Click Here To Purchase The Dolphin: Story of a Dreamer

Author: Sergio F. Bambaren

ISBN:  978-1-4019-1896-5 

A short read of 87-pages is literally filled with wisdom. The main character, Daniel Alexander Dolphin, lives in a safe area. There are no surprises, no outsiders, and certainly no way for Daniel to realize his dream -- riding the perfect wave. Early in the book, Daniel is speaking to another dolphin, " Michael, look around you. Our world is full of dolphins who fish from dawn to dusk, one day after another. They're always fishing. They don't have the time to pursue theur dreams anymore. Instead of fishing to live, they now live to fish." I realized that this was true of many humans I know -- they are too busy to realize their dreams. Caught up in the daily grind to earn a paycheck, many do not stop to remember how to dream.

Since Daniel's dream is to ride the perfect wave, he practices daily near the reefs, but in his heart, he knows this is not where he'll find that perfect wave. Without telling anyone of his plans, he leaves the safety of his home and sets out to ride his dream. "He has chosen to live his life based on his own principles, and although he was sometimes lonely, he had no regrets." When Daniel is missing, the pod believes he is dead. I believe that when humans set out to ride their dreams, even though they may be present, some believe these people to be dead (dead in the eyes of a non-dreamer). Therefore, it can be a lonely route to the goal.   

Man, he had been taught, was not his friend. "This first encounter with something that didn't belong to his island made Daniel understand that the world wasn't as small as he'd been told. He realized that his ignorance was a result of having believed what he'd been taught, without even asking where the information had come from." I see this in humans almost every day. They hear a news story or read a report and take it at face value. Later, when they learn that the information had been manipulated, they often feel foolish.

The conversation with the shark, a known enemy of dolphins, was very interesting. Daniel asks the shark if he is a dreamer and the shark replied that he "used to be one." He continues, "Life has been unfair to me. It has made everyone fear me. Every time I appear, all the other creatures swim for their lives." Daniel replies, "It reminds me of my pod. Every time a storm hits the island, they swim for shelter, inside the lagoon. It is fear of the unknown that makes them behave that way. They don't realize that the most beautiful lessons in life are learned in the toughest situations."  

Upon his return to the pod, the other dolphins want to learn how to dream. Daniel said, "The real secret of a happy and rich existance is to learn to distinguish between real terasures and fake ones. The sea that embraces us, the sun that gives us life, the moon and the stars that shine in the sky, are all real treasures. They're timeless and they were given to us so we could always remember that we're surrounded by magic; to remind us that our world is full of miracles that can help our dreams become reality. Instead, we started building our own world of false treaures. We gave up our dreams and accepted that the reason to live was to fish as much as we could."

Daniel Dolphin had lived his dream because he was not afraid of the unknown. "Where you are headed there are no trails, no paths, just your own instinct. You have followed the omens, and have finally arrived. And now, you have to take the great leap into the unknown, and find out for yourself: who is wrong, who is right, and who you are." Daniel learned who was wrong, who was right, and who he was.