A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes

"Have you ever had a dream? Something you wanted so bad you'd do anything?" -Hercules

"Yeah, I had a dream once. I dreamed that I was going to train the greatest hero there ever was. So great, that the gods would hang a picture of him in the stars, all across the sky! And people would say: 'That's Phil's boy. Yeah, that's right.' But dreams are for rookies. A guy can only take so much dissappointment." -Phil


I usually label my self an optimist. A silly dreamer, who believes in happy endings. Unfortunately I have a hard time seeing happy endings for myself, which makes me start to wonder if I am a Hercules or a Phil.
I think it's interesting that Phil and Hercules were both dreamers. I think everyone is at heart. The only big difference I see between the two (besdies muscles, good looks and a bit of height...) is of course the type of dreams they had. Hercules had a dream that depended entirely on his own hard to work to win it. Phil's dream required a second player though, someone to help his dream come true.

I think in life we all have a mix of the two dreams. Hercules type dreams are tough, but if we want it badly enough, bad enough that 'we'll do anything' for it, then we can get it eventually. The world will try to get us down and tell us we can't make it, which is what makes these dreams so hard.
I think the Phil type dreams are sometimes tougher though, because they depend on the agency of another person. Sometimes I think I tend to look down on Phil for his cynical attitude towards life, but then I remember that I react the same way when given his situation.

Have you ever had a Phil dream that wasn't coming true? You've tried to achieve it, and when you can't you decide it'll be easier to talk yourself out of it. Your Odysseus, Perseus, Thesuis and Achilles (sorry I butchered those spellings, but you know what I mean; your first few attempts...) all let you down - so you tell yourself that you are going to let go of your dream, as if that is an easy thing to do. Maybe it's a Hercules dream that is looking impossible, so you start to recite your own version of Phil's, "dreams are for rookies" mantra.

Do you think it's possible to let go of dreams? And I'm not talking about the little ones, the: "I hope that cute boy calls me this week..." or "I want to go to Africa someday" types. No, I'm talking about the ones you've been dreaming about for ages. The ones that keep you up at night just wishing and pondering. The ones that send a thrill through your spine when you dare to hope they'll come true. The big ones. Do you think we ever let go of them really?

Maybe we just change them. Tweak a bit here, and pull a string there so that it is more realistic.

Perhaps they break when unfulfilled, and we're left to pick up the pieces that are salvagable and put them together into a new dream.

Or maybe they live in our hearts forever, regardless of it they ever come true.

I don't really know. And I don't really need to know. I just needed a place to put my silly thoughts. Lately I've been contemplating a few of my dreams. Some are distant, some are fragile, and some are precious. A few I don't quite know if they are broken or not. Some I wish I could wash away with a bucket of soapy water and some elbow grease.

But let's face it. I'm a dreamer. I always have been. And I think that's ok.

It hurts when dreams are broken, but I need to keep reminding myself not to give up on them. Regardless of if they are Phil dreams or Hercules dreams, I think we should let our imaginations run wild with as many special dreams as we can. Because "You've got to have a dream. If you don't have a dream... how you gonna have a dream come true?"