Why I am happy to not dream
Kierkegaard once said something along these lines: "I sleep half the time and I dream half the time, but I never dream while I'm sleeping, because that would be a waste." I make it a point to never dream when I'm thinking, because it's been my observation that that's a waste, too. Dreamers love to tell me about how I'm an agent of "what's impossible", but more often than not, I'm the one working to make dreams come true every day. That they aren't the dreams of the "dreamers", though, shows the lack of compromise that dreams offer. Compromise is what creates reality, not dreams. That's why we dream when we sleep, except for Kierkegaard. It may be a point of contention, to be sure, but it's one I'm willing to accept. You can't simply dream things until they're real.
The dreamers get the credit for the "wonderful things", but it was not a dreamer that erected the pyramids, raised the Great Wall, or crossed the land bridge. It was the realist who fundamentally understood not only that these things were achievable, but the way in which to do them. The dreamers, by comparison, were making eight-winged planes while the realists argued and ultimately concluded (through demonstration) that three was one too many. That's why heavier-than-air human flight was an invention not credited to Da Vinci but to the Wright brothers.
The dreamers get the credit for the "wonderful things", but it was not a dreamer that erected the pyramids, raised the Great Wall, or crossed the land bridge. It was the realist who fundamentally understood not only that these things were achievable, but the way in which to do them. The dreamers, by comparison, were making eight-winged planes while the realists argued and ultimately concluded (through demonstration) that three was one too many. That's why heavier-than-air human flight was an invention not credited to Da Vinci but to the Wright brothers.