Life's Ups and Downs and the median that runs though all lives...

Ol' Jack's been away for a while, more sleeping in the lair, plus a little problem with an unavailable scribe. He needn't worry though, I won't be eating him anytime soon. He's amongst the few humans I call friends and that makes his far to valuable to eat. But in my last few days out of the lair, I've been reminded of a little incident that happened in my life at one time. No details on the incident, so if you are looking for juice go somewhere else.

One of the philosophies I live by is that there is a median happiness level that runs through all lives. That is, there is a certain amount of goodness and love that comes into all lives. What changes is the specifics and the levels of happiness. Some people live their lives close to the median. They have a little bit of happiness and very littles unhappiness to balance the equation. Then there are others that see mountain peaks and deep valleys in their happiness. But again, it all equals out, you get the valleys with the mountains, or you live in the flatlands. I hope you all are following.

But, you see this dragon is one that has seen the peaks of those mountains and I'm here to tell you that I can't live with out 'em, even if I have to explore the darkness of the valleys. And this leads to what sometimes may seem like a wreckless way of looking at life. I play with fire, I get burned, I move along.

So back to that incident, and there are no details forthcoming, just vagaries. This dragon gets himself into a situation, that he knows will probably end badly. Now there are chances it wont' and he trys to push things in a safe-ish direction, but the bad ending is never less than a good possibility. But the situation is very pleasant and makes him feel good, not just good but damn happy to be alive. So he pushes down that road, enjoying every minute while he can, but looking for the washout that is going to send him over the edge of a cliff. And the washout happens and he goes over the cliff and finds himself all beat up and bloody at the bottom of a cliff wondering 'what the hell was I thinking'.

Then the dragon slumps off and sleeps away a few months in his lair and comes out with a different perspective. Did the crash suck, yes? But, he has those memories, uncommon memories that most people and dragons will never have in their lifetime. And they may not make the crash entirely worth it, but they makes things not so bad. For once we've seen the view from the top of the mountain it's pretty darn hard to live life in the flatlands.

And this all doesn't mean that this dragon will be bounding up any mountains anytime soon. But it doesn't mean he regrets the mountains and valleys in his past. Or maybe he regrets the valleys, but accepts the fact that he chose those regrets.

And now I go to sleep off the dark mist rising from the valley...

Jack Dragon

Absent individuals and my dreams...

Before I plunge in to another post let me say that I know yesterday's post was full of venom, bile and bitter anger. This is me not apologizing for what I said, but rather promising that I will try to keep that stuff to myself a bit more. It builds up over time and then I spew it out and do I feel better? Not really, but I guess it needed to come out for whatever reason. This particular episode was triggered by my dreams

We dragons dream just like people do, or at least we dream. I guess it's impossible to say how anyone dreams is similar to someone else since a dream may be the one true individual experience that can not possibly be shared. At any rate, we dream. And sleeping a lot can lead to a lot of dreams. For me, my dreams fall into one of three broad categories almost 100% of the time: Traveling, usually with family or friends; recurring dreams that could be about anything; dreams about people who are absent from my life. Traveling dreams are generally just mental candy. I don't think they mean much, and they don't bleed into my waking hours.

recurring dreams are a different story. It's not just with me, but with most dragons and people recurring dreams are the subconscious mind trying to tell us something. Sometimes it's a message, sometimes it's anxiety, often it's both. I've found that once I 'solve' the problem the dreams go away. I haven't had a recurring dream in a while.

And then there are the absent people dreams. I can't say whether these are 'normal' though I don't know anyone else who has experiences close to mine. Some of these dreams are just sad, involving people in my life who have passed away. Often they are there and everything is fine until I realize that they have in fact died. And then the dream falls apart usually with me in tears. Yes dragons cry, though in this case we're talking dream tears. While these dreams are disturbing and sad to me, they still aren't the problem.

There are other people who are absent from my life for reasons other than death. People who are absent from my life, but still present in the world, present in places where I might find them if I chose to look. Now the reason for these absences are usually sad and tragic, but these are all worthy of posts all to themselves. But the dreams, that's what kills me.

Picture if you will that perfect friendship, where everything is comfortable and hanging out with the other person is just always just 'right'. The kind of friendship that makes one feel better just when the other one is nearby. So something happens, and the friendship goes away, but it leaves behind a lingering pain which eventually dulls until only the scars remain. Alls right with the world again, or at least as right as it's going to be. And then that friend comes back in dreams and in the dreams everything is 'right' again.

So we wake up, and the scars ache and all I really want to do is go back to sleep again, to find that place and stay there. If it were only that easy, I might never leave the quite sleeply place in my den. But, after these dreams sleep is just dreamless and empty.


I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

T.S. Elliot...

Problem dragons and my unrecoverable faith in humanity, bitterness ahead...

I need to preface this post by explaining a little about what passes for Dragon shape shifting. I said earlier that I wouldn't go into details, but I feel it necessary to flesh in a bit of the details at this time. The reason for this will become apparent shortly. Dragons do not shape shift, though they have a sort of active camouflage which works something like human stealth technology. It makes us look very different, but also much smaller in a sort of optical illusion way. This is coupled with the minds need to see something that works with pre-existing perceptions. The final bit is a passive "mind nudge" we use to reassure the mind that it is in fact seeing a human rather than a massive, scaly and angry beast.

I assure you it works suprisingly well except among the very young, the insane and other dragons. The very young don't categorize too well and lack the mental capacity to be nudged. They generally are not a problem as they haven't finished their mental catalog of what's scary yet and as a result find us more interesting than frightening. The insane have similar issues in that their brains don't work quite right. Fortunately even if they are scared or in awe of our presence, everyone else just sees another facet of their insanity. Sorry about that crazy people. Other dragons can be fooled, but if they are looking for dragons they will find them regardless of what methods are employed.

Now ol' Jack's been having a rough go of it lately, so please excuse me for the mistakes I have made. You see the two individuals who have as of late been responsible for my loss of faith in humanity are in fact dragons. Yes, I know I should have figured this out much earlier, but quite honestly I've taken to spending more and more time sleeping in my trove as of lately without much ambition to do much else. The few waking hours I have had were less than lucid. So it was that it finely dawned on me to check these two out, and it was as I suspected, a couple of well camouflaged dragons. Does this make me lose faith in my fellow dragons? No, not at all. As a whole we dragons are dark, bitter, and mean. I don't expect much from my fellow dragons and that leads to much less disappointment.

Now that all said, one would expect that I would regain my faith in humanity, but I haven't. Humans are generally self centered little balls of ego that spend more time pretending to care then they do in actually caring. They make stupid decisions for stupid reasons despite all the signals that tell them to do otherwise. And then they get all surprised and depressed when things don't turn out how they planned. Well duh, people. Diogenes wouldn't even bother getting his lantern out in today's world.

You know I'm far from perfect myself, and I've made mistakes. Big, dragon sized mistakes, but at heart I always try to do the right thing. And I've paid my price and been punished more than I deserved for these mistakes. I can accept this, it hurts, but at least I was in the wrong when I got punished. But when I genuninely go way out of my way to do some good and still get kicked in the maw, that's where I draw the line. What the hell is wrong with dragons? What the hell is wrong with people? Can we no longer see a good deed? Can't we see it when someone has genuinely tried to help?

Is it so damn necessary to makes others pay for their good deeds as well as their bad? Maybe we all need to forget what's in it for us and think about society for just a moment. Or maybe I just need to go to my cave and sleep away a couple of centuries. The world won't miss this one dragon, and this dragon will miss only a very small part of this world.

I'm extra bitter at the moment and my dragon bluntness is coming out. I've taken to dreaming again, and these dreams have been bitter sweat almost to the point of physical pain. When I can no longer hide in slumber, I get real grouchy. More on the dreams in a later post. That is, if I haven't already alienated what few readers I have.

Jack the dark and bitter dragon