I read Les Miserables in high school, read it twice since and can’t remember feeling as emotionally moved (never had the chance to see the play) as the recent Hollywood movie. The song I Dreamed a Dream particularly sent shivers up my skin and sent me on a roller coaster ride of emotions – from hope to love to pain to anger and finally to resignation.
Songs have a way of touching our hearts. Very often, they help us say something we wouldn’t otherwise be able to put into words. They give life to our innermost thoughts and feelings, particularly those that we are most afraid to let anyone know.
I Dreamed a Dream has been ringing in my ears for the past couple of weeks. I never thought it possible for anyone to create a song that is beautiful and haunting, yet hold such excruciating pain. As the song continued to linger in my head, the more I thought about how dreams can make a life.
Dreams keep us hopeful for what is yet to come. They move us forward, push us to jump into the unknown and take on the challenge that lies ahead with the belief that something of great value and importance can be won.
Dreams keep our spirits up. It makes us want to fly, conquer the horizon as far as the eye can see and get drunk in the many possibilities that our heart and hands can seize.
Dreams feed our faith in the goodness of the world. They nourish our belief that though there is a price to pay, an equally valuable prize waits for us at the end. They enable us to trust that suffering may be inevitable but heaven remains close by.
Dreams embolden our desire to live. We take each day as it comes and do the best we can because we hope that tomorrow will be better.
But as the song goes, a dream also brings with it an inconvenient truth. And the truth is that dreams can be used and wasted. “The tiger comes at night...” the song goes, “...they tear your hope apart, and they turn your dream to shame.”
Yes, it is an inconvenient truth. But precisely because it is inconvenient, we learn to run, to fight, to run again and to fight some more. After all, what defines our life is not that our dreams were wasted or that we were slain.
What defines our life is how we dealt with the tigers that came and tore our hope apart.
Songs have a way of touching our hearts. Very often, they help us say something we wouldn’t otherwise be able to put into words. They give life to our innermost thoughts and feelings, particularly those that we are most afraid to let anyone know.
I Dreamed a Dream has been ringing in my ears for the past couple of weeks. I never thought it possible for anyone to create a song that is beautiful and haunting, yet hold such excruciating pain. As the song continued to linger in my head, the more I thought about how dreams can make a life.
Dreams keep us hopeful for what is yet to come. They move us forward, push us to jump into the unknown and take on the challenge that lies ahead with the belief that something of great value and importance can be won.
Dreams keep our spirits up. It makes us want to fly, conquer the horizon as far as the eye can see and get drunk in the many possibilities that our heart and hands can seize.
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| Photo by Paolo Ferrer |
Dreams feed our faith in the goodness of the world. They nourish our belief that though there is a price to pay, an equally valuable prize waits for us at the end. They enable us to trust that suffering may be inevitable but heaven remains close by.
Dreams embolden our desire to live. We take each day as it comes and do the best we can because we hope that tomorrow will be better.
But as the song goes, a dream also brings with it an inconvenient truth. And the truth is that dreams can be used and wasted. “The tiger comes at night...” the song goes, “...they tear your hope apart, and they turn your dream to shame.”
Yes, it is an inconvenient truth. But precisely because it is inconvenient, we learn to run, to fight, to run again and to fight some more. After all, what defines our life is not that our dreams were wasted or that we were slain.
What defines our life is how we dealt with the tigers that came and tore our hope apart.
Linked with GBE 2 and Writer's Post