the life and death of a dream (part i)

for years, i dreamed of traveling the world. then i did, finally, and everything fell apart.

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There was once a boy who dreamt of catching the wind. 

He spent his days running around the fields of his village, arms outstretched; he chased every gust that tousled his hair, every gale that brushed his cheeks. He ran until the wind faded to stillness and his lungs burned for air. Do you really think you can catch the wind? The other kids laughed. Even his parents, who always entertained his ideas and fantasies, begged him to find better things to do with his time. 

But the boy was as hardheaded as a bull, and he kept chasing the wind. His quest took him deep into the wintery forests, and down the moss-covered riverbanks; it led him beyond the lines of his village, along forgotten roads and up the highest peaks. Months, years passed this way, and still the boy came no closer to grasping the wind in his hands.

One day a wise man passed through the town and saw the boy running through the fields. Boy! the man called out. What are you doing? 

I’m trying to catch the wind, the boy responded. He braced himself for the incredulous questioning that always followed. 

But the wise man acted as if he had said something perfectly mundane, as if he simply wanted to catch a butterfly or a fish. I see, the man said. He sat down on a nearby rock to watch. 

And so the boy took off running again. This time, for the first time, he felt the breeze curl around his fingers as he reached out his hand. And when he closed his hand into a fist, he felt something like a soft fluttering silk between his fingers, pressed furtively into his palm. At that moment, he knew he had finally succeeded: he had caught the wind. 

The boy ran back to the wise man, eyes wide with tears. I did it! he shouted, beaming. Look! He stretched his hand out to the wise man and opened it. 

But when they looked down, the boy’s palm was empty. 

The boy looked horrified. I swear I had it! I promise!

Of course you did, the wise man calmly replied. But have you forgotten? 

The wind is just air.  

---

Dreams, I learned recently, are a bit like the wind. 

Dreams give you substance. They fill you up, like air rushing into your lungs; they round out the edges of your personality like creases in a sleeping pad. In a time of uncertainty and fear, dreams can make you a little bigger, a little more ready to take on the world.

Dreams, too, push you to be better. They’re the air beneath your wings, lifting your feet off the ground. They encourage you to strive for more, to follow your ambitions, to reach for the stars and make the impossible a reality. 

But dreams are also really, really hard to grasp. After all, who can capture the wind? Dreams sometimes feel like they’ll always be a little out of reach, a breeze gently evading every graze of your fingertips.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve dreamt of traveling the world. There was never an epiphany moment, a turning point when this became a dream. But it’s something I’ve known since I was a tousle-haired kid, a fact of life as irrefutable as the fact that I love the ocean or that the sight of other people crying makes me want to do the same. Even then I had this unshakable conviction that the world has so much to offer, and that I wanted to experience it for myself. 

Here’s the difference between dreams and goals, in my mind: goals are made with the expectation that they can, with some effort, be achieved. They’re plausible, realistic – within reach. 

But dreams feel... loftier. Near-impossible, by some interpretations. Even the word dream itself exudes an aura of myth and fantasy. Dreams feel like something that can only be achieved with the utmost dedication and intention – and, even then, requires some divine intervention and a healthy serving of luck. An artist may aim to put on a gallery show, but they dream of exhibiting their work within the hallowed grounds of the Louvre. 

And so when you do achieve your dreams, it’s the most incredible feeling in the world. My younger self never imagined that he would one day have the time and money to travel across the globe; it was always too far in the future for him to even begin to picture. But as I grew older I took small but intentional steps to make my dream a little more real, to sketch the beginnings of an outline I could one day fill with color. I took off on my first backpacking trip the second I turned 18, backpacking across Eastern Europe and Russia with my best friend over 2 months; in college, I started solo traveling in between semesters. I learned to organize and budget my travels; I learned to socialize in hostels and open up to strangers. And I oriented myself towards a career that would give me the financial freedom and flexibility to make my dream come true.    

A bluff overlooking the sea in Ikitsuki, Japan.

When I finally parted ways with my job this year and started traveling the world, I felt a pure elation, an unrestrained sense of satisfaction I had never felt before. I felt freer than I had ever felt in my life.

But less than 2 months into my travels, I realized that I didn’t particularly enjoy traveling anymore. If that sounds insane to you – trust me, I felt the same way. I was utterly shocked to discover that I had somehow lost my desire to travel during this time – and, moreover, that I actively dreaded the 6 months I had loosely planned out ahead of me. In Portugal, I caught myself zoning out at random moments throughout the day; even as I basked in the sights and sounds of a completely new country – a fun and exciting experience by any measure – I felt disconnected from everything around me. At times I even wondered to myself: what am I doing here?

This realization completely devastated me. How was it possible to dream about something for years and years, I asked myself, only for it to fall flat like this? I felt lost, numb, disoriented – shellshocked. I had given up a stable career, financial security, and my entire life in Hawaii to pursue this dream. Moreover, it had become a part of my identity over the years, something that gave me purpose and direction in life. Where the dream used to fill a space in my heart with something – a mixture of hope, purpose, and selfhood perhaps – it now left behind a gaping hole that sucked the very breath out of my lungs. The wind was just air.

And so, on a sunny May afternoon in Japan, I found myself spiraling into a panicked daze on the train, quietly trying to hold it together as my friends slumbered next to me. I knew I needed to figure out what exactly had happened to my dream, why the spark for travel had disappeared in me – and if there was a way I could bring it back. 

Read the second part of the series here:

how to revive a dream (part ii)