I dreamed that after performances it became common for the audience to leave tips for characters in the show.
In my dream we went to see Newsies and left a tip for Jack. After a few performances he had earned enough through tips that at the beginning of the next show he just bought a ticket to Santa Fe and left. He never showed up to any more performances.
After that we went to see Les Mis. We loved it so much that we left a generous tip for Jean Valjean so that he could afford a math tutor. In the next performance, he was able to attend and graduate from school. This provided him with a good job so he didn't ever need to steal bread. That meant he never went to prison, so he never met and stole from the Bishop.
Without the money from the Bishop's silver candlesticks he never had the funds to start the factory and become mayor. That also meant he was never in position to save Cosette or Marius.
I awoke with a sense of existential dread that I had permanently ruined these stories. After I realized it was a dream, I thought about the implications. Often in life we want to just have our struggles taken away. Without our struggles, our lives would be more comfortable but they would also be boring.
It is our struggles that make our lives interesting and creates the character development opportunities to allow us to become who God wants us to become.
Dreamed on 9/1/2023
