Shawn L. Bird

Last year by recommendation of my student Robyn, I read Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief. As I read, as is my habit, I dog eared the pages where I found wonderful thoughts. When I finished the book, I went back through all those dog eared pages to copy down the quotations that had struck me as being particularly profound. When I finished, I returned the book to Robyn.

A few days later, I went to post all those quotes, and they were gone! Somehow the computer had not saved them. Only the first two quotes remained. That means all the brilliance of Zusak’s prose was distilled into two thoughts. That is profound in itself.  Of the two, here’s the one that strikes me most deeply today:

“He was…enjoying the ecstasy of an idea, not daring just yet to envision its complications, dangers, and vicious absurdities. For now, the idea was enough. It was indestructible. Transforming it into reality, well, that was something else altogether. For now, though, let’s let him enjoy it.” (Zusak, Markus. The Book Thief. p 128)

So what is the idea that fills you with ecstasy? What indestructible idea of a dream tantalizes you between waking and dreaming?

Stay away from complications, dangers, absurdities and realities. Allow yourself to bask in the euphoria of possibility. Where could those ideas take you?

My ideas have brought me here.

Reality is a dream awoken.