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A Letter about Stories and Dragon.

The thing you need most is always to be found where you least want to look.

I’ve been writing for a bit long now. I think my process to write is a little different from my friends who write. I let my thoughts go on and on, I let them evolve and counter them almost everything I can get my hands on, and then I just need the laptop or my notebook to write with the flow. For an overthinker, it is easy and takes comparatively less time to think. But yes, I can think. Knowing that ‘I can think’ is a different kind of fulfilment in itself.

No matter what I write, It’s a story in some sense. If I write poetry, it is a story in some sense. I might be abstract but it’s a story and if you go through any of my poetry you can find one. Stories are important to me. Though it’s hard to get true meaning behind them. This can be subjective. Most of the time we are explained what a story should mean to us and we don’t rethink it. Its meaning might change if we come to think of it.

Stories shape us. We might not realise this but they do, to an extent beyond our comprehension. Ramayana and Mahabharata are stories (Myths) and they are good guide mechanisms we have with us. Ramayana is the story of perfect people going wrong but honest. Mahabharata on the other hand is a story of people like us. No one thinks that they are wrong, everyone has a reason to do things either good or bad, which is not different from how we think. We too have hatred and resentment towards certain people and we have very good reasons for that. That’s where Mahabharata tells us to what extent it might go someday if don’t think over it now. That’s why even Myths are important.

No matter how educated we are we will never be enough educated to know the real meaning hidden behind the mythological or cultural stories we are listening to even after thousands of years. They have evolved over a time period and one life is not enough for that.

Even kids’ stories are amazing. Recently I came across a story written for four-year-old kids ‘There is no such thing as Dragon’. I actually saw Jordan Peterson explaining it and it blew me away. I’m sharing the video link here. Do watch it. I would say no other story has ever made as much impact as this one did, and I’m pretty sure of that. Now I can almost always identify Dragon if there is one. Even if it took time, It’s hard to ignore now.

I am assuming that you have not heard the story or watched the video yet. So I’m sharing my inarticulate words with you. There is a kid, Billie Bixby. One morning, as he woke up, he found a dragon of the size of a cat beside his bed. He went to his mother and told her about the same. His mother said there is no such thing as a dragon. He went back to the room but the dragon was still there. Billie was confused.

Now when Billie went for breakfast dragon sat on the table with Billie and ate breakfast with him. Billie didn’t know how his mother could not see the dragon as he was right in front of the table, eating and growing in size. He told mother again but mother replied the same that ‘there is no such thing as a dragon’.

Billie went to his room. Dragon, after breakfast, grew up and now was bigger than the size of a room. Billie’s mother was cleaning the house. It was taking longer than usual as the dragon was taking a lot of space. But mother was still solid on that and Billie was surprised as earlier.

Later in the evening dragon was bigger than the house and was hungry again. A food truck passes by the house and the dragon smells it. Dragon runs behind it and takes it home with it. Later Billie’s father came to the house but the house was not at its place as Dragon took it with him. So he followed and saw the Dragon.

Billie’s father and mother then recognised it. As they recognised it shrunk in the size and was of the size of a cat again. Billie’s mother said, “looks like it just wanted to be recognised”.

Well, I was stunned as Peterson compared the dragon to our daily life things. Unleaded dishes in the kitchen, unfolded blankets or clothes in the room or dust or anything that is not at its right place just because you’ve not recognized it due to your ignorance is a dragon, and you got to slay it.

Akira The Don (DJ) has composed a beautiful song whose Instagram post I have embedded below you can check the song ‘Dragon’. This contains excerpts from Peterson’s talk. I’m just sharing what Peterson said, but do listen to beautiful music by Akira The Don. (link embedded below)

“One of the oldest dramatic representations we know of is St George on the Dragon. Dragon lives in the ground, chased there by heroes of the previous generation, now and then re-emerging, kills people. These are skulls around his layer, threatens the integrity of the community like everything unexpected does. Hero comes out slays the dragon, freezes the treasure. Dragon hoards gold, the thing you most. The thing you need most is always to be found where you least want to look.”

~Jordan Peterson

Well, let’s Slay the Dragon now.

 

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