"Dre-e-e-e-eam"

We recently saw a movie called Wild Rose, about a Scottish “Trans-geograph” – someone who believes they were born in the wrong country – who dreams of becoming a big star American country singer.

I have always believed that, structurally, American movies are essentially the same:

“Somebody wants something, and they get it.”

“Bumps in the road” in “Act Two.”  But ultimately smooth sailing from “Act One” to “Act Three.”

Wild Rose is minimally different.  In Wild Rose,

“Somebody wants something and they don’t get it, but there is the clear implication that they will.”

I don’t know if the Scottish filmmakers fumbled the format, or they’re just bull-headed Scots people going,

“We’ll dew it ahr ohn wee!”

“I mean, wut’s the big foos anywee?  It’s gooing to happen, jist nawt yit.”

(That was hard work.  And I’m not sure it’s Scottish.)

Anywee,

I mean, anyway…

That’s actually not what inspired this post.  It’s just better than what did.  So I used it, okay?

What actually inspired this post was this.

I am training in my back yard…

“That is so-o-o-o ‘L.A.’.”

I know, but that’s where I live.

My gym trainer is John, a star wide receiver in college, now an actor/slash/gym trainer.  We are talking about… anything that distracts him from making me exercise.   This time, it is, as portrayed in Wild Rose – distorted by Scottish obstinacy –

“The Dream.”

Specifically,

Weren’t we both lucky to have experienced our dreams.  Mine in a business, where, as the song goes,  

“Everything about it is appealing.”

This led me to wonder – in borderline patronizing fashion – about people who live their lives never having a dream.

“Blasphemy!”

I know.

“I was being sarcastic.”

Oh.  Well I’ll keep going anyway.

What, I wonder, as I pretend to stretch out my hamstrings, does that feel like – living your life never having a dream?

Here’s the “clouding difficulty” with that line of pondering inquiry.

Culture. 

By which I mean stories, imprinting our brains with an ingraining cultural narrative, singingly espoused in South Pacific’s

“You’ve got to have a dream

If you don’t have a dream,

How’re ya gonna make a dream come true?”

I wonder about that, “You’ve got to have a dream.”

Do you?

That sounds like America.  (And people who believe they were born elsewhere by mistake.)  In other places, and at other times in human history, did everyone all have a dream?  Or did they just have a life?  (I mean, how many dreams are there, anyway?)

Imagine – as I can’t because I had one, albeit one I kept secret mostly even from myself – a person living contentedly without a dream.  In this culture, that is an unfathomable concept.  Like living contentedly without a nose.

“Did you smell that?”

“What do you mean?”

We can’t imagine not smelling, any more, it seems, than imagining not having a dream.  Look what happens when you have a dream.  None of it much fun. 

You have a dream but you don’t go for it.

How does that feel?

You go for your dream but it doesn’t work out  (“At least they tried”?  Yeah, but still “Ouch!”)

You go for your dream but only partially achieve it.

“Regret ‘R Us.”

You fulfill your dream beyond all expectations, and it’s,

“Is that all there is?”

Or you fulfill your dream but because you didn’t dream big enough someone who did fulfilled it much better.

All, as opposed to the person with no dream.

“Impossible!”

Was that sarcastic?

“Yes.  No.  I’m not sure.”

I know what you mean.  What if it isn’t impossible not to have a dream but we think it is because we drank the cultural Kool-Aid?

Leaving the unanswerable question, although still worth asking:

Who’s happier – the person with a dream, or the person who doesn’t know what the person with the dream is talking about?

Something to think about.

While you are “strengthening your core.”