The patience of a Dragon
I find it odd that nobody has ever coined the phrase, 'patience of a Dragon'. Because that's pretty much what we do best, have patience. Though I say that and realize that few people either know or appreciate this aspect of our nature.
Dragons tend to be reclusive, rarely allowing ourselves to be seen. When one catches us unaware our first reaction is often one of hunger, and I am not speaking metaphorically here. A dragon's nature is to eat, it is only our overwhelming loneliness that leads us to befriend rare individuals that would otherwise be breakfast. That's where getting to know a dragon can be a very dangerous thing. Even if one makes it by the initial feeding impulse, it's no guarantee that a dragon won't eat you at a latter time. I for one tend not to eat anyone until I have come to know their character. I snack on the bad ones. Those that aren't bad but don't amuse me I run off, leaving precious few that I am willing to befriend.
But once we enter into these rare friendships we dragons tend to bond very tightly. It is entirely mutually beneficial, we have the wisdom of centuries to impart and in return we get that companionship that is missing from a dragons life. But it is always a double edged sword as we know that nothing is permanent. So we take what we can get, revel in every moment and spend our energy committing it all to memory, making little movies in our mind. And my long winded nature takes over again, I still haven't said anything about our patience.
So we dragons make these friendships ignoring the fact that dragons and people are so very different. We are immortal and spend most of our days sleeping or musing amongst our piles of treasure, locked away deep in some mountain cave. Humans have what they call 'a life' which is important I suppose if you are not immortal. So while we dragons would gladly spend a decade squirreled away somewhere talking to our new found friends, this just isn't something that people can do. They visit, we enjoy our time together and they leave to go live their life. While we wait.
Once that bond develops it is difficult to break and difficult to forget. When our friends leave we try to occupy ourselves with counting and organizing our treasure, reading, and tending to our dragon business. We tell ourselves that they will return in a month or whenever, but then we start to set ourselves up for never seeing them again. And we wait, watching the entrance to the cave, or scanning the horizon for a boat long before any boat is expected. We spend long days watching and waiting for any sign that our friend has returned to us. At night we try to tell ourselves that day may never come, that we are being stupid for hoping for it, that we just need to move on, but we can't. Such is the nature of dragons, we are patient because it is all we have, patience and hope...
imy
I find it odd that nobody has ever coined the phrase, 'patience of a Dragon'. Because that's pretty much what we do best, have patience. Though I say that and realize that few people either know or appreciate this aspect of our nature.
Dragons tend to be reclusive, rarely allowing ourselves to be seen. When one catches us unaware our first reaction is often one of hunger, and I am not speaking metaphorically here. A dragon's nature is to eat, it is only our overwhelming loneliness that leads us to befriend rare individuals that would otherwise be breakfast. That's where getting to know a dragon can be a very dangerous thing. Even if one makes it by the initial feeding impulse, it's no guarantee that a dragon won't eat you at a latter time. I for one tend not to eat anyone until I have come to know their character. I snack on the bad ones. Those that aren't bad but don't amuse me I run off, leaving precious few that I am willing to befriend.
But once we enter into these rare friendships we dragons tend to bond very tightly. It is entirely mutually beneficial, we have the wisdom of centuries to impart and in return we get that companionship that is missing from a dragons life. But it is always a double edged sword as we know that nothing is permanent. So we take what we can get, revel in every moment and spend our energy committing it all to memory, making little movies in our mind. And my long winded nature takes over again, I still haven't said anything about our patience.
So we dragons make these friendships ignoring the fact that dragons and people are so very different. We are immortal and spend most of our days sleeping or musing amongst our piles of treasure, locked away deep in some mountain cave. Humans have what they call 'a life' which is important I suppose if you are not immortal. So while we dragons would gladly spend a decade squirreled away somewhere talking to our new found friends, this just isn't something that people can do. They visit, we enjoy our time together and they leave to go live their life. While we wait.
Once that bond develops it is difficult to break and difficult to forget. When our friends leave we try to occupy ourselves with counting and organizing our treasure, reading, and tending to our dragon business. We tell ourselves that they will return in a month or whenever, but then we start to set ourselves up for never seeing them again. And we wait, watching the entrance to the cave, or scanning the horizon for a boat long before any boat is expected. We spend long days watching and waiting for any sign that our friend has returned to us. At night we try to tell ourselves that day may never come, that we are being stupid for hoping for it, that we just need to move on, but we can't. Such is the nature of dragons, we are patient because it is all we have, patience and hope...
imy
posted by Jack Dragon at 11:03 AM
1 Comments:
You're not alone in that feeling of loneliness and hoping and waiting for friends to return. The only difference being that you often have far more time in which to wait but the waiting and hoping and railing against that hope is truly something that I find relatable.
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