In the Pursuit of Happiness

Suncor Nature Corridor, Sarnia, Ont. Photo by Louis.

Louis Shalako



Years ago, I knew this guy. One time I asked him a pretty simple question and he couldn't anwer it.

"If you won the lottery, if you could do anything you wanted to do, anything at all, what would it be? What is your dream?"

He had no answer. I tried to rephrase it.

"You would never have to work again. You've got bags of cash laying around, you drive a nice car, and you live in a big fat house. What is your dream? What do you want to do now? What do you want to do next?"

He still had no answer. I found that very disturbing indeed, not because I thought it was a dark and dirty secret, or that he was just fooling around, not because I thought he was stupid, but because it was true.

The gentleman did not have a dream.

The dream is what sustains me as a writer. Sometimes it is the only thing that sustains me, not just as a writer, but as a person struggling in the great river of life. Sometimes that dream is the only thing that keeps me going, and sometimes I really am, 'taking it one day at a time.'

How much of a price tag would you want to put on that dream?

I wouldn't swap places with that man for a million bucks--I wouldn't swap places with him for a billion dollars.

Guys like that just piss me off.