My summers as a child were spent in my friend’s tree, every stick a weapon, every branch a new adventure. In October we would gather for scary movies and of course, go trick-or-treating together in the snow. We spent winters making our own comic books, and then later playing video games. Spring brought with it thunderstorms and the freedom to explore the neighborhood once more. When I look back on my childhood, it’s the branches of that tree I remember most. Perched upon my favorite branch, staring up into leaves as they danced in the breeze.
When I was little I was full of dreams. I slew giants, fought dragons, and pushed back monsters (so long as they didn’t live in my closet). I could invent anything, had every superpower and even saved the world more than a few times. Yes, you’re welcome. Growing up, the world was full of lava floors, spiked lawns, and world splitting sidewalk cracks. The world was what I made it. Not once have I met a child that was not full of dreams like I was back then. My friends and I would wonder if there really were ghosts or aliens out there as we sat in the branches of that tree. We would ask big questions too, was God real? What did we want to be when we grew up? (For that, I had a carefully prepared scenario involving a dog and a white picket fence) Would we really be friends forever? If you could go anywhere where would you go? Why were adults so impossible to deal with?
Life has a way of stealing the dreams of our youth from us. Our education strips us of the capacity to look to the horizon and imagine something unknowable. Life, responsibilities, being an adult, choke our ability to focus on anything else as we grow up. We become myopic, unable to dream, unable to see the wonder all around us as debt, bills, and life begin to pile up around us. The result is that many of us have been robbed of our greatest resource, our ability to dream. It is the greatest theft of the twenty-first century.
One of my favorite quotes is one by a Greek philosopher named Heraclitus “Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.” To rekindle our dreams, we must find that which was once lost. We must reclaim our childhood and learn how to play again. I don’t mean that we all need to stand up and go outside to the playground (though, that is not a bad idea). Too many times we constrain ourselves to what is right in front of us. Unable to see around what we can already plainly see or know. We tie down the impossible with reality. When was the last time you allowed yourself to look up at the clouds and seeing cities? When did you last ponder what’s on the far side of the moon, or how humanity will live in the far-off future? When did you last allow yourself to be a hero? When was the last time you had an adventure? Or the last time you went exploring, not because you were lost and refused to ask for directions, but because you wanted to see something new? When was the last time you danced to the thunderstorm? We must learn to allow ourselves to play, to wonder, and have fun, and explore just like when we were children before we can dream.
The tree I spent my summers in is no longer there but the memories and the dreams I once had will always remain part of the fabric of my life. We don’t ever have to stop dreaming, and I don’t know why we ever believed we had too. What was once lost can be reclaimed. We can foster in our lives a passion for the things that matter to us and we can pass that passion on to our children. I see hope when I look at the kids running around on the playground without a care. I see the fire of creativity in the eyes of my cousins and in the eyes my friend’s children. I look at my nephews and am awed at their creativity. I wonder to myself, what dreams will they conquer? What mountains will they climb, and what dragons will they slay? We are all born dreamers, we can reclaim that if we are willing. If we are brave. If we can learn to play as the children do.