Naming the Dragon
Author's Note: This piece was written a couple months ago. Since then, things have changed. I was possibly exposed to Covid 19. I received my results today and show that I am negative.
Words have power, words are power. I learned this lesson in 8th grade at Hawthorne Brook Middle School in Townsend, Massachusetts, so long ago that I had to Google the name of that damn school where I have so few happy memories. I learned this lesson in one of those text books we all had to suffer through full of, essays and short stories by authors we would never hear of again, meant to be read, and forgotten once the lesson had been learned.But the lesson still resonates: words have power.
Years later while reading the first book in The EarthSea Cycle by Ursula K. LeGuin, I came across the short story again. It was a story of a man hunting a dragon trying to use its name to bind it, only to cause his own doom. It has been reinforced through Dragon Age, a video game universe I love as well. One of the races in the series follows the rules of The Qun, a sort of philosophy that has everything in its place. One of the ideas that the Qun tells you is that things have names, true names, and this is what identifies what an object or being is. Without a name or a word to describe it then the “thing” does not exist. To the followers of the Qun, something that is misnamed is nothing. It does not exist.
Most famously in the zeitgeist of Generation X and Millennials we can think of Steven King’s Pennywise the Dancing Clown, or, as it is better known to the children of Dery, “IT.” Without spoiling the book or the movies, a shape shifting other worldly being haunts a small Maine town, feeding off fear and children. The fears of the children give the character its various shapes and disguises.
Right now we have been enslaved by two terms that are driving us: “quarantine” and “self-isolation”. As Covid-19 spreads we keep hearing those two terms over and over again, and although the words are meant to reinforce positive actions, they are not words that connote or conjure positive environments in our collective minds. They are associated with negative acts and memories so burnt into us as species that anxiety increases at the very mention of them. Humans are after all, social creatures. We crave contact with others like us, to touch, to feel, to hear...and when we do not get these actions, we go a bit mad. There is a reason, after all, for the image of the hermit talking to themselves.
I have been seeing all across my social media feeds and what few interactions I am having when I am outside a sense of negativity, of being trapped. People are focusing on the negativity of the circumstances even though they are not sick, they are having dreams of loved ones and pets begging to be let out, they are feeling claustrophobic; many are finding out how much they can or cannot stand loved ones. We are not meant to feel trapped, after all.
One of my dearest friends, earlier in her blog, was talking about how depressed self-isolating has made her. There is an irony to the statement, because like me she is non-social and self-isolates anyway, but before the recent events there was no real sense of what the term “self-isolation” meant. Many of us do it anyway because we are not extroverts, or we have been hurt, or are already sick, but now with so many of us hearing the term over and over again we are tapping into a sort of Jungian panic.
And it all has to do with these negative words we keep hearing and keep repeating to ourselves. We are creating the negativity of the situations we are in and making it so much worse because our minds chose to do so.
It is, after all, a choice.
And a choice I am refusing to make. Granted, I am not self-isolating or quarantining as of yet, because despite it all, my job is considered “essential” and I have to go out and face the public on days I am scheduled. My two weeks of isolation starts this upcoming weekend because, due to my asthma, I am considered “high risk.” My employers are asking that I take time off (with pay) to ensure that I have a better chance at surviving. Or, as I see it, two week vacation with pay to catch up reading and play games.
Go back and read that last paragraph again and you will see two things. I turned the idea of having to stay home into something positive, and I mocked my own anxiety. Humor is a magical thing.
Years and years ago, I was a psychology nerd--hell, I used to work in the mental health field, trying to help people who wanted help to return to so-called normalcy. I loved to read books by various cognitive psychologists or theorists, especially Arron Beck. There is a concept in cognitive psychology that says how we think about a situation ahead of time influences how we will react to the actual event. If we go into a meeting looking for, expecting and thinking about a fight, we will go in already agitated and more likely to find it. A great example of this is in the classic Marx Brothers Movie Duck Soup. (Here is a link to the scene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM01v_vVnbg.) The scene features Groucho as a head of a facist state trying to talk himself into creating peace with another nation. Due to the chaos of the Marx Brothers comedy, he instead talks himself into war before the diplomat (his rival) even has a chance to speak. If we remain open-minded we may see that all the anxiety we have created was false.
Instead of using terms like “quarantine”, or “self-isolate”, find and focus on positive words and aspects. How many of you out there have always wanted to work from home? Or wanted time to apply for new jobs? What about spending more time with your children as you wished your parents may have? When was the last time you were able to pull a lawn chair out on the grass at night and watch for shooting stars, or hunt the fae in your imaginations?
Grab a paint brush, open up a word processor, dance around in your underwear, play a game. Return to the things you loved and defined you when you were children. Find those dreams, those little moments. Then when reality hits you, as it will, when it comes crashing in, try and find the silver lining of it all. When you read the news, find positive synonyms for the words the journalists are using.
Then smile and count the moments that make you smile. This is your one life. Change it for the better or for worse, but define it as you want to define it.
You will be amazed at how changing the name or the word of what is bothering you, changes it and changes you.
Author's Second Note: Yes I admit that there is some, hmmm I am not sure of the word I want to use for this but “irony” is probably the best, given that I am an absurdist and find life meaningless. But that whole phrase does not mean what you think it means.
For those of you who want recommendations on things to do to help you get through this time, I highly suggest reading Camus’ The Plague; playing Detroit Become Human (or the Final Fantasy VI remake; listening to “Pneuma” by Tool, or calling someone and telling them that you love them. You don’t even have to know who they are ;).