The River

Is a dream a lie if it don't come true or is it something worse?

I'm a big Bruce Springsteen fan and I was listening to "The River" when that lyric came up. "The River" discusses a man who has to let go of his dreams due to the circumstances of his existence. Many of us live with that. We'd all love to be the awesome people that we think we are, but in all honestly, we're all a bunch of middling failures in the grand scheme of things. And no, I'm not exempting myself from this category and looking at you with hoity-toity disdain as I'm puffing away on a pipe and swirling my scotch in a glass; I'm in the same sinking boat as all of you folks.

Nevertheless, calling it a lie is a harsh way of putting it. Of course you have to let go of certain dreams at some point in your life. But does that mean that anything that doesn't pan out exactly when you want to mean that your dream is a lie?

We all live with disconnects with reality. Honestly, it's probably what keeps most, if not all, of us sane. Reality is a gritty, grim place. A few dreams here and there to doll up the place doesn't hurt too much. But it's when you've completely blinded yourself with those dreams and lost touch with reality that something is up. There comes a point when you have to accept the circumstances handed to you and figure it out from there.

Even still, you shouldn't fully give up on your dreams. Keep at least one alive; it's part of what makes us human. And if you're not human, then what are you?