What Adulthood Does to Ambition There was a time when bedtime meant something. Not just sleep, but the whole ritual of it: eyes closed, mind already somewhere else, somewhere enormous. Children dream without permission. They dream of becoming astronauts, presidents, world-famous chefs, the first person to do something nobody has done before. The ambition is almost aggressive in its certainty. Nobody tells a seven-year-old to be realistic, and somehow they know to ignore it an