Dreamkiller

You come to me with a plan, big or small, I'll shoot it down. It's not something I plan, or even want to do, I just do it. Reflex. In fact, I probably love your idea, and would love nothing more than to see it come about. I want the jeweler to make pretty things, the costumer to clothe the masses, and the healer to fix the world. Really.

I'm not naturally a cynic. I trained myself to this unintentionally. I've seen so many people with big, pretty ideas start, half-heartedly, hesitantly, maybe with some help here or help there... maybe... and then, nothing. Abandoned. So any positive emotion, any ideas or effort that I threw there way, abandoned as well. Selfish of me, no? But true. It's how I feel.

And if you're gonna walk away anyway, why should I give you something good?

But there it is, in that sentence. Presumption of failure. You're going to walk away, so why should I give you anything good. Thereby hangs the problem. I don't want you to walk away, I want you to build your million dollar sand castles, but I can't bring myself to believe you will.

I know you can. That's something else entirely. If your idea is so based on air and smoke that it stands about as much chance of happening as a combined Gingrich/Gore presidential bid, I don't feel anything at all. It's the ideas that have a chance, even a small one, that I'm afraid to invest more than the bleakest of emotions in.

So, knowing this, I should stop. And I will. Really.

Or so I hope. See, and here's the thing. I don't have big ideas. I'm a small picture guy, really. But I love big ideas, projects, I love being involved. But one can stand idealistic coitus interuptus only so long.

Regardless, I'll make a pledge: When I catch myself shooting you down, I'll stop. Maybe even apologize where I realize I might have done real damage.

That's a pledge to myself, really. It makes my life less too, knocking people down.

But here's a question for anyone who has ever faced my or anyone else's negativity about your ideas: Did that really stop you? It's a hard-ass world out there, and if something so small as my opinion stopped you, were you really dreaming big or just fantasizing?