dreams and fantasies- an ode to life

everybody dreams. Dreaming is the first thing you learn after you are born. your first three years when you have no school to worry about, no worry about where your next meal will come from, why E=mc2 and so forth, you learn to dream. However, the worst part is that you forget your dreams, those dreams that you had in the very first few years of existence, as you grow up.
From three to seven you become aware of the world around you. More subtle nuances of your existence dawn upon you. Your parents, your birthday, your gender, existence of another gender,school, importance of learning and working and so forth. These are more general things one gets exposed to in these four years. Depending on your parents circumstances, you may end up being exposed to a smaller subset of it in a more rigorous detail or all of it or you learn a very pleasant thing called 'choosing' at a very young age but more or less this is what happens. In these formative years your dreams are a reflection of your parents. you want to be good like your dad or pretty like your mom but you end up losing those precious dreams which you had in your first three years;dreams that were your own.
From seven to fourteen, you develop a lot of things. Thinking, personality, attitude, awareness of your sexuality,fancy for girls, fancy for things that throw smoke in air and accumulate soot in your lungs among various other things. Your brain is very receptive in these years. Your dreams become more alive and vivid and end up being fantasies. You fantasize about the wonderland alice lives in and if you may end up living in there at some point, you believe in unicorns, in toads that become princesses and so forth. Your parents are very happy with you and in fact encourage you to get allured to these fantasies. They tell stories each one more wilder and fantastic than the last one so that you have your 'sweet dreams'
Between fourteen to nineteen your parents crush virtually every fantasy you have ever had which ironically they fed you gracious portions of when you were a child. There is no alice, no wonderland, no He man, no Superman, no Batman hell even WWF is not real. If you dont study and become something in life you will not be able to survive, you will not have a morsel in your stomach they say. Suddenly food and shelter are not taken for granted any more. Your air castles shattered, your dream turned to dust you suddenly become painfully aware of the fact that life isnt a house of chocolate eternally pleasing to all five senses, it is in fact a grain grinder and you are the grain. Of course not all is gloomy in these years. You learn about friends and friendships. That is perhaps the best thing that can ever happen to you. You get attracted towards opposite sex, your body changes and so does your mind. Reality closes its circle around you and rather than it being a part you you become a part of it.
From 20 to present, where i am right now, you study to become a professional and learn to earn your livelihood. Some succeed at it and by some arbitrary yardstick are termed as successful and others are branded losers. And with the way things are these commendations stay with you for the rest of your lives. But wait, in all this what happened to your dreams?? to what you desired to be??
At this crossroad of my life, i am cursed with having a total recollection of all the dreams and aspirations i had beyond the age of four. If you have read this essay till this point, i urge you to take moment and reflect at your inner self. I am sure all those dreams will come back to you. But why would you want to have this realization that what you are doing now is something which at no point in your life you ever wanted to do?? Even if you get that realization would you give up all you have worked for till now and chase your dreams, those wild fantasies you had as a kid or as an adolescent??
I don't know about you but as far as i am concerned all i can hope to do as a human being is to bring what i am doing now to its logical conclusion. If it takes this lifetime fine maybe in the next lifetime, if my dreams don't die with me I will live them; one lifetime after another.