Here be Dragons...


I thought this was an appropriate subject to kick off 2012.

During one end-of-year gathering with friends, somebody mentioned Saint George had been removed from the Catholic Sanctoral, and that started out a heated debate. I’ve been checking references on the issue, but there doesn’t seem to be anything online, so I guess it was a false alarm (if someone has additional information about this, please let me know).



Anyway, as most people who know me are aware of, I don’t consider myself Catholic (I embraced agnosticism years ago), however I still believe symbols carry the power we confer unto them and one of my Catholic upbringing favorite vestiges is Saint George (along with Saint Judas, for completely different reasons).

I love the imagery of the saint valiantly slaying the dragon, because I believe it’s a great allegory of how we should overtake the challenges in our lives.

We constantly face tasks, problems, sorrows, fears and whatnot that sometimes seem too big, and we somehow manage to pull through. But I believe the most valuable learning doesn’t come from challenges thrown at us, but from the ones we actually choose to face.

Sometimes we arrive at crossroads in our path when we can decide to follow the easy way out, maintain the status-quo, remain in our comfort zone, and maybe miss some opportunities; or we can face the “dragons” blocking the way to new experiences.

I often find myself choosing the later without thinking every detail through. I’m a fool lured by the treasures beyond, and that makes me charge in without fully sizing up the difficulties first. Fortunately I usually prepare myself for possible eventualities beforehand, and have good improvisational skills. I’ve also always believed that trying to bite off more than you can chew is a great learning experience.

My older son has just decided he won’t participate in a poem declamation contest at school. It proved to be too stressful and did not really appeal to him. On the other hand, two weeks ago he was genuinely afraid he couldn’t ski, and an hour later he was zipping down the hill past me (I was the one rolling down… first time at the slopes for all of us, you see). He’s learning to choose which dragons to face and actually goes through with it, which makes me really proud of him. It seems we are doing something right with the kids, after all.

That’s why I believe this was a great subject to begin the year. I’ve decided the best way to face this 2012 is with a calculated gung-ho attitude. Always take the path you think is best for you, put aside your concerns and fears, and don’t worry too much about the dragons. You’ll probably find out you can defeat most of them.

Happy New Year!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kill your Darlings? Gravitas vs Escapism

Image
 It seems like, again, I’ve neglected my writing for longer than expected. It’s been a year since I’ve had my eye on a very specific theme, but I’ll flex my muscles with this idea first (as it’s fresher in my mind). So hopefully I’ll be sharing that other one too very soon. In the meantime, I hate sounding like an old man, but here I’ll make an exception because it’s essential to make today’s movie-related point, kids. Years ago, depending on what kind of movie you went to see, you basically knew some things that were sure to happen when choosing a typical action/adventure movie: the evil guys would do their evil deeds, things would get dire and in the end the heroes would somehow survive and save the day. Pure escapism fun. There are many literary theories around that idea that go back to the earliest fairy tales, comparing these with comfort food. You go back to familiar territory to feel happier and emotionally reinvigorated. I remember going in to see Indiana Jones and the Te
Read more

I Confess!

Image
Now that Rise of the Planet of the Apes (#Apeswillrise / #elplanetasimios) released over the weekend in the US and will be opening on September 2 nd in Mexico, I’ve had the chance to discuss it with people in general with very positive results (everyone who’s seen it agrees it’s a great surprise and that it surpassed or at least reached their expectations… which is amazing considering how high these were). But I also realized that it is most un-cool to say you remotely liked Tim Burton’s 2001 re-imagining. Well, I confess I liked it. So sue me. But I’m a huge fan of the franchise, I grew up with it, I’m also a big Tim Burton fan, and I thought he did a very interesting take on the ape mythology. Rick Baker’s makeup was great (yeah, NOW we can do believable CGI apes, but that was still not the case back in ’01) and the ending was a brave attempt to update the original’s. I appreciated all of that. There, I said it. And now, to top that one off, here I will proceed to declare my lik
Read more

Remembering the two First Families of Halloween

Image
Long ago, in a decade far, far away during the monster craze period, two wonderfully creepy family shows were released through different networks and ended up competing against each other to  everyone's delight. According to Wikipedia, The Addams Family aired for two seasons on ABC from September 18, 1964 to April 8, 1966 for a total of 64 episodes; while The Munsters aired on CBS from September 24, 1964, to May 12, 1966 with a total of 70 episodes.  Both shows have lived in our cultural psyche ever since through reruns in syndication and now video collections, becoming enduring franchises. I had the chance to discover them in the early 70’s and immediately became enamored with the concept (as a child I even had my mom sew me up a black Herman Munster costume and buy me a red Herman rubber mask… yeah, red, go figure). The Munsters had an arguably successful revival with The Munsters Today , a more traditional sitcom which (according to Wikipedia)
Read more