an astronaut, sometime in early kindergarten. I started applying myself, first by bothering to learn how to read, second by learning how to do math, and then, most importantly, learning to enjoy math and reading. I apparently can even enjoy writing, or I wouldn’t be up at 4:30 in the morning typing this silly thing! So my dream of being one of the first men on Mars led to the goal of reading Watership Down all the way through (3^rd grade, and man was it hard!), which led me to Excel classes, and so on.

            Now that is an obvious example of striving for something better. I wanted to go to Mars, so I essentially willed myself into being better at everything. Just like many people have. Einstein, I’m sure, had to struggle to grasp some things, and will himself to do others. He did do good at math, though, and that’s the truth. 

            And there's another famous man from the last century that also had a dream. He had a helluva one, too. Martin Luther King Jr., the man with a name as big as his dream, dreamed that one day everyone on this earth will live in peace and harmony, no matter their race or their gender. This brings me to my next point; dreams make the world get better.
            Nothing in the entire world is as constructive, potentially, as a dream.

Life as a Bouncy Ball

      For my entire life, it's been the one analogy I could really stick with. My life is basically a bouncy ball, in a lot of ways. First off, a bouncy ball is round, just like me! lol Nah, not similar like that.
      I mean in characteristics. A bouncy ball is always going from high to low, low to high, and is nearly never in between the two. And really, that's kinda what my life is like. I'm ballsy enough to fly a plane on my own, but sometimes I just can barely cross the street without running for fear of cars. Sometimes, I feel like the King of All Creation, and sometimes I'm busy kicking myself for "being such a little shit".
      It's really strange to bounce from high to low so often, and to not know why. Hell, I can't complain though.
      Far better to be constantly in a state of change than to be stuck at either end of the spectrum, or to mellow at the center. After all, a bouncy ball may get smacked when it hits the ground, but at the peak, it would be pretty wondrous. Floating on air, excitement building, not knowing exactly what's ahead, but knowing that it will be an experience. Being caught there, the wonder would eventually be gone, and it would be as bad as mellowing in the center, nothing new (only the old) to experience.
      Sometimes, the bounces of the multiple facets of my personality are really off. The other day I was sitting in this chair, screwing around on Happy Wheels, and all I could think was how sad I was. A day or two later, I sat in the same chair, but I was working. With no music on, I whistled contentedly for like half-an-hour.
      Also, my opinion of self is probably the most active bouncer of them all. High to low, low to high multiple times a day. Sometimes, and I did indeed count, I'll shift seven times. Of course, that's only on some of the really really bad days, or when I'm practically a member of the walking dead. Still, it happens, and when it does it's sometimes really enjoyable. Take the Friday before last, for instance.
      It was a fitness training day, which for me means an uphill struggle against my obesity.
      Just a fact, I don't want everybody rushing me and telling me it's alright or any of the typical shit. It ain't, and that's why I'm fixing it. No "consolation" to give or "confidence-builders" to use. My problem.
      Anyways, I was pretty damn proud of myself. Managed to do the full sit-ups (75), and then beat one of my pals in the push-up contest. Sure, only with 12, but compared to 6 earlier this year, that's damn fine. Unfortunately, I was feeling like shit about it. Shoulda gotten 15, that was my thought, over and over.
      But then the dreaded Mile began, which is where that hill I'm struggling up tends to fight back. Thank god, I had some pals to help me along with it. By the end of it, though, I felt like I were running for fun; I was just at that part of the bounce. Sure, I got last place, again, but by hell, I hadn't walked a single step. I hadn't abandoned my friends either, and that's something I'm proud to say.
      See the contrast there? When I did well, I felt horrible. When I did poorly, I felt great! It was a strange contrast that I realized later in the day, which is when the bounce tends to mellow out a bit more. I think it's actually why I write better at night.
      For all I know, though, this is completely normal. I don't tend to get much intel on the ways other people's minds work. All I know is that it's one of the most intriguing things about my mind, and it's been a part of it for a good while. Really, I actually tend to enjoy the sensation of flying high and diving low, at least for the fact that it's never a constant.
      Of course, I seem to be on the upward path right now, but I won't complain about that either. Just a part of being an emotional and psychological bouncy ball!