Imran
Imran
Sep 8, 2018 · 7 min read
Starry Night Vincent Van Gogh

The Hierarchy of Dreams.

I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires. Khalil Gibran

We start as dreamers pretty young. The mind is still an unpainted canvas without fears, tutored and self-taught restrictions. Watching the wonders of nature, seeing birds fly, a caterpillar turning into a butterfly or the amazement of the twinkling stars at night, wondering whether we could reach those and pluck them out of the sky.

And then we start learning. Learning to know what is possible and what is not, what we can do and what we cannot, and slowly the realms of possibilities start decreasing. We teach ourselves and are taught by others (teachers, parents, relatives, influencing people in our lives) with the best motivation to be more “realistic”.

But still, we cling on to a certain ability to continue dreaming, though now the canvas of our mind is filled with taught perceptions and our own life experiences. When as children we thought we could reach the skies, now as young adults we start acquiring a more “practical” approach to life. We make friends and think of doing very good in studies, music, arts, sports and many other aspects of learning that are still new to us.

This is the modern learning stage, defined by a mandatory compulsion to be a part of school or college which would define not what we will become in life, but what learning we have to go thru to earn a living. Sometimes that is the second stage of when we make a compromise on our dreams and sometimes this is the stage which gives wings to them.

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. William Butler Yeats

The ability to have dreams for yourself is based not only on your age but also on your experiences in achieving previous dreams or those dreams being stifled by more ‘pragmatic “influences in your life.

So, till 14 years of age, you can dream of becoming an astronaut, a scientist, a painter, a musician, an actor, an explorer or anyone that your minds imagination takes a fancy to and this ambition is not restricted to nor is it focused as earning a living. This is unbridled, innocent ability of someone who hasn’t tested the method of fulfilling his or her imagination and so doesn’t know of failure. The most important factor in this time is probably the people near you who have an influence in your upbringing, your parents, teachers, mostly people older to you.

15–22 is the next age of the person in which based on his/her experience or his/her talent and on the important influencing people in their life, you either pursue your dream or let yourself be guided to pursue someone else’s. Maybe in all good intention, to give a you a safer way into the world, you will be advised to forsake your dreams because there is no future in it. Better to follow a safer path.

Ah but there is a future for you whether you choose any path on any crossroad. The choice is to follow what you want or what others want for you. And when if by perchance you follow your dreams and do not succeed in achieving what you set out to do, you would remember the “wiser “counsel to follow a safe path. Or if at the onset itself if you surrender your dream to follow a “safe” path, are you then condemned to live a life of regret or you simply forget and live the happy life of ignorance? This is the stage where we have the best chance to rebel against the older influences and new influences of peer group start showing their impact.

After 22 years of age, the practical side of life, our experiences, in success promote our dreams or in failure negate them having a proportional impact on our zeal and confidence. The number of people influencing your life start reducing.

Our ability to safeguard and follow our dreams is based on our experience, our zeal to follow it and the people who can influence us. The most important factor among these three aspects is our zeal, a seemingly stubborn loyalty towards what we think we are capable to achieve, an illogical optimism in the face of our own experiences that have again and again shown us the true aspect of failure.

These three factors continue to define our ability to follow our dreams for the rest of our lies, and there lies the rub, the difference between the visionaries and the rest of us who have forsaken our dreams to follow a safer path. For what could have been if we had stayed true to ourselves.

The Zealot Dreamers

Who are the zealots who don’t give up on their dreams? who in spite of failing again and again to achieve their dreams and being told by the people who care for them, to choose a safer path, to settle down, still keep treading the un illuminated path that may or may not lead them to their goals. It is as if they are walking in a dark night and they see a single light in a distance but still take a different path where they don’t see any light, but are sure that the warmth and light of a thousand candles will be waiting at their destination.

The Zealots are those who stay in the first stage of dreams, of less than 14 years of age, who have an influencing factor that reinforces their zeal irrespective of the experience faced and an inspiration that they have met in the early stage of life, which feeds their zeal and confidence. This driving influence in life does not judge them negatively, but drives them, probably due to a strong bond or love.

I dream of painting and then I paint my dreams. Vincent Van Gogh.

The quintessential portrait of a misunderstood genius, in his lifetime Vincent Van Gogh produced about 2100 works of art from age 27 till 37, when he died as a result of self-inflicted wounds. Of the 860 paintings, 1300 water colors & sketches, it is said that only one of his paintings “The Red Vineyards” was sold in his lifetime for only 400 francs.

It was only after his death that Van Gogh’s popularity started increasing and now he is considered one of the most famous and influential figures across the world of art. His painting Irises was sold for 53.9 million $ and “Portrait of Dr Gatchet” for 82.5 million $.

Influenced by his mother to take up drawing from an early age who also taught him and was his inspiration for taking up painting in his youth. Throughout Van Gogh’s poor and tumultuous life, his brother Theo was the stable influence that believed in him and that was probably one of the reasons that Vincent Van Gogh believed in his art.

In his 10–12-year period of painting, he almost made 100–130 works of art every year, which is phenomenal productivity for an artist. Probably he painted a lifetime of work during this period. But what kept him going, inspite of selling only one painting throughout this time, being considered a madman & a failure in your lifetime and still immersing yourself and believing in your dreams where the end result is what you paint, not for others, but for yourself and in doing so, create masterpieces. Vincent Van Gogh was a successful person, because he achieved what he set out to do, create beautiful art, never giving up on his dreams. In fact, painting them.

Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

And to have the power to move the hearts of men and give the tool to shape their destiny in the hands of women, such a woman and a zealot was Emmeline Pankhurst

Born in 1858, Emmeline Pankhurst had an immense influence on the women suffrage movement in England.

Time magazine named Emmeline Pankhurst as of the 100 most important people of the 20thcentury, stating, “she shaped an idea of women of our time; she shook society into a new pattern from which there would be no going back.

Pankhurst’s influence started early in life as her parents were politically active and she was introduced to women’s suffrage movement at the age of 14.

Emmeline married Richard Pankhurst who was a barrister and supported women’s rights to vote. She became involved with Women’s Franchise league, which advocated women’s suffrage.

In 1903, Emmeline Pankhurst founded the Women’s Social & Political Union (WSPU).

Throughout her life, Emmeline Pankhurst fought for women’s right to vote. Emmeline Pankhurst, her daughters and WSPU activists received repeated prison sentences, where they staged hunger strikes, and were often force fed.

Emmeline Pankhurst died on 14 June 1928, weeks before the conservative governments representation of the People Act (1928) extended the vote to all women over 21 years of age on 2-July 1928.

Vincent Van Gogh and Emmeline Pankhurst are two of the few examples of people with extreme conviction in their dreams, inspired at a young age and influenced and supported by people close to them. Their dreams were different, with Van Gogh the artist wanting to share his love for his art and Emmeline Pankhurst the activist fighting for equal rights for women. But in spite of the difference in their dreams, they fought thru immense odds where lesser people would have changed their goals and abandoned their dreams.

It is difficult to imagine their pains , setbacks, failures and most certainly they went thru more pain, failure & dejection than the people who compromise on their dreams, but the rewards and the achievement that a true dreamer can get, the rest of us can merely dream….

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