Tag: fairy tales

  • Heroes and Hero Worship

    I once heard someone say that each time we create a hero, we diminish our own capacity for greatness. It’s a truth I can easily subscribe to because I cannot relate to the reality of having heroes to begin with. I’ve never looked at someone and thought to myself, “I want to grow up to be just like you”. So this truth is my truth, whether convenient or not. I consider those with heroes to be blessed, but simultaneously sheltered. The convenience of it must be so comforting.

    I’m not talking of heroes from history books or personalities that existed at some point in time prior to my existence. Those tend to be mythical figures of greatness more than anything else because of the bias that history affords them. Their status is relative to the narrator and therefore lacks in authenticity more often than not. The heroes that matter are the ones that bring value systems to life. The ones that are authentic to their stated principles and engage sincerely whether they meet a pauper or a prince. Those heroes I have yet to meet.

    Imagine a life where you have someone like that to turn to for advice and guidance. Someone that gently prompts you in the right direction when you err, or sets you out on the right footing so that you err less. Imagine being able to speak your mind or ramble about your dreams, and such rambling is met with a fond embrace and assurance that anything is possible, rather than a cynical slap in the teeth to wake you from your daydreams to smell the coffee. Imagine how beautifully sheltered you would be then?

    That is why hero worship diminishes our own capacity for greatness. Heroes are figments of our imagination. We turn ordinary beings into creations that are larger than life, not because they wanted it, but because our fickleness needs it. Well, sometimes they want it. In fact, most of us desire it because we see how heroes are celebrated for just being humane or acting with conviction. You’d think that would be the norm, but alas it is not, and the sarcasm dripping from my mouth right now makes it difficult to continue this train of thought.

    But that’s what heroes and hero worship is. It’s an indulgence in our own fantasies because we’re raised with fairy tales and tooth fairies. Yet, despite this reality, the gravity of life far outweighs the gravity of earth, and in so doing, we all yearn for such celebration because it would allow us to experience a manufactured reality that is beyond the grasp of the average being. Then again, isn’t all reality manufactured?

    Be a hero, or create one from nothing, the awkward truth remains. It is only the unpleasant appeal that life holds for us in general that lends credence to fairy tales and heroes because without them, the raw reality of our existence is too much for the fickle masses to bear. Unethical leaders recognise weakness well, which is why they play into these fears and create heroes out of medication, distractions, and trinkets by convincing us that without it we simply would not be able to survive.

    [end cynical rant]

  • No Forever Afters

    It’s natural sometimes to feel fear when life suddenly takes a turn for the better,  because a history of disappointment or challenges conditions us to expect the worst.  So instead of embracing our new experiences,  we end up bracing ourselves for what we expect might happen.  It’s part of our survival instinct. However, because we’re protecting ourselves from a threat that is not present,  our body takes strain because of the imbalance it causes, which results in poor health and dysfunction. Unfortunately, at that point, the ill health causes us to turn to the modern medical professional first, instead of last.

    You see, when we have this imbalance that causes ill health, we’re conditioned to believe that something external to us has suddenly created an internal problem. A problem that we’re incapable of rectifying unless we bombard our bodies with chemical cocktails that will strip the paint off the wall if applied correctly. But tonight I don’t quite care about the stupidity of current mainstream health regimens. I don’t quite care for much at all actually.

    For some time now I’ve looked around and realised that no matter how much effort or expense is invested in the maintenance and upkeep of the structures around us, the moment that effort is complete, the decay starts setting in to prepare us for the next bout of maintenance. Everything in this world, including us, was designed to perish, to decay, to disintegrate into nothing at the end of being something. It’s a fruitless endeavour to focus on embellishing this world, or this life, but the fickleness of my nature always distracts me towards enticing challenges that lure me towards them under the pretence of it being an expression of my creativity, or in other cases, an opportunity to make the lives of others more comfortable or pleasant.

    Nothing lasts, not the intensity of the emotions felt when love is most inflamed, nor the bitter anger of the betrayal of that same love when it fades. It all dissolves into nothing as time erodes its memory, but yet we pursue the concept of forever after as if it was truly experienced in this world. It never was, and never will be. There are no forever afters, nor are there any fail safe remedies to outlast this world. All we can ever do is delay the inevitable, but the inevitable is inevitable, or else it would not be called the inevitable, yet, inevitably, we seem not to get it. It really is as absurd as that sounded.

    I know that I should be taking the lighter load for the road ahead. I know that the lighter load means less indulgences in materialism, and more in spiritualism. I also know that finishing my latest gardening project adds to that load, but my obstinacy, or perhaps my weakness, is that it is easier to feed my feeble sense of self-worth through accomplishing these celebrated goals, rather than to draw comfort from the fact that I would have successfully detached myself from this world a little more when I walked past that beautiful water feature without reaching to see if my credit card was in my wallet.

    This same weakness within me is what I despise in others. I often despise it even more because being surrounded with a similar weakness leaves me without a handhold to lift myself out of the quagmire of materialism. Living comfortably is a lie. A horrible lie that is unachievable. By our very nature we will constantly seek to improve what we have because that is the yardstick of success. Only those whose primary focus is a goal external to their immediate circle of influence or responsibility will stand any chance of overcoming such a weakness. Unfortunately such philanthropic or altruistic endeavours are also plagued with indulgence of the spiritual self because of our need to be acknowledged and validated.

    This world cannot come to an end soon enough.