Some time ago I had a solo exhibition titled "American Dreamers" in which this painting was one of the works featured. Whether JFK was a "goodie" or a "baddie" I leave up to you, the reader, to decide, but what he was, was a dreamer, he had visions and dreams for the country he briefly was the chief and commander of.
Do you have visions and dreams for yours or others life? If anything was possible, what would you like to see happen in yours or others life?
Many things once thought of as impossible dreams/visions, are today part of everyday realities:
powered flight , the computer with all its functions/applications, the printing press, x-rays and all other imaging machines, the combustion engine, the development and advances in the many disciplines of science, art in all its different genres, engineering in all its diverse forms, the internet, antibiotics and many medical aspects, etc.. etc. Before any of these things became realities, they began as ideas/visions/dreams in someone's mind, and more often than not, they were met with resistance. "Walk on the moon? You're dreaming", "Moving pictures? You're dreaming", "See the skeleton inside a body while he/she is still alive? You're dreaming", "One injection and the illness is prevented? You're dreaming". Unfortunately, this list goes on, and on, and on, and on.....
So many of our advances as a species are due to someone with a dream, or with a great idea, yet we continue to be resistant and often label such people as "dreamers", but not in a good way, rather , commonly being a "dreamer" gets a bad rap.
Well, past a certain age it seems. When we are children, it seems to be okay to dream of becoming: ballerinas, pro football players, astronauts, princesses, crocodile hunters, superstars, etc... but fairly early in our lives we are often discouraged from "dreaming" and to "live in the real world".
I have often been asked: "....but what's your "real" job, in the "real" world?"
As a musician I was asked this question over and over, and now as a painter/artist, I am still asked the question. Eventually I had to ask: "So what exactly is the "real world" then, because the world I live in seems real enough to me and what is a "real" job?" The common collective perception seemed to me to be that a "real job" is one that involves a salary, and the "real world" seemed to be a very subjective term, undefinable by facts. I can only assume that what is meant with to live in the "real world" is for the individual to conform to the collective cultural expectations of the society in which he/she lives. Thing is; there are thousands of people classified as artists (all genres), researchers, innovators, explorers, "dreamers", creative idea-makers, etc...etc.. that earn salaries, and their achievements and efforts, in my view, are commonly appropriated by the "real world".
Having dreams/visions for one's life is one thing, working towards making them happen, is another. To follow ones dreams, takes courage, hard work, a lot of determination, .. and pretty thick skin.
JFK lost his life in the pursuit of his dreams, so did his brother Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, John Lennon, and many, many more. "An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come." (A. Einstein)
Some examples: the earth is round (not flat), earth revolves around the sun (not the other way around), Darwin's Theory of Evolution Natural Selection (as opposed to creationism), Pasteurization (diseases are spread by germs) ...these ideas were met with fierce opposition, but are now regarded by most as "self-evident". The Wright Brothers dreamed they could fly, Nelson Mandela dreamed of a better and free South Africa, Mikhail Gorbachev dreamed of a democratic Soviet Union, Helen Keller dreamed that blind/deaf people would be able to read and write, and so on.
Do you have dreams/visions of what you would like to do/achieve/be, but you are afraid of how others may perceive them? Do you believe you have a great idea, but you are afraid that others may think the idea stupid? (That is; life-affirming ideas, not destructive ones)
Find the courage to follow your dreams, because life is short and even if your dreams don't turn out the way you hoped, the mere act of trying is a success in itself because: "better to try and fail, rather than not trying at all".
"It's not the critic who counts; Not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit goes to the one who is actually in the arena; Who strives valiantly; who errs and comes up short again and again; Who knows the great devotions, the great enthusiasms, and spends himself in a worthy cause. Who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and, at the worst, if he fails at least he fails while daring greatly; so that his place will never be among those timid and cold souls who know neither victory or defeat." (Theodor Roosevelt)
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