A Spark by Innocent Mwatsikesimbe from Questions Asked, chapter 9

An embryo is alive from its first moment, but it cannot yet survive on its own. That is the stage a new dream occupies. Innocent puts its conception at a precise fusion of desire and opportunity: “we see opportunities to be someone that match with our capabilities, and we dream.”

What gets conceived isn’t success itself; it’s success at its smallest, most defenseless stage. Hence two verbs with different jobs. Nurturing is growth — the attention and action that keep a young dream developing. Protecting is survival, and it’s needed because the threats are real: many people tried to kill Innocent’s dreams, and some came dangerously close.

The protecting turns out to be simpler than it sounds. He found that nobody else actually holds the power to end a dream — people can only say and do things “in attempts to influence you to kill your own dreams.” Guarding one, in the end, mostly means guarding your own hand.