Life has a lot of grey areas, areas that lie uncharted that in maps of old would be marked as ‘Here be Dragons’… There’s a tendency for such places to be the source of a rather bizarre fear, effectively a fear of the unknown. Instead of going there and finding out what exactly is over there that’s such a mystery, the mapmaker just throws his own story there and that’s that…
Life’s like that sometimes. It’s a giant experiment that’s got a million ingredients and a billion outcomes, like somewhere along the way, the actions of your past influence your present and go on to tweak your future ever so slightly… The thing with decisions like that is they look so small in the moment, but they snowball and become an avalanche later in life.
So then the question begs, is it wiser to sit put and point at the dragons on the map or go gung ho and find out if the dragons are for real?
Sometimes the unknown is better than what is known, for the obvious reason that out of sight is out of mind. I mean, it’s easier to attack something from a point of ignorance than from a point of knowledge. Take away the ignorance and you end up with a changed mind. That’s why ignorance ranks up there amongst mankind’s worst enemies. Fear and ignorance, coupled with a blind faith, taking things for their surface value.
Dragons can be substituted for pretty much anything… Emotions, ‘stuff’, life itself, things that are generally frightening and therefore have loads of associated pain that they carry along. Then in the end, in true dragon fashion, the bearer gets burned. Badly. They also have to make sacrifices to keep the dragon quiet and sated. All this would have been much easier had the dragons been vanquished in the first place… But slowly by slowly, the unknown grows and covers everything like a thin fog, making that which had been known before to be confused, muddled up…
And unlike the story, St. George does not make a quick appearance and kill the beast. But this one grows and grows until it swallows you whole…
Somewhere along the way, that space has to be defined, then the dragons vanquished and you reign victorious.
Or you lose.
here be dragons
02 Tuesday Feb 2010
Posted Life and such
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