The kingdom of dreams

"As everyone knows, the ancients before Aristotle did not consider the dream a product of the dreaming mind, but a divine inspiration, and in ancient times the two antagonistic streams, which one finds throughout in the estimates of dream life, were already noticeable.

They distinguished between true and valuable dreams, sent to the dreamer to warn him or to foretell the future, and vain, fraudulent, and empty dreams, the object of which was to misguide or lead him to destruction."

- Sigmund Freud, in The Interpretation of Dreams.

Though I may have lived in disparate worlds, different planes of existence, and in various forms during the continuation of my being; I have no conscious memory of any of it in this present life of mine, this visitation to planet earth as a part of the human species.

Nevertheless, in this present incarnation, I have been to several countries and lived in many of them - in some for months, and in others for years.

Every one of these countries in which I had lived, or visited, has its particular culture and customs; a singular beauty of the land that is distinct from any other; food that is dissimilar and individual from others; people who pride in their nation; people who value their values.

Even in this era of universality, a creative commonality in which cultures and customs, food and food for thoughts, intermingle; these differences abide and continue.

These dissimilarities, distinctions, divergence, and singularity, will endure by achieving unity in diversity, by preserving its identity in spite of the changes through which it passes. However, there is one land which is different from all the others, which I have discovered to my greatest delight and entertainment; and I love that land above all the others. It is a land like none other, an aboding land, the land of abodement, the abode of us all. It is the Kingdom of Dreams, the land known as Sri Lanka.

Dreams

Welcome to the Kingdom of Dreams where every man dreams of becoming the King; and every woman, the Queen. In this land, each man sets down his own law; and every man is a law unto himself. Here, in this serene and serendipitous nation, in keeping with the maxim that dreams are a necessity of life and for living, people are fed with and sustained on the stuff of dreams, instead of food. Drunk on dreams mixed with stuff and nonsense; fed on fodder; the people themselves become dreamers, thinkers, and speculative philosophers - or as the feeders of fantasy would call them, idiots.

For they do not know whether they are humans dreaming that they are buffaloes, or buffaloes dreaming that they were human.

Either way, it makes no difference. This is the Kingdom of Dreams; in which, men, women, and the third gender, becomes the plaything of their memory, and lends credence, and attaches so much more importance to dreams - illusion and imagination - than to waking events. In the Kingdom of Dreams, people do not frame their life so that at some future hour, fact and dreaming meet. Who wants facts - details, information, truth, - when the fodder of fantasy and fairy tale is available to consume, and nourish their dreams. Living in dreams of yesterday, the people find themselves still dreaming of impossible future conquests.

Married or unmarried, young or old, poet or worker, we all are dreamers, and will one time know, and feel, that our life is but a dream.

As dreamers, we always reach for the stars, and if we fail to grab it, we are happy with a handful of clouds. As a people living in the Kingdom of Dreams; it is only anguish that brings us together.

At all other times, like grains of sand blown in any direction in which the wind whirls, we live as a people apart, each unto his interests and dreams; to be used, and thereafter, thrown as useless, by the dream makers.

May be that we have all become dreamers because dreams are the only thing that is truly ours. No government, no legislature, no authority on earth, nor an individual howsoever powerful, can limit our dreams, rob us of our dreams, whilst all else is possible of being defrauded, being robed and plundered as is happening.

People are so busy dreaming their dream, fantasising about what they could be or have a right to be, that they are all asleep at the switch, to what is happening in the real world.

Consequently, we are all living in the age of human error where reality is absent, and if present, is wrong; dreams are for real. The dreamer can know no truth, not even about his dream, except by awaking out of it.

The best way to make your dreams come true is to look at things the way they are, and ask why; then dream of things that never were, and ask why not.

All that we see or seem and experience, is not a dream. It is time to wake up, awaken, and to take a look at the real world around you, and what is happening there; then act as your conscience dictates. If your moral sense, principles, and scruples are clear; then you will act correctly. If they are venal, corrupt and corrupted, then you will act dishonestly.

Corruption

Our peers and parents have, and society has, presented us a life of lies - one that is full of corruption and fraud. We can choose to pursue that, or follow our own dreams. Life is short; be a dreamer, but also be a practical person.

Though all men dream, they dream not equally. All men whilst they are awake are in one common world; but each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own. The danger lurks when one is in the world of dreams.

It is then that those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind, wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are the dangerous men, for their dreams are to embezzle and pilfer; rob and rook; and they act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.

Anatole France, a French poet, journalist and novelist, once said: "to accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe".

All human beings are also dream beings. Dreaming, ties all mankind together. Dream is a wish your heart makes; so follow your heart to make your dreams come true.

In fact, all men of action are dreamers and similarly, any nation is as great as its dreams. However, therein rests a truth: in dreams begin responsibility.

If you take responsibility for yourself, you will develop a hunger to accomplish your dreams. Yet, how many of us exhibit even a semblance of responsibility in leading our lives.

We think nothing of not keeping to our word; we consciously lie, even to our dear and near ones. We sham at work, and at the drop of a hat, plan to defraud our employer. We are shamelessly dishonest, even to ourselves.

The Kingdom of Dreams is full of Kings and Queens who think nothing of blinding your eyes and stealing even your dreams.

In such a land, whither accountability; where from responsibility; how will dreams be realised.

See you this day next week. Until then, keep thinking; keep laughing. Life is mostly about these two activities.

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