
Cinderella and her magic pumpkin, jack and the beanstalk, Ugly duckling's transformation, Snow-white's seven dwarfs... The happily ever after stories... Every kid all over the world is fed with the same - with a nice helping of their local flavour. Girls are expected to sigh and wait for their prince to come... sing songs till he does... play with birds and animals... look at flowers... and dream away... or sit piteously in the dungeon locked up by the evil step mom till prince charming comes along. Those girls hardly ever do anything else... (Which is why I love Disney's Mulan best of all... she wants to do something... goes and fights for her beliefs instead of waiting for some guy to come along singing a ballad!) The prince charming will come along in his own sweet time... Love at first sights...then comes fighting the evil (what ever form it takes). Sweep the princess off her feet... and happily ever after. For unfortunate people ugly or poor... magic is right around the corner to bless them with a happily ever after for being ever so good! So being good is rewarded and Bad people are punished... That is what kindergarten and most of school life ever teaches you.
As I grew older my fairy tales changed... they became schoolgirls at boarding school with strong wonderful friendships to add beauty to life. Then came the girls in
Though they all teach that there is something to learn from every experience, they forget to add a footnote to say that you also leave something behind. You shall not pass through life without being branded by every low and every high and the in betweens... This is what you have to learn for yourself. Fine I know books and movies and stories are for entertainment only... There are biographies to read if you want to know the reality in life. But by the time you get old enough to read them and digest it you are thrown on to the highway of life. Nothing is fair, not everything is good and nice. Evil doesn't always loose. There are no rewards for being good apart from a peaceful night's sleep... but at the same time I doubt if evil is punished with sleeplessness because they don’t know they are the evil ones, so they most often get away with it all. They are the ones who get everything in the world and have great lives. I refuse to accept that they have down moments - they might get lonely, they 'ought' to be guilty, they 'ought' to be awake always with a prickly conscience. BUT... they don’t know the good things in life so they don’t miss them anyway. My mom still says they will get the worst of it. BUT I think otherwise... I sometimes envy those people who get away with everything... BUT I have never wanted to be them. I am happy with what I am... COZ whatever it is... it is all ME!
It is time to stop living in dreams and fairy tales... the only dreams in life worth dreaming - says the world today - is to get ahead, get successful, grow, aim for heights... Move over enlightenment, fine arts, love for nature, the need to help around... Get successful and be something in this world to do all that. Prove that you can get it all before you scoff at it. There is no place for just being nice good and happy and living life enjoying the ride... Push the ride... test its limits... get into the stream and keep running. Never ever pause for a second and think what is happening. You haven't got time for such things anymore. Life is cruel and life is harsh - Yup Ayn Rand you might be the only one who got it right... without glossing it over with metaphors. No one promised you a happy safe ride where everything is the way you wanted it to be... but stop dishing out stories that make you discontent in life. Stop the Alchemist who says that if you want something really bad... the whole world contrives to help you get it. Shake Richard Bach and tell him that reality is not what you imagine... not everything in your life is there 'coz you got it there. That is not how it works... LIFE IS... you just have to make the most of it. Don't ever expect to get off unchanged when the ride is over... Just hope you will be able to recognise yourself when you look down at yourself when you have to leave...
6 comments:
Fairytales are nice. They make us feel beautiful, pampered and show us the possibility of a "Happily ever After". If not anythin else, the Prince Charming is one hell of a treat. If I find anything like that in my life I would kick him in the ass and ask him to get lost. Women like daisies and men like dandies makes me wanna kill someone. Fairytales are not reality and I thank God for it. If I wanna get somethin worthwhile then I also wanna endure every inch of the price I have to pay for it. If not, then there is no sense in living honey!!!
Guess not... I am not talking about getting good things in life... I am talking about the why we are not told that the bad things come equally, if not more frequently, and that rewards are far and few??????
i guess the answer for u'r question would somewhere be something like- it is true not every thing is good but at one age it may not really be necessary to tell ppl that they better fear life becoz of it...the thing is inmost fairy tales that is how it goes-cindrella has a beautiful childhood and at one stage looses it all-the beauty in it comes form the fact that coz there is a good ending it gives people hope-more like light at the end of the tunnel-so there she had her share of bad...in the frog prince-the guy was a frog for soo long-but doesn't kill himself coz of it...ugly duckling-bad ducklinghood..hansel and gretel-bad conditions at home and the witch...beauty ad the beast-the gal's sacrifice(imagine the mental trauma about having to live with an animal)..all of them have their share of sad and difficult parts..the only thing is that inspite of all there is still reason for fighting,a reason to hope for,to not give up.
so if looked closely enough u will see-that they all say that ppl have bad things happening to them.i always wondered y in fairy tales there were less fairys and more sad parts in the beginning..i guess it depends on the person reading them to pick it up-or on the one explaining the story.
according to me.we'r still too young to talk about results and rewards so don't find it appropriate in this case:)
i am not talkin about our own experience... its more from looking around. may be i wondering about that there is no hope for mist people... when i watch anything on auschwitz or the holocaust... fairy tales seem like trash. Think of Anne Frank...
here here...some things are unimaginably horrible..but i don't really think that-that part of life needs to be told to ppl at a very young age...it is bad enough that some children experience horrible things..i don't see the need to scare the others too..children are really good at understanding things when they need to-so for some hardship that might come(doubtful)i don't see the need to prepare them and not let their imaginations fly...like if ann frank knew what was ahed and knew all the injustice around her do u think she would hope and be the cheerful girl that she potrays herself to be?
hmmm...i really have a faint idea on these fairly tales..learnt most of it after reading this blog..Going by what i read, y should we be introduced to the bad things in life when everyone is pretty sure that u will face them sometime?the fairy tales actually present a good picture..they have something bad happening and end up having a happy ending..that is how life is mostly..good and bad are something relative..it depends on how you see...
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