Where Have All The Dreams Gone?

The ever supportive Otis and I were having an e-mail conversation this week about the earlier posting (here) involving Himself. Otis' point was that he was in for the long haul, not only to be there but to help achieve the dreams I had.

The whole comment about dreams got me to thinking and pondering - mostly to the extent that I suddenly realized that I don't think I have any anymore.

"What?" you may say in shock. "You? The great dreamer, the great imaginer of many different things? No dreams? How can this be? Is it the result of your apparent mid-life crisis?"

I don't really know - I just know that at Otis' prompting I suddenly turned around and looked and the horde of dreams that used to follow me around were completely gone, leaving a desolate mental wasteland to my mind's eye.

Why have the gone? A couple reasons, I would submit. One, of course, was that many of the dreams I had were just that: dreams, imaginings that could (and would) never come true.

A second reason - not that 's any better - is that the choices that I have made have ruled some of them out. As we choose a career, a marriage, and children, we simply have less original choices available, and many of those dreams become unattainable as we work within the consequences of those choices.

The third reason - and the one that is most bothersome - is that I have simply seem to have given up. Those dreams that I have tried for generally failed. As a result of my choices, I have responsibilities which must be fulfilled. Dreams become subsumed by responsibilities and choices, until one's day, one's week and one's life becomes a long list of things that must be done and expectations that must be met. Any hope one had of changing that seems to grow more and more distant every day, leaving only the dull ache of duty in it's place.

How does one come about new dreams? I'm not sure I would even know where to start. As a child, one acquires them as a result of what one wants; now, it is all hedged with the starting knowledge what one actually has to do in life - which immediately comes up every time a dream is proposed: "Yes, but..." and "That would be nice, but here's what I have to do..."

Have to. Must. Responsibility. Duty. Dream killers all.

So here is my question: What is the catalyst to reawaken the dreamer and dreams? How does live change from an adventure to be lived instead of a duty to be endured?