greatness

The Hunger Games.

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This is going to be a review post.

It may surprise a few people that until last week, I’ve never seen or read the Hunger Games. At least in my limited scope of things, it seems like that series was what kicked off the post apocalyptic trend in teen fiction. If you’ve read some of my previous posts you know how I view that, so needless to say the idea of The Hunger Games never exactly thrilled me.

I also never could understand why it was my 11 or 12 year old friend who first told me about them; and how great the books were. Man, if I had a dime for every time someone my age told me this or that was good and I thought they were out of their mind.

But over the years I heard more intriguing things about the series, so my sister and I decided to finally check it out and our dad sat in for some of it. (We didn’t ask him to, but he was curious.)

So, as we like to ask each other, what’s the verdict?

Well, to like this movie, I would have had to be surprised, it would have had to be different than I expected. But it wasn’t.

That’s not to say I expected it to be completely bad. There were a lot of good moments. Katniss saving her sister, Katniss and Rue (almost tears,) Katniss and Peeta making their big decision. Katniss grieving over Rue was more than I expected, and it brought a lot of humanity to her. Rue’s brother or relative saving Katniss was kind of cool.

And despite all the hate Peeta gets, I don’t see why he deserves it, but I’ve only seen the one movie.

So, after admitting all this was good, why wouldn’t I give this movie a thumbs up. I am one to find meaning in anything I can.

Which I do. But There are those who find meaning, and there are those who find a meaning that was clearly never supposed to be there, or if it was  it was the wrong meaning.

You see, it is hard enough to find a movie with any attempt at a good message, but it is harder to find one that even knows how to communicate its message.

At the end of “The Hunger Games.” I can’t really tell what the message was. It wasn’t about going against the culture, whatever Peeta thinks. It wasn’t about risking your life to save someone else, whatever Katniss’es original intent might have been. I guess, from what the scary guy with the white beard was saying, the movie is supposed to be about hope.

You all know how much I like hope.

And that is my huge problem with this movie and every movie like it. Hope is very, very slim. Hope is nearly given up. Hope lies in running for your life and then starting a rebellion. And I’m not even certain what part of what Katniss and Peeta did was meant to give me hope. They both started off willing to kill, steal, and destroy each other and their competition. This is supposed to make me like them?

I know Katniss wanted to save her sister, but doing bad things for you family used to be frowned upon; and it still would be in a different movie.  No one would question it then. Like Luke, should he have gone over to the Dark side to make his father happy?

It may seem like a completely different circumstance, but it’ not. Peeta had no such noble reason for being in the Hunger games at all.

I am glad Katniss killed no one who did not attack her first, but neither did she at any time declare it was wrong to do so. She did not stand up to the government till the very end, and then it was almost too late, everyone else had died.

But on top of all that, the whole idea of the Hunger games is highly disturbing. no one ever talks about it when they discuss the movies’ merits, but what kind of person thinks up such an idea, and what kind of parents in the future would allow their children to be taken without a fight? Gale at least wants to run away, why hasn’t that idea been adopted ages ago? I’d expect it to be a reoccurring problem by the time Katniss goes. (If it is in the second movie, then my apologies, I haven’t seen it.)

Really. Why do parents let their children watch this movie anyway? My sister and I are older teens, but our younger sibling wasn’t watching, and good thing too. Like I said, a 12-year-old first recommended this to me. Am I the only one who sees a problem with this?

Unfortunately, I usually am the only one who does.

As for the theme of hope, I want to know why we are satisfied with so little. We are given barely any to go on, we are shown precious little positive change because of that hope. Yet for this we are to be happy and feel inspired?

I think C. S. Lewis nailed the problem with most of mankind when he said “We are far too easily pleased.” (The Weight of Glory.)

We all talk about being exceptional, but we don’t recognize that exceptional people are not satisfied with small ideas, small goals, and small hopes. Things have come to a sad pass when I need to watch a movie about children murdering each other in order to feel related to and get inspiration.

And that’s my verdict. The Hunger Games is, in a sense, lowering the bar. I am perfectly aware I will make tons of people furious by saying so, and if it were deserved, I might mind. But though the movie has all the appearance of goodness, it is not actually good.

It has good acting, amazing scenery, and a fine score, it is moving in some ways; but none of that makes it good. It just makes it easier to mistake it for good. I almost would have too, but when it was over I realized that despite feeling horrified by what I saw, I was left with no lasting, strong impression of any injustice that I could have righted, or any improvement I could have made, all I was left with was the characters, and they didn’t inspire me.

I am sorry to have to upset so many people, but that is my honest take on it. However there is one lesson to draw from the movie, and I’m going to cover that in part two.

Until then–Natasha.

A real feminist.

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It’s no secret that America has a large feminists movement, and we even had a march dedicated to it recently. Many women make it their life’s purpose to promote equality.

I know men and women alike also hate the movement’s guts, and I don’t blame them. It has grown to ridiculous proportions.

Not that the original idea is something I dislike. I don’t even dislike the mantra “HEre me roar.”  Nothing wrong with roaring.

What concerns me is how deeply selfish feminism has become.

Stay with me girls, I’m going to explain.

I’ve never really dealt with sexism from men, though I probably will at some point, because it is out there, but it’s not half so common as it’s cracked up to be. I have already encountered sexism from women.

At the very least, if we must be sexist, I wish it was to some purpose. This marching and telling the world what it would be like if women weren’t at the work place is at best flaunting a long past victory; at worst, it’s lunacy.

Because if anyone should not be complaining about that, it’s American women.

What we should be complaining about is how those girls in countries like India, Cambodia, and Greece, are tricked into being kidnapped and sex trafficked. Millions, every year.

We should be complaining about how women are kept ignorant and helpless in countries where the Taliban is in power.

WE should be complaining that women in African countries are starving and dying of water contamination and also watching their children do the same, and many of those women and girls are forced into sex trade too, as the only way to avoid starvation.

We should be complaining about the Jewish and Christian women who are slain along with their families or have to watch their families die, because of their faith.

We should not be marching the streets waving our angry signs, because we are allowed only to show up to work and get paid for it and take it home to our families, and don’t have to worry about being stopped on the street and asked why we are out without a man.

We should not be giving men the finger for handing over our rights decades ago instead of shooting us or beating us for raising our voices.

What is wrong with us?

Don’t misunderstand me. Any prejudice is wrong, even if it is smaller in our country, but I snot the point of having a voice and having a power so we can speak up for those who are still silenced? and protect those who are still defenseless?

I repeat, feminism is selfish. At least what it has morphed into.

And it is not fair when we tell our daughters they can be anything, but we tell our sons to get out of their way.

We teach boys to not think girls are lesser, but we don’t teach girls to show boys the proper respect.

It goes both ways. There’s a saying “If you would be loved, be lovely.” And it might just as well be “If you would be respected, be respectable and respectful.”

But more importantly, it is selfish to rant about our very few misfortunes, and say nothing about what is going on around the world. It affects us too, immigrants are bringing it into our country, and I know people from other countries than America read this blog, and I mean them too. It is coming into every country.

I have heard it remarked on that schools are now teaching kids to be citizens of the world, whether or not that is a good thing, I can’t say; but if they are citizens of the world they ought to be taught to view the suffering in the world as part of their lives too. Something they should allieviate if they can. I get letters every month telling me about suffering I could help stop if I had money, which I don’t currently, but while I did, I gave some. It’s not a big deal. Its’ what we all should do. It’s not like it has to be a lot, most places are thankful to get anything, even five bucks.

I don’t have any organizations of my own to beg for, so you know this is simply what I think is right.

If you would support women, then support the ones who need it most. I don’t think it’s really so complicated.

But it doesn’t have to start with money. If you want to promote women’s rights, start by treating the women around you right. If girls tear each other down, or compete with each other in unhealthy ways, that is as  anti feminine as anything a man could do.

One more thing, when girls are angry, there is usually a deeper issue. I’ve had rape used as an argument against doing right by men, more than once. I can’t pretend to understand the effects of such assaults, but I do know that whatever someone else does to you, it doesn’t change what you need to do yourself.

Being angry against everyone will not help, and ignoring the fact that things like that happen daily to girls around the world is still selfish, because no one should want others to suffer a horror they’ve been through themselves. But I am not unsympathetic, and if I could offer personal advice, I would, but I suggest seeking more professional help if that is you case.

But hopefully it is not; and the rest of us have no excuse at all.

Whew! This is some heavy stuff. I just hope I’ve done justice to it.

What I really want to do is to wncourage girls and women to be more than that. To do greater things than they’ve seen demonstrated, and to think of other people besides themselves. i want to encourge men to do the same.Thsiis jsut a humn thing,not a gender thing, and we need to stop making it into that. That, I suppose, was my main point.

Until next time–Natasha.

“If there ever comes a time when the women of the world come together purely and simply for the benefit of mankind, it will be a force such as the world has never known.”–Matthew Arnold. (Emphathis mine.)

SAMSUNG CSC

Reach higher.

A break from my norm.

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I just visited one blog that had a post about Christianity, Agnosticism, and Atheism. I must have read two dozen comments form non-Christians that were under this post.

I almost think it’s funny. Not funny like ridiculous, but funny like “Why do we get so upset? Someone must have struck a nerve.”

I think I get a couple of atheists and agnostics on this blog, and I have no wish to offend any of them, and even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t do it by being mean. That’s not how I think God rolls.

It’s funny too, that I’ve seen worse things said online from other believers than from atheists, often, but there are some very unkind things said by them too. And some nice things said. You can’t put everyone in a box.

People like to say that the burden of proof is on us Christians,  but it’s not that simple.

As Kent Hovind first pointed out to me, any belief system can use science to support it, if they look hard enough, and often they throw out something that doesn’t match their beliefs, this is what people do.

I firmly believe, that believing in God is more important than knowing science, because science is so very limited, we can barely understand material things, let alone immaterial. But I like science, and I have no objection to believing it also. I know there are people who simply cannot accept anything unless they can see how it makes sense scientifically, and there are people who couldn’t care less about all that high browed mumbo jumbo. And neither are exactly wrong. Most of us are in between those two extremes. Though my calling them extreme would offend the people right off I suppose.

After all, Science does explain everything right? Or is it just so flexible and changing that we can’t rely on it? Well, few of us hold that opinion anymore, so I’ll just leave it for now; but many of us do rely on science to guide our choices, or some of them.

Many intellectual people think we should test everything with reason, but the older I get, the more I realize, I cannot possibly understand everything. I know some folks who have worked themselves into a cage made of their own reason, and like the dwarves in “The Last Battle,” they are so afraid of being duped by blind faith, that they cannot actually be undeceived and see the truth. I hope they will be undeceived before they die, because I think afterward it will be of no use to them.

There’s another problem with relying on science alone, science allows for no afterlife. No hell, no heaven.

Many people are only to glad to not believe in Hell, but few of us like to think that after death we will be oblivious. That we just end and nothing can prevent that. I think that Atheists choose to ignore that because they have to ignore it, no one likes that idea, not even the most evil of people want to die and be in oblivion, in fact they want the opposite, they want to leave behind a legacy that will never be forgotten as long as this Earth if fallen, and Hitler; and Stalin; and Attila the Hun; and Caesar, and Ivan the Terrible; (to name a few,) have left such legacies that even their names evoke bad things in our minds, do you think they are happy now?

Indeed, oblivion seems merciful compared to the kind of torment they must have if they are in hell. But they themselves seemed to dislike the idea of oblivion.

But is it right that good people should just end, and not go on? Well, some would say that is just the way it is.

Personally, I have longed to be able to believe hell is not real. I am not joking. I used to wish I could. I even tried. But I couldn’t try very hard, because I just could not accept it.

It is true, I was raised to believe in the afterlife. But there is not a child born, that I have met, that will think the idea is odd, until they are taught to.

It ought to be of interest to people who think we evolved, that children are born with instinctive belief in wondrous things, in things unseen, and usually in God. I never have told a child under 8 about God and had them scoff at it. That’s because reason does not start to develop until after eight.

But I ask, why? Why are we born with that belief? If it is false, why is it natural? Furthermore, just reasoning skills don’t do it, Children do not stop believing in God till they are taught to.

It seems to me that if there was truly no God, that children would have to be convinced there was one. But they don’t. They have to be convinced there isn’t one. Adults now, we have to be convinced, and I am not even saying that is wrong in of itself.

But we should not disregard instinct. We use it too often in other things.

I may be laying a shaky foundation here, since we should not always follow our instincts. But I might add, our instincts are generally good, under the right circumstances, and it is our reason that tells us when we should follow them.

I will never argue people into my faith, and I don’ really want to; I had rather they met God for themselves. But one of the obstacles to that is the ridicule we get for believing in God. And even more if you are radical about it. People hate radical Christians more than they hate Christians period.

Because it’s the radical ones that defy their governments in other countries, and defy the socially acceptable in my own.

I know plenty of people who will not hate on me for being a Christian, but they will get angry if I try to talk to them about it, or they will simply be indifferent. Or they may write me off as overboard about it.

Who knows, devoting this whole post to it may even make some folks angry. But I think better of my followers than that, usually you guys are very forgiving.

I hope even if you are not a Christian you’ll take this in the way it was meant, as an effort to make my position more clear and understandable, and not as an effort to jam it down your throat, because if I wanted to do that, I would do it on purpose. Believe me, I am not an unintentional blogger.

Well, I am overtime on the word count, so until next post–Natasha.

 

 

 

 

 

Experiences.

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I am re-uploading this post because it’s been several months and I think I can say it better now.

I want to get more into why we have experiences in this reboot.

Brushing your teeth is an experience, but it is not really memorable; versus going to another country, which you will probably remember as long as you have a sharp mind.

Though experiences themselves are easily defined by the facts, what they do to us inside, that is not so easy.

It’s funny how a seemingly terrible experience can later in life prove to be a good thing. one you are even grateful for. Like having a bad tooth pulled. Or getting disciplined by your parents. Or it can be a far worse experience, traumatic even, yet later, it makes you stronger.

I want to share with you guys something I got into this week, it’s an old comic book story, by Jack Kirby, about Scott Free and Big Barda.

AS yo may know, I don’t read a lot of comic books, but here and there I have one I like. This actually was all a tory I read online and saw pieces of on Justice League Unlimited, I only rada little of it in an actual comic book. I am not endorsing the show, but id o recommend reading the comic book saga if you get the chance, it’s an amazing story.

Not just because it may be the most romantic one in the DC universe, and it has a functioning couple to boot, but because even individually the stories of these two characters are poignant and surprisingly real.

Raised on the hellish planted of Apocalips, Scott and Barda are very different. Scott is the adopted son of the ruler of the planet, Darkseid, while Barda is a selected child who is being groomed to be the head of the furies, horrible female warriors who have no mercy, no pity, no remorse. It’s not really their fault, they are all brainwashed, hypnotized, and severely punished for doing anything remotely good or beautiful that Darkseid doesn’t like.

To make a longs tory short, Scott and Barda both witness one injustice too many, and Scott decides to flee to Earth, Barda, for reasons she does not fully understand, decides to help him, but does not follow till later. When she does they are happily reunited, and after a lot of adventures together come to realize they have fallen in love, they get married, and continue to have adventures. Though the most memorable may be the one where they go back to their “home” and face their nightmares (almost literally.)

Now I bring this up because the amount of experiences both these characters have is huge, and most of the experiences, at least early on, were bad.

So, it’s just a comic book, right?

Never!

Something about this story rung true with me. I have not had such a horrible life thank goodness, but I recognized something about it.

see, though we don’t live on a world that has no hope, many of us live in a kind of personal misery where we feel no hope. And we are brainwashed by many sources, hypnotized by entertainment, and severely punished by circumstances or possibly other people if we dare go against the norm.

I’ll bet most of us would look at Scott and Barda and say “that would never happen in real life, two people raised like they were would never be able to live a healthy lifestyle.”

Come on, is our modern phycology so very different from the kind of messages I’m sure Scott and Barda both heard? “You are meant for this, you can never be anything else, hope is pointless.” And I do not mean the lack of self esteem, but the lack of awareness just of what life is really about.

You might say, and honestly I would have agreed with you, that Scott and Barda would both be really messed up. Haunted by their past. and for awhile, they were. It literally cam after them. But they protected each other.

Until the fateful moment when Scott decided he was through running. He would go back and face it. And Barda, though she believed they would die, went with him. And they didn’t die, though they came close.

And this is how I feel like I relate to this story. Facing your past, and the fears that go with it, can be terrifying. You can feel like you’re going to die. Pain hurts. That’s what pain does.

But here’s why I don’t find their story unbelievable and I do find it real: I have been on the same journey. I continue on it. I do not feel as fearless as Barda, or as clever and optimistic as Scott; but I have had to learn to be brave, wise, and hopeful. I love Barda because she tells Scott right before they go into a dangerous situation, which she compares to a shark. “We’re jumping down that shark’s mouth together–and then I’ll beat it to death from the inside.” Who doesn’t want to marry someone with that kind of devotion?

Having a rough life may suck while it is rough, but one thing is certain, you cannot become so tenacious as to beat a shark to death, unless you’ve had a rough time of it.

And it takes tenacity to love, take it from someone who once had the backbone of a jellyfish, at least when it came to facing my own demons.

Scott understands, as he tells Barda, that they are proof Apokalips can fall. Not because they have defeated Darkseid himself, but because they defeated the darkness that he tried to instill in them. They overcame it with love and justice.

Usually we think of love, but you need justice too. Justice is what tells you when it is time to face your fears, justice tell s you when it is not fair to other people to act the way you do. Justice tells you that you should have a better fate than what you’ve been assigned by your enemies. (Whatever form they take.)

I think we are apt to get tired of hearing about the inner battle, but it is the one we have the most active part in, and it affects more than you know. More than I know.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to fight, ladies and gentlemen, and if you find a person who will jump down that shark with you, keep them around.

Note to self: Marry somebody who has no problem beating a shark to death if  it should ever be necessary.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this unabridged post from DryBonesTruth. Until next time

–Natasha

I really Lived.

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I have heard many times that we need to live life to the full. We just need to live. Period. I may actually be sick of hearing this message. The reason is , no matter how often I hear it, I never know quite how to apply it.

I want to live well, to use my time wisely, but how? How do I know what’s worthwhile?

And even if I know, what if I don’t want to do it?

And even if I want to do it, what if I can’t?

Why does this have to be so hard?

Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it just seems hard because we make it so. That’s probably not news to you.

There’s this song that I happen to really like, and it’s not a Disney sequel one. This one is by One Republic is I am not confusing my band names. Perhaps you’ve heard it, it’s called “I lived.” I read on Wikipedia that one of the band member wrote this song for his son, and such songs are typically the best, because though we don’t know what we want, we have much clearer vision for what we want our children to have. (Even if they aren’t our children, but just children we care about.)

But I love this song because of what it exhorts the listener to do.

Hope when you take that jump, you won’t feel the fall.

Hope when the water rises, you built a wall.

Hope when that crowd screams out, they’re screaming your name.

Hope if everybody runs, you’ll choose to stay.

Hope that you fall in love, and it hurts so bad, the only way you can know is give it all you have.

And I hope that you don’t suffer, but take the pain.

Hope when your moment comes you’ll say: “I, I did it all. I, I did it all. I owned every second that this world could give. I saw so many places, the things that I did. And with every broken bone, I swear I lived.”

I literally get chills just typing these words out, they are so good.

There’s a verse in the Bible that has been made into a song, (as many of them have) but also expanded upon. It goes like this “Teach us  to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

The song tweaks it to “Teach me to number my days, and count every moment, before it slips away. To take in all the color, before they fade to gray. I don’t want to miss, even just a second more of this.”

What these two songs are telling us is very true. And the reason they use the analogies they do is because we understand better that way.

The first song is talking about how we need to live. We need to take jumps of faith, and if our faith is in the right thing, we won’t feel the fall. We need to face the storms of life and build walls to protect ourselves and those close to us. Now, the crowd screaming your name thing can be see many ways, but the best light to put it in, is that we will do so much good that we will be cheered on.

It is so important to me that the writer of the song used the word hope. No parents can make their child do any of these things, they all involve wisdom on the child’s part, and courage, and faith. But it is what a parent should want and prepare their child for. But it get even better.

To hope that falling in love will hurt sounds strange, but it is wisdom. Love, when it is purest, strongest, and most unfailing, hurts the lover. It won’t hurt all the time, but the ability to love so much that it hurts is the ability to have perhaps the highest human connection. I speak of true love, not the pain of unmet desire, that is something else entirely. That kind of love requires you giving it all you have, and that is a great thing.

To stay when everyone else runs, to not suffer, but to view it as taking the pain. Why, that is encouraging bravery, and not being the victim but the hero.

Seriously, I love this father’s prayer. It is like a prayer.

In the chorus of the song we get to the end goal, that the child will one day look back on their life and say “I lived.”

There’s a movie “Secondhand Lions,” which I recommend. It tells the story of two men who had an  amazing life, and passed on what they learned form it to their nephew, Walter. At the end of the movie, the grandchildren of one of the two uncles old foes, a wealthy sheik, show up at their house, and one of them says to Walter. “So those two men form Grandpa’s stories, they really lived?” And Walter says the most powerful line of the movie “Yeah, they really lived.”

I hope that will be said of me when I am gone. Or that I will be able to say it of myself.

It’s not what you do so much as how you do it. If you put your whole heart into it, that is living.

But there is the possibility of living for the wrong thing, and that is where the second song comes in. We only live for a short time. And even if we have good motives, we can easily direct them into the wrong pursuit.

That’s why it’s so important for the Christian to live for God. To do what is right, and what is helpful, not just what we enjoy. I maybe just lost you there. “Another message about how I can’t do what I want, yada, yada, yada.” Well, sorry. I don’t pretend never to struggle with this myself.

But I think that is because I forget the message of these two songs, (and every other form I’ve been told it in.) You don’t give your life meaning, but you can make it meaningful.

See, God gives life. He gives it meaning. But what you do with it, that may be left up to you.

“I lived” get to this as well.

Hope that you spend your days, so they all add up.

And when that sun goes down, I hope you raise your cup.

I wish that I could witness, all of your joy, and all of your pain. But until my moment comes I’ll say…

When all your days add up it should amount to something. Read that again.

Let me repeat, God gives your life meaning, you make it meaningful. That is not saying you have to make an effort to be important. You already are important, and many of us actually wish we weren’t because we see how we negatively affect other people without intending to do so.

No, what I’m saying is, you can pursue worthwhile things, like making other people’s lives better, and even more crucially, worshipping God; or, you can live your life like it was a credit card given to you with no max. You may use it all up on conveniences, but in the end the credit means nothing because there is no such thing as infinite provision without you working for it somehow. You’ll only run up a debt of time.

If you owe something your time, and don’t pay up, you lose your soul. That’s because time is the medium through which we even come to know and grow our soul, it is what God has given us to use for this purpose.

We, as the songs say, need to allot time for many things. For love; for adventure; for serving others; for Faith, foremost of all; and for enjoyment; and for taking in the colors, the rich beauty around us, if we only have eyes to see it.

“That we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Yes, if we realize how our time is precious to us, we gain wisdom. I don’t know about you, gut that’s a kind of wisdom I’m still acquiring, I don’t think I have it yet. But I hope I will continue to learn it.

Maybe there will be some broken bones along the way, I am positive there will be broken hearts, but those can heal. So, when the moment comes when you’ll look back on your life, I  hope you’ll say “I really lived.”

–Natasha.

Poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces.
There are no small roles
Reach higher.

Classic view–part 2

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“Storybook endings, fairytales coming true, deep down inside we want to believe they still do.        In our secret-est heart, it’s our favorite part of the story…start a new fashion wear your heart on your sleeve, sometimes we reach what’s realest by making believe. Unafraid, unashamed, there is joy to be claimed in this world.”– Ever Ever After, Carrie Underwood.

People say that if you see life as a fairytale you are delusional. Like in “Enchanted.” Upon meeting Giselle, almost everyone thinks she’s loopy. And she is naïve. The only drawback to her outlook is that she is easily duped. She needs to be protected.

But in a sense, Giselle is protecting everyone she meets in our modern world from giving up on their dream. She makes them happier. She saves them from complete cynicism.

The sad fact is, few of us would be so receptive in real life to someone like Giselle. The advantage these movie versions of us have, is that they realize they are having a rare adventure, and though they doubt it will end well, something in them just has to follow it to the end.

We on the other hand, seem to go through life half asleep. We don’t have a sense of adventure, and we don’t dream that the quirky people who believe in that stuff might just be in our lives to help us.

Why would we even think it? Who are we? That’s the thing isn’t it? We just do not get it. Why would we be worth noticing.

Maybe that’s why we turn to horror and thrills. At least if we can feel the fear, we can relate to something different than our everyday lives; and sadly, that is what we believe we deserve. Fear.

After all, our culture is obsessed with fear isn’t it?

The biggest mistake we have made is thinking we woke up because we decided what used to be our nightmare was the reality, and what was our happy dream, that was just in our head.

That’s why when I clash with people because of my more Giselle-ish outlook, they always have a sort of bitterness when they tell me off. You may have–almost certainly have–hear the tone yourself. You’ve probably used it. I’ve used it myself. The “I can’t expect any better than this crud,” tone.

But the fact is, we’ve missed the point of fairytales entirely.

They always have villains. The heroes rarely realize they are heroes. There are evil spells. You think fairytales are always happy? My advice is to read the Ever After High series, by Shannon Hale. Some of them don’t actually end happily, but those that do, do so only after a lot of trouble.

Disney gets criticized even for this, (they get criticized for being too dark and too light, which proves that when something is actually good, it can’t please either extreme.) But I’ve never found Disney to teach anything unrealistic as far as trouble goes. Except that fairies don’t often appear to people and offer their help, but that’s not to say others do not help us. We just don’t recognize it for what it is.

What people really hate fairytales for, nowadays, is that they have hope.

We have dug our own pit with this one, however, because it is our morbid love of the morbid that has convinced us not to have hope. That hope is for suckers and losers.

How ever do you become a winner without hope?

It doesn’t matter how bad your life has been, the choice to lose hope is always your own. What baffles me is that the people who have the easiest lives out of the world’s population, they tend to have the worst outlooks. I guess they just don’t fight for hope.

I am not inconsiderate of those who truly have had the hardest lives, worse than I can imagine, but I maintain they need hope more than anyone, because what else keeps you alive?

I believe life is a fairytale. Because I believe fairytales were meant to teach us about life.

It may seem that my Christian faith would interfere with this outlook, or perhaps that this outlook is all you could expect from a Christian, but neither is true. Few Christians I know share this outlook, and it is not at all incompatible with the faith.

God actually often uses such terms as we would attribute  to a fantasy story. He speaks in metaphors. There is a clear reason for this.

The realest things we experience are the invisible ones.

You cannot see the wind, but it can uproot a tree. You cannot see germs, but they can kill you. You cannot see the things that keep the world functioning. You cannot see ideas, but they control society.

In the same way, fairytales really tell us about what we cannot see. By using things we can. A wise child will grow up retaining what he or she learned from these stories.

No one can convince me this is not true, though I know they will try, and I deal with that almost weekly. AS always though, what you believe is up to you. I only hope I have laid out my case in a  way that makes sense.

This blog is not necessarily about changing people’s minds so much as it is about introducing them  to new possibilities. I leave the exploring up to them.–Natasha.

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