When Imagination Becomes the Law: A World Without Limits

“We tell people to follow their dreams, but you can only dream of what you can imagine, and, depending on where you come from, your imagination can be quite limited,” Trevor Noah.

Revisiting a book I loved as a child, Trevor Noah: Born a Crime, he spoke about dreams and how his mother taught him to dream beyond his context in South Africa, to expand to the world.

In paraphrasing, I do the writing and the piece no justice. It was an absolutely beautiful memoir to his mother in a chapter named “Second Girl.” It explains much about how his mother informed him to dream. Thinking about himself in the world, he says, you can only dream what you can imagine. It shook me.

In that moment, I realized that we are all bound to our dreams and our willingness to adapt those dreams to new information, context, and environment. Some of us are super adaptable because we have known a world that is interconnected; others, just not.

Some groups, as a result of their governments, history, and luck, are left with just their world and know nothing more than that. Being in America made me realize that sometimes people do not know much outside of their own country. And you cannot blame them.

All our lives are curated by a few institutions and entities. Depending on how benevolent and forward-thinking those establishments are, they inform much of who you become and how you want to establish yourself in the world.

If you are not given parents who think openly about change, you are more likely to hold onto tradition and dream of a world that is similar to now. Others, who have been taught that change is a way of life, refuse to be boxed in by the establishment and see a world of completely different and new institutions.

It all starts at the singular moment and place: a dream. Those are the moments when you see the full revolution of life and the assumed consequences of actions. In those moments, you are free, left to the will of your imagination.

In the world of dreamers, what does that truly mean? What does letting our imagination run free truly mean, and how much of a child-like spirit is molded by society’s cages and boxes? Why think of a box at all when thinking outside a box?

Simply be open to dream. Open to a world of change, one where imagination is the constitution and freedom is the only law that governs your spirit. Be willing to listen to other people's dreams and create a world where your dreams are reality.

Dreams only remain dreams until we act on them. So dream wild, dream free, and dream big.