When Andy plays the opera record that he found amongst the library books, and shuts the commissioner out of the office, it’s one of the best moments of one of my favorite movies, The Shawshank Redemption.

He’s punished for the crime of playing opera over the loud speaker for all of the inmates. Red, one of Andy’s best friends in the prison, says,

“I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don’t want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I’d like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can’t be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.”

Sometimes we find ourselves in grey places, and we must dare to dream. Here’s to bucking tradition, finding alternate routes, and accomplishing the impossible. Here’s to dreaming.

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Here’s where it makes the most sense. You need it so you don’t forget. Forget that there are places in the world that aren’t made out of stone. That there’s a – there’s a – there’s something inside that’s yours, that they can’t touch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bjqmg_7J53s