stop imagining and start doing

i love the beatles.
i'd say that they are in my top 5 favorite bands.
i enjoy all of their music. throughout the decades.
and i liked their solo stuff too.
i love john, paul, george and don't forget good ole ringo.
i think that they had so much beautiful talent collectively and separately.

with that being said, everyone knows the song "imagine" by john lennon.
it's a beautiful melody. and the lyrics are a nice concept, i guess.

when i was in college in my intro. to theatre class, our final project was to take the song "imagine" and design a set, costumes and act around it. it really was a fun project. as a group, we tried our best to make everything very equal and well, vague. our concept was one of unity. but, like i said, it was pretty vague.

my professor for that class was the exact opposite of me. where i am conservative and a christian, todd was extra liberal and an atheist. but, he was one of my favorite professors of my whole college career. he made me think. because our opinions differed so greatly, i had to really know why i believed what i believed so as to be able to have an educated argument, err, discussion with him.
and we had a few of those.
but never the less, we got along really well.
i learned about theatre, but i more importantly i learned about myself. he challenged me and i appreciate that.

anyway, todd had us do this project, right. i knew why he picked that song. it's so todd. "no religion, no heaven, no possessions, no war" etc, etc.
and as stated before, while those are all nice concepts, are they really that great?

here are the lyrics:

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

yes, it would be nice if their were no possessions, because then there would be no greed, right? that's ideal. but i think we would still find something to be greedy about. we're humans.

and no hell? yeah, that would be wonderful, but then like it says, there would also be no heaven. not so ideal.

nothing to kill or die for? okay. but if there is nothing worth killing or dying for, then what is there to live for? this is the lyric that got to me the most. you would think it would be the one about heaven, but no, it was actually this one.
because without having something to die for what's the point of living or even having a heaven?

it would be wonderful if we could all get along. totally agreed.
it would be fantastic if people didn't have to be hungry. i get it.
it would be super if we weren't punished for our wrongs. okay.
but without all of those things, would we really be able to appreciate what we have? would we appreciate this life? truly appreciate it, if it were completely void of hardships and trials and choices and consequences?
i would have to say no, we wouldn't.

it's okay to be a dreamer. i'm a dreamer too.
but i just have a different dream.
one of love. and joy.
love for those people in different countries, different social classes, different backgrounds and religions.
and joy. joy in the toughest of circumstances. joy in the storm. joy in our diversity.

so, mr. lennon, i will have to respectfully disagree with you and not join you in your imagining.
instead, i'm going to live here in the now and deal with the reality i've been dealt with. i'm not going to dream of a perfect world, i'm just going to do my best to make mine better.