Narrative dissonance

“Well, now, you may be asking yourself: What is all this? I can’t save the world. What about my life? I didn’t ask to come here. I didn’t ask to be born. Didn’t you? I put it to you that you did. You not only asked to be born, you insisted on your life. That is why you are here. No other reason. It was too easy not to be. Now that you are here, you have to do something you respect, don’t you? Your parents did not dream you up—you did. I am simply urging you to continue the dream you started. For dreaming is not irresponsible; it is first-order human business. It is not entertainment; it is work. When Martin Luther King Jr. said, “I have a dream,” he was not playing; he was serious. When he imagined it, envisioned it, created it in his own mind it began to be, and we must dream it too to give it the heft and stretch and longevity it deserves. Don’t let anybody, anybody convince you this is the way the world is and therefore must be. It must be the way it ought to be.”