I’ve been reading “In Search of Lost Time“by Marcel Proust recently. I’ve finished the first book, “Swanns Way,” and I’m almost finishing reading the second, “In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower.”

I have to admit, it’s not easy to read Marcel Proust. Someone has to be very, very concentrated. Proust uses a lot of metaphors in his description. Furthermore, his descriptions are very long, whether it be the landscape or feelings. He goes very deep into the details. Therefore, as I mentioned, you must be very focused when you read him. But you surely will read and attain a richness of words.

The second book, “In the Shadow of Young Girls’ Flowers,” contains a section about dreams, in which the painter Elstir describes how crucial dreams are.

So, first, I write some words about my view regarding dreams, and later, I quote the book’s part.

Who among us does not have dreams? They are vital to us, like our breath that keeps us alive, so dreams can give us a breath of hope and pull us out of despair. Yes, dreams can even take on the role of a compass, guiding us on the path of our destiny. Dreams are a part of us, shaping our identity, for our goal is to fulfill these dreams. On the other hand, however, our dreams may sound crazy to others, who think they are impossible to achieve. Yes, they even call us crazy for chasing these dreams and being convinced we will fulfill them.

But I would say keep dreaming, chase your goals, no matter how crazy they are, and brush others aside.

From “In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower”

“When the mind has a tendency to dream, it is a mistake to keep dreams away from it, to ration its dreams. So long as you distract your mind from its dreams, it will not know them for what they are; you will always be being taken in by the appearance of things, because you will not have grasped their true nature. If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time. One must have a thorough understanding of one’s dreams if one is not to be troubled by them; there is a way of separating one’s dreams from one’s life which so often produces good results that I ask myself whether one ought not, at all costs, to try it, simply as a preventive, just as certain surgeons make out that we ought, to avoid the risk of appendicitis later on, to have all our appendices taken out when we are children.”

_{Picture ©: The Cliff Walk at Pourville by Claude Monet.}