Everyone comes into this world a pure soul, but not everyone gets to leave it that way. You probably have someone who, when you were young - you used to be very close with. You maybe thought that you'd be inseparable, and that you'd conquer the world together. You've possibly made plans and promises with this person, and they've made promises to you as well - with the hopeful and innocent naivety of children, only for you to later discover that time and the myth of maturation, brutally and magically, somehow absolved everyone of those dreams and aspirations completely. You can even meet this person today on the street somewhere and you'll exchange a few formal greetings or compliments and that'll be that - nothing more. But the truth is, and you know this to be true, in your heart of hearts - is that the spark they once held is gone. It's almost like they're not even the same person. They look the same, speak the same, but they don't feel the same. Something about them has fundamentally changed. Somewhere, somehow - they lost that special thing, that spark that made them who they were, that made them stand out and handed to them the ability to dare to live life on their own terms. At some point, they gave up on dreaming. And when a person stops dreaming - they stop creating, and when a person stops creating, they also stop being created themselves. They cease to exist in their highest, most authentic form and continue existing ruled and dominated by the principalities of insecurity and fear. They are no longer acting upon the world but rather reacting to it, they are being acted upon by the world - and so their immediate environment reshapes them and their essence completely. All those plans, promises, ideas and aspirations seem so foolish now - they'll tell you - how silly were we to dream about this or that thing, right? But dreams are foolish only to the minds of those who have stopped believing in miracles altogether. Now they are akin to worker ants, their lives a series of monotonous, repetitive, underwhelming choices and inconsequential career promotions that culminate to a similarly underwhelming death. This world belongs to the dreamers because this world too, in and of itself, is a dream. And as you read this now, if faces, voices, or past memories come back to you - if you feel a gentle tinge of sadness scratching at your heart, then rejoice - because your spirit is intact. Your inner child is still there - and you must never abandon it, even when everyone else has. Imagine the miracle that is the unlikely meeting of two young lovers, the purity of their first kiss - how powerful a thing that is - the dream of their shared unity against all odds, against the brutal truth of our decaying world. Only a dream could carry that love through the years and decades, through hardship, tribulation, loss, inexperience and grief - and all the rest of the horrors of life. Only the innocence of a dream could ever hope to be powerful enough to stand against its terrible weight and emerge victorious in the face of reality itself. The truest of miracles. You may disregard your dreams therefore, and only for a while - but you may never abandon them. ![[Pasted image 20260403234702.png]]