The Dreamseller_ The Calling - Augusto Cury [17]
They were hoping for a miracle, but the dreamseller was a vendor of ideas, a merchant of knowledge. Knowledge was better than gold and silver, more enchanting than diamonds and pearls. That’s why he didn’t endorse success for its own sake. To him, there were no paths without obstacles, no seas without storms. Looking people in the eye, he said with certainty:
“If your dreams are desires and not plans for living, you will surely take your problems to the grave. Dreams without plans produce frustrated people, servants of the system.”
He fell silent and let us reflect on his words. In a world consumed with wants, no one plans to have friends, no one plans to be tolerant, to conquer phobias, to have a great love.
“If chance is our god and accidents our demons, we will be as children,” he said finally.
I was startled to look around me and realize how society had damaged all of us. Quite a few people consumed a lot but were like robots, living without purpose, without meaning, without goals. They were experts at following orders and not at thinking. I asked myself, as an educator, “Had I trained servants or leaders at the university? Robots or thinkers?” But before answering these questions, I started to feel uneasy about my own situation. I wondered, “Does being critical free me of servitude?” I knew it didn’t. I was a servant to my negativity, to my false independence. Unless I changed, I would take my troubles to my grave.
“Victory without risk is a dream without value. Our defeats, our challenges help nurture our dreams.”
In studying the history of the wealth of nations, I understood the sociological meaning of this latest thought. Many who received inheritances without working for their success could not value their parents’ struggles. They squandered their family fortunes as if the money were unlimited. Inheritance bred empty, superficial lives. They were people who lived for the moment, trying to suck the maximum pleasure from the present with no regard for the future.
While I criticized people for not being masters of their own destinies, I suddenly realized I was no different from them. I didn’t understand why such simple thoughts were so true. I dreamed of being a happy person but became miserable. I dreamed of living a better life than my father but replicated what I most despised in him. I dreamed of being more sociable than my mother but inherited her bitterness.
I hadn’t learned what my struggles had to teach about reaching my dreams. I hadn’t dared reach for my dreams if it ever meant risking my reputation, my so-called brilliant academic career. I was barren inside and gave birth to no new ideas. I forgot that great thinkers were also risk-takers. They were called lunatics and heretics, and often became the subject of public scorn.
Even students defending their masters and doctoral theses weren’t encouraged to take risks. Some of my colleagues tried to encourage them, but I held them back. Only after meeting the dreamseller did I come to understand that it was often our youth who brought about our greatest discoveries.
Bartholomew’s Dream
A MAN ABOUT THIRTY-FIVE YEARS OLD, WEARING A BEIGE polo shirt, with well-trimmed black hair and a frown, bluntly told the dreamseller, “My great dream is to strangle my wife.”
He wasn’t joking. He actually seemed ready to kill. The dreamseller didn’t answer right away, waiting for the man to continue venting his anger. “Who deserves a wife who betrays her husband?” the man said.
Instead of calming the man down, the dreamseller added fuel to the fire. “Are you a betrayer, too?”
The man reared back and hit the dreamseller so hard that he knocked him to the ground and bloodied his lip.
Several onlookers came at the man, but the dreamseller quickly calmed them: “No, don’t hurt him!”
The dreamseller dusted himself off and explained to the man, “We may not betray with our sexual organs,