Adam Blatner

I was singing this song to myself, from the Broadway play of the 1960s, Man of La Mancha—, revealing my private dreams of grandiosity. These betray the mind’s capacity to think in terms of superlatives. Each is paradoxical, a way of dramatizing ambition, such as dreaming an impossible dream or fighting an unbeatable foe.

They are indeed impossible—but that’s part of the irony—some few idealists want to fulfil the total ideal, an asymptotic goal—like the speed of light. Or as Paul Simon sang in a 1977 song, “The closer you get to your destination, the more you keep slip-sliding away.”

Anyway, the song reminded me of Don Quixote and how in my early teens I pronounced his name Don Kwix-ote instead of Don Key-hoe-tee, as I later learned that it should be pronounced. These kinds of experiences are highlighted by a sense of shame.

Anyway, I like that song and sing it in the shower, and I just realized that this Dream the Impossible Dream song betrays an ambition to be the best—an abstraction— rather than who I am—a mixture —often not the best in all ways— indeed, nowhere near the best in any of them!—and mixed also with weaknesses—but truly unique in the combination!

It occurred to me that there never has been such a combination of scores of virtues and weakness-es and hundreds of things about which I’ve been mediocre. But God has never been this unique combination before (and likely will never again!). There are so many variables, and individuality is a form of special-ness. So I don’t have to be so heroic! Whew!