The journey, which prior to this was torture because all you wanted to do was get there, is now beginning to become a pleasure. It is the pleasure of searching and the pleasure of an adventure. You are nourishing something that’s very important – your dreams.
We must never stop dreaming. Dreams provide nourishment for the soul, just as a meal does for the body. Many times in our lives we see our dreams shattered and our desires frustrated, but we have to continue dreaming. If we don’t, our soul dies, and agape cannot reach it. A lot of blood has been shed in those fields out there; some of the cruellest battles of Spain’s war to expel the Moors were fought on them. Who was in the right or who knew the truth does not matter; what’s important is knowing that both sides were fighting the good fight.
The good fight is the one we fight because our heart asks it of us. In the heroic ages – at the time of the knights in armour – this was easy. There were lands to conquer and much to do. Today, though, the world has changed a lot, and the good fight has shifted from the battlefields to the fields within ourselves.
The good fight is the one that’s fought in the name of our dreams. When we’re young and our dreams first explode inside us with all of their force, we are very courageous, but we haven’t yet learned how to fight. With great effort, we learn how to fight, but by then we no longer have the courage to go into combat. So we turn against ourselves and do battle within. We become our own worst enemy. We say that our dreams were childish, or too difficult to realize, or the result of our not having known enough about life. We kill our dreams because we are afraid to fight the good fight.
Author’s comments:
I wouldn’t say I have released the pent-up resentment, but my brain works in such a weird way that it suddenly remind me of The Pilgrimage and asked me to re-read the article. And the paragraph that caught my attention is none other than the one that mentions about Dreams and Good Fight.
In his web, he had further elaborated on the symptoms that killed our dreams:
1) Lack of time.
The busiest people I have met in my lifetime always had time for everything. Those who did nothing were always tired, couldn't cope with the little work they had to do, and complained that the days were too short: in reality, they were scared to engage in Good Combat.
2) Our certainties.
Because we do not wish to accept life as a great adventure to be lived, we start to see ourselves as wise, just and correct in the little we demand of our existence. We look beyond the battlements of our everyday lives, hear the sound of clashing lances, smell the sweat and gunpowder, the great falls and warriors' thirsty glare of victory. But we never notice the joy, the immense Joy dwelling in the hearts of those who fight, because they do not care about victory nor defeat, the important thing is to engage in Good Combat.
3) (And the last one) Peace.
Life becomes a Sunday afternoon, with no great demands, certainly nothing greater than we are willing to give. And so we think we are mature, having left behind childish fantasies, and having achieved personal and professional success. But in truth, in our innermost heart, we know that what happened was that we renounced the fight for our dreams, ceased to engage in Good Combat.
And his last 2 paragraph shocked me:
"When we renounce our dreams and find peace, we encounter a short period of tranquility. But the dead dreams start to rot inside us, and infest every part of our lives.
"We start to become cruel to those around us, and in the end we turn this cruelty upon ourselves. Illnesses and psychoses emerge. That which we sought to avoid in combat - deception and defeat - becomes the only legacy of our cowardice. And one fine day, the dead, rotten dreams make the air difficult to breathe and we begin to long for death, which delivers us from our certainties, from our preoccupations, and from that terrible Sunday afternoon peace."
Scary! And I just told GA that all I want is Peace. Is this the answer? The reason I have to continue this journey with my pent-up resentment. For the sake of fighting a good fight? Even if I may be bruised and battered? Sighz my new classmate’s words haunt me though… he said even though this is the last semester, he does not wish to slacken and just get by because he worked very hard to get his CAP. (That guy is quite a go-getter that juggles much stuff and is so busy but still seems quite energetic. Guess one should really believe in mind power and strong belief.)
The truth is I did not want to either, which is why I tried to drop this module. But maybe, this is a fight I have to embark. If so then I can only wish one thing for myself, grant me the strength and determination to pull through like how I did for my AI.. sighz God knows how much time and effort I expended just to do well in the finals to scrap that paltry grade.
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