Happy New Year! Let's Slay some Dragons!

TIME GOES ON

By Alex Ness
January 1, 2023

INEVITABLE

Life has meant for me, many good experiences and many bad. Life is difficult and it has never been an easy path. There is a belief modern minded people have, that has made their life a little bit more difficult. Many of them believe that life is meant to be constant victory, a birth followed by constantly positive experiences. The life we live is inevitably great, because all we are meant to do, to inherit, to accomplish, we will be given our destiny. But life is rather different. A look at how life is for people living in lesser developed countries shows that inevitable can be interpreted differently, because they might inevitably be hungry, killed in wars, forced into labor, or more. Wealth and power lead people to believe they are meant to be rich and powerful, rather than be grateful for their individual experience. That is, people with money tend to believe they aren't living for money and the things money can buy. 

I write this all because the world in which we live has a variety of costs, layers, and mysteries that are worth investment of time to explore. There are truths that must be delved deep to appreciate, we're not given an user's manual to help us understand or overcome. I'm beginning to realize that the more that I read and dive into, the more I don't know, and need to know. If I die before I solve all of the mysteries that linger, and present themselves for examination, that isn't a tragedy, it is common, typical of most lives. But, if I don't bother to try to know the answer, I can never know the answer.

CHANGES

As I am going through some difficult health related issues, I think my articles will appear 4 times a month rather than the 7-10 it has been. It isn't a hiatus, but will give me time to adjust to changed circumstances.

MY HISTORY AND EXPLORATION

As some know, who read my various blogs, or my social media, I was a child adopted due to a rape. It left me with a life better in ways than it could have been, but also, a feeling that I was an outsider, different than others, and a feeling that no one understood me, not even my family. This isn't a criticism, but an honest commentary that it is meant to explain who I am. I didn't have the ability to look at the people giving advice, caring for me, complaining about me, giving guidance and see people who looked like me, or resembled me in any way. I love my mom desperately, and my dad too, but it is much harder to accept guidance from someone who is a perfectionist, if it feels like it is coming from a stranger, or someone who isn't part of your being.

My life didn't start out with hope, love or fanfare. I am entirely aware, it might never have started at all. I am not going to turn this into a commentary about abortion, since even in the mouth of Republicans, incest and rape are reasons to abort a child. I appreciate that my DNA mother didn't seek a way to get rid of me. That is all I will say about that. BUT being of a different configuration of flesh than the family that raised me might've led me to dig into the world around me differently than others. Feeling different didn't lead me to assume I was hated or unloved, but it did mean that my outlook was aimed at trying to solve the questions of existence that others might ignore.

The person I am is one who took History and Political Science despite loving art and poetry, literature and comics. While I know some who went into Psychology or Philosophy to understand themselves or diagnose what they feared was wrong, I chose a look at the result of what humans do, and their stated goals rather than the intellectual motives and outlooks that lead them to do such. It isn't that others are wrong, of course, I took the path I did because it allowed me a framework of knowledge that gives the world I live in a context. For me, I was long aware, nothing is inevitable but paying taxes and dying.

TO SLAY DRAGONS

Life is often represented in art through symbolism and metaphor. For example, the idea of slaying a dragon, is almost always not a commentary about the killing of a legendary serpentine monster. It refers to, in allegorical, metaphor, or symbolism, the concept or story about our need to slay the creature or being that troubles us. Whether the being that troubles us is a test tomorrow in Biology class, addressing a bully that steals your lunch money, speaking to the person who calls you names or insults your mother, addressing the government official who keeps taking your paycheck, or there is a problem you must face, defeat, and find closure.

“The hunger of a dragon is slow to wake, but hard to sate.” Ursula K. Le Guin

Did dragons exist? I've no idea, honestly. I am, however, very certain that the stories of their existence had to be influenced by finds of skeletal remains and fossils of dinosaurs. Who would not be struck with awe by the fossils left behind by creatures the size of a house?

Saint George's story didn't, in fact, begin with fighting a giant serpentine beast threatening the people of the local town. He was a Roman soldier or even a member of the Praetorian Guard, from the region of Cappadocia, who refused to obey an order that would pay homage and respect to a pagan god. For his refusal to obey, he was tortured and slain, by order of Emperor Diocletian. This places his life as having lived in around 245 - 305 C.E. (Christian Era). There are, of course, portions of his story that cannot be known. And some aspects of his legend were added far later than its core. However, while Saint George did not kill dragons, his story inspired the Crusader knights and soldiers who learned the story while in the Holy Land and nearby regions. It is true that he was courageous, but dragons were probably not the beast he helped slay. The Romans themselves took Christianity as their official state religion, and shortly after, in the context of time, Rome fell.

“Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea
of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination.
What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.” G.K. Chesterton 

AND MORE SLAYERS

Beowulf is one of the very first works that moved me, however confusing it might have been in the beginning. I was even confused where the events it speaks of would have happened, think it was an Anglo Saxon prince going to help a people in Denmark. It was not that. But one of the creatures that must be slain is a dragon. And the battle has a grievous cost.

The warrior Sigurd's place in cultural memory was made permanent before Richard Wagner's masterpiece, Der Ring des Nibelungen, or for the English speakers, the Ring of the Nibelung. In Sigurd Wagner displays the Germanic/ Nordic fortitude of will and courage, slaying a dragon, and by eating its heart, becomes fully wise and knowing. And his last moments are tragic, for no one so great will be without enemies or challengers.

As a younger man I was fascinated by all sorts of dragons, and, while the story is imperfect, Dragonslayer by Disney was and remains a wonderful work. It had all of the features of a dragon story that make it great. The young hero, the cost and danger of the quest, a great foe, and an epic fight. It should be watched, and perhaps remastered using modern animation, because it really could benefit from even better special effects.

R.A. Salvatore wrote books that I really enjoyed. He wrote initially for TSR, but then he expanded his work with numerous publishers. I interviewed him and appreciate what he has written. His story found in The Spearwielder's Tale is humble, subtle and clever. Taking a real human who discovers that a fantasy world exists, he is cast into a world that requires a great hero. As much a commentary about how the moment can transform a common person into a hero as an epic heroic story of the stranger who came to fight the beast that endangered the village/land.

“Quickly, the dragon came at him, encouraged
As Beowulf fell back; its breath flared,
And he suffered, wrapped around in swirling
Flames -- a king, before, but now
A beaten warrior.  None of his comrades
Came to him, helped him, his brave and noble
Followers; they ran for their lives, fled
Deep in a wood. And only one of them
Remained, stood there, miserable, remembering,
As a good man must, what kinship should mean."

(Burton Raffel's translation of Beowulf)

My Creative Blogs:
My 5000 poem Blog AlexNessPoetry.Blogspot.Com

Cthulhu Alien Horrors CthulhuDarkness.Blogspot.Com

Atlantis & Lost Worlds AlexNessLostWorlds.Blogspot.Com


My Books and Sets for Sale
My Published Work  AlexNessPoetry.Blogspot.Com/2007/01/My-Work.html

My Amazon Author Page Amazon.com/author/AlexNess

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