Keep on Dreamin', Boy, Cuz When You Stop Dreamin' It's Time to Die

I seem to have a penchant for using song lyrics as my titles. Aside from being the lines of a great song by Blind Melon, they also remind me of the starry-eyed teenager-I-once-was.

In going to Barcelona, I fulfilled a dream of mine. It was both more and less than I imagined it would be, and even a little bit of exactly what I imagined it to be. It will go the way of all dreams that have been fulfilled - it will settle in my memory until it sinks, dust-filled, to the deeper recesses of the mind's cavern, to wait until I start to forget things and my second childhood comes.

That was rather morose. On a happier note: as one dream is fulfilled and vague, perfect possibilities fade away, another dream is born. This might sound silly, but my newborn dream sounds absolutely lovely to me.

I want to take the trans-Siberian railroad from Moscow through Mongolia to Beijing.

The journey takes six days, and I'm sure there's not much to do other than sit and read and watch as the countryside goes by. It sounds like a perfect occasion to get a Kindle. It also sounds like a perfect worldwide adventure - begin in Europe, possibly London, and end in the Far East. Be a real traveler like the ones we read about in Victorian literature. Think of Anna Karenina every time I see a train or stand on a platform. Get to see China, and perhaps end the journey in Korea or Japan.

When I first heard about the trans-Siberian railroad my sophomore year of high school, I guffawed just as loudly as the other students in my European history class. What a ridiculous - wonderful, Romantic, idle-way-to-spend-your-time - idea.

I believe that we must keep on looking forward and dreaming, because dreams make life worthwhile. We must balance between being content with where we are and wanting more - and dreams are the perfect medium for that.

I don't feel the suns comin' out today 

its staying in, its gonna find another way. 

As I sit here in this misery, I don't 

think I'll ever see the sun from here. 

And oh as I fade away, 

they'll all look at me and say, and they'll say, 

Hey look at him! I'll never live that way. 

But that's okay 

they're just afraid to change. 

When you feel your life ain't worth living 

you've got to stand up and 

take a look around you then a look way up to the sky. 

And when your deepest thoughts are broken, 

keep on dreaming boy, cause when you stop dreamin' it's time to die. 

And as we all play parts of tomorrow, 

some ways will work and other ways we'll play. 

But I know we all can't stay here forever, 

so I want to write my words on the face of today. 

and then they'll paint it 

And oh as I fade away, 

they'll all look at me and they'll say, 

Hey look at him and where he is these days. 

When life is hard, you have to change.