Puddleglum Rules

Hey.

It's been a while since I've posted anything. Finals are finally over and summer is wonderful. Grad parties, summer jobs, books, movies, little to no stress, . . . it's wonderful to contemplate and awakening to slow the pace for a while. I'm very lucky.

I have been replaying scenes from my favorite books in my head over and over the past few weeks. It kinda starts driving me crazy when my mind has a hard time climbing out of the books and into what's happening around me in real life. I hesitate to call it reality because my favorite books are "The Fairy Tales Retold" by Regina Doman; they are modernized versions of The Fairy Tales of The Brothers Grimm. Sometimes, like one of the characters in these stories, I think that fairy tales are more real than real life because of the truths illustrated in simpler, clearer, more obvious ways than in real life.

Fairy tales are beautiful, simple, honest things that call people as individuals, not by the masses, to see what is normally hidden (or hidden in plain sight) and become or reveal the part of themselves that can be greater than even they themselves can imagine. Maybe that's why I like fairy tales so much: They call people as individuals to be something more than what they know. To conquer dragons and defeat spells with courage and honor. To stay true to one's heart and fight for what is good. Standing firm and true in the face of battle, in the face of the ugliest side of humanity, in the face of the storm. To live always in the truth, though the price may be our lives or tremendous suffering. To offer our lives for a greater cause.

Maybe in the face of real life, this sounds more like idealism or even insanity than something worth living for or something worth dieing for. But I must say that I prefer these midevil ideals to the modern ones of pleasure and self-importance which seem to force themselves from all angles. So I will not settle for less than what I know does not need to be impossible. I will live according to these convictions to the best of my ability.

Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's the funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies making up a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play world.
~Puddleglum to the witch, about the paleness of her underground kingdom in the face of his image of Narnia
"The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair", by C.S. Lewis

Everything inside you
knows there's more than what you've heard;
There's so much more than empty conversations
filled with empty words.
And you're on fire...
~Switchfoot, "On Fire"

Love is a decision, not a feeling or a moment.
Nothing worth being is easy.
"Speaking the truth is what makes people trust you."
~Sully, Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman