Idealism and realism as put by 5-year-olds

Watching the Oscars thisSunday night was an all too memorable 4 1/2 hours, I must say.\nIt was a night for dark-horse nominees, such as best supporting actress winner Jennifer Hudson for “Dreamgirls.” Also a surprising win was best original song recipient Melissa Etheridge for her gripping work “I Need to Wake Up,” from the environmentally conscious work of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.”\nAnd, I must admit, I probably peed a little when screenwriter Michael Arndt won the award for best writing (original screenplay). But more than anything, the Oscars ceremony brought out a childhood delirium in me that, for one reason or another, is still fighting against reality:\nI must win an Oscar.\nI know what you’re thinking, but consider this. Why would I reveal such a ridiculous and embarrassing ideal if it didn’t mean something deep in my subconscious? I am not alone, however, as there are others in the world that dare to dream.\n“I want to be a movie star,” preschooler Margaret Brown told me in a recent interview. She is my young niece in the prime of youth, chasing a dream.\nChildren, it seems, have all the grasp on what the future should be, and not what it is going to be. Now, I know this is an unfounded comparison. Margaret is a 5-year-old, and I’m a college student who should be focusing more on paying my bills than paying my dues in the Screen Actors Guild. But why?\nThere is a narrow bridge between realism and idealism, and it is going to be a tremendous ordeal crossing from one side to the other. No matter who you are in this world, you must choose between one or the other: to pursue your heart’s desire in the face of potential failure and obscurity, or to compromise your dreams to live a life of security and comfort. I believe no one can be the judge of which is the best decision to make.\nIt is at the end of the bridge, on the idealist side, that the art world takes its home. If you are going to create, you must first be able to build something out of nothing. If you are going to create, you must first be able to still be a 5-year-old and pursue a dream with all-too-serious intentions.\nIn his acceptance speech, best writing (adapted screenplay) winner William Monahan said, “The movie that made me want to be a screenwriter was Robert Bolt’s ‘Lawrence of Arabia.’ And I don’t know what could’ve happened in the universe to end up with the same Oscars as Peter O’Toole, you know, so it’s crazy.”\nIt’s almost as crazy as the dream.