The Lovers, The Dreamers, and Me

The world needs dreamers.  We have all the efficient, capable, make-things-work kind of people that we need.  We have all the nuts-and-bolts, carry-on, foundation-layers necessary to make the world continue to go around and around and around as it always has and always will.

Where we lack are the frosting-on-the-cake kind of people.  These are they that infuse the beauty and the life and the new ideas into the mundane, prosaic, pedestrian, day-to-day, get-er-done world.

My husband and I watched a movie about one of these dreamers a few nights ago.  This dreamer struggled to fit in.  He was frustrated that others didn't see things the way he did.  He couldn't understand why his efforts and contributions were astonishing to baffled, frightened, bewildered "regular" folk.  Those regular folk didn't seem to see life on the same grand scale that he did, full of vibrancy and beauty. Where they seemed content with the status quo, in carrying on within the bounds set by staid and safe society, he desired to serve and give and share the passion he had for life.

He was Vincent van Gogh.

During his life he managed to give us a body of work that broke free of the formulaic and the expected. The world that he saw, full of dynamic color and energy, has been preserved in some of the greatest works of art treasured by the world today.  At the time, his boldness was misunderstood.  His "Lust for Life," as the movie was called, made others uncomfortable.  They didn't know what to do with this anomaly that couldn't function on their "normal" level.

There are in our midst those capable of offering to the world something extraordinary.  There are those that see possibilities in the impossible; those that carry within them genius and brilliance; they think deeper, feel stronger, love truer. 

And yet.

Maybe they struggle to be understood.  Maybe they don't hear the cadence of the masses, the driving beat of normalcy.  Perhaps they have their own sense of timing.  Tried and true isn't good enough. Why must things be done the way they always have?

Perhaps these unique individuals run on a different time table, often starting well after the masses have already taken off. Perhaps they run best alone, allowing time for introspection and solitude and creativity.

Whose to say that outside of humanity's rat race, a special set aren't enjoying the scenery and serenity of a creative life, while the doers are struggling to keep pace with the real madness of a chaotic world?

The greatest travesty would be to try and chisel off their corners to make them fit in the round hole of normalcy. Let us rejoice in the dreamers in our lives, celebrating them for the sweetness they add to life.  There is a place for the doers.  Let's also make a place for the dreamers.

                                                                                Sunflowers

                                                       Starry Night

"I could have told you, Vincent, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you."