From here on, dragons
“Hic sunt dracones, Here be dragons”. So read the inscription that late medieval cartographers used to mark uncharted territories in maps, and as such, potentially dangerous. Dragon figures, sea snakes and even some other animals, that, at the time, could be considered mythological such as lions or elephants, all of them guarded the white vacant space at the end of the earth, where no one could figure out what to draw.
Mankind has always been terrified of the unknow, not lacking reasons to be so. Having confront a world whose strenght, compare to ours it’s so uneven, it often happened that ignorance and temerity meant death as final token for the daring adventurer. Nevertheless, every advance, every progress and knowledge come from exploring.
There is people who feel attracted to dragons: we need to chart the unknown, try out new things.
How many of us are there? If I’d ask you to raise your hand this surely would look like a U2, Bruce, Madonna joint concert. Maybe what we are lacking it’s knowing about each other, connecting.
Contemporary life is diverse, fragmented, kaleidoscopic: more and more environments demand our attention and we must keep up with all of them. We must do about everything and do it right.
A very demanding array of requirements, that we pay by stressing out and with the loss of our ability to focus. And hence, in being able to meet our goals. As genious master painters knew, most sublime ones require a hightened attention and a certain degree of obsession.
Nevertheless, this new milieu opens many doors as well for us, dragonphiles. But curiosity and dispersion, skatterbrainedness are infamous because they often mean not finishing many tasks.
The industrial society that we come from used to need a very specialized workforce, obedient and easily replaceable. As an incentive, it rewards these traits and punish the opposite ones. Economical crisis, however, has unveiled the risks of ultra-speciacialization and of following inherited patterns without questioning them. People who have followed and fulfilled what is expected of them, regular ancient schemes that up to now worked more than fine, find out that they are of no use anymore or that even their future has a mortgage on it, and they don’t know where to address their future steps. The need to reinvent themselves wasn’t something they were counting on. Maybe, as Seth Godin states, the artists’ time has come, time of the proactive ones, of enhancing our value strenghtening the skills and traits that make us unique and indispensable. Those ones that don’t fit into our resumé.
Maybe the way of achieving this it’s collaborating instead of competing. If every of us is unique, nobody can replace anyone, we aren’t competing with each other. We’ve had enough already of the grey men, those who penalize everything that isn’t standard practice, even though it’s something as tiny and trivial as a different taste in bevarages or a more colourful than usual wardrobe.
There is a new term in psychology: multipotentiality.
It refers to people who has a very different array of interests ans that can be succesful in many different fields, provided they can overcome the inherent difficulties of their own nature. Other people call this polymathy, being a polymath.
An extreme case of this would be Leonardo Da Vinci, but even though genius it’s not for everyone to achieve, many of us are compelled to multitasking, be it because of neccesity or out of character.
Besides, the new interconnected society it`s a good place for such people, those who have a non-lineal, simultaneous way of thinking. I. e.: the one based not in cause-consequence but rather seeks the global connections by association, connecting ideas, looking for patterns. Those who use more the right side of the brain and think in images. Social networks (particularly the most visual ones), navigating from one link to another, the requirement to excell in many aspects at work… All of this indicates that our time has come if we learn how to sail these seas. Facing our own dragons.
But, furthermore, world has shrunk! First, there was the transport evolution, later, the mass media appearance and finally, internet among them. They all have extended influence beyond physical presence. Nowadays it’s not just an influence but a real interference of other world places in our daily life.
Many have studied or worked abroad, or work on a daily basis on a multicultural environment: we, the multilocal.
Those of us who have lived with one foot in a country and the other one in another land, be it because of work, sentimental or learning matters. Those of us who have friends with whom we jabber in a cacophony of languages. Sometimes, dangerously close to that of Salvatore in The Name of The Rose.
Those of us who wonder in which house of which country we have left a particular object. Those of us who consider traditional a menu composed by gazpacho, curry and mochis. Those who receive a technological or communicational advance not with a mere hipster orgasm craving to be in the avantgarde: for us, Skype and lowcost flights champions, they mean a tangible improvement in our everyday. We, who are always missing something, and most often someone but also that special tea you can only find there, the moisturizing oil I use when I live there or “home” snacks. Only when you think about “home” it’s not just one place anymore.
I start this blog as means to chart all this different trends, activities and discoveries in my people and places enviroment. As a way to connect with my tribe, to stimulate each other. Let’s draw our own maps and legends. They might be the guide and inspiration for later journeys.
I’ve decided to call it Dragonfruit since pithaya or the dragon fruit it’s a fresh and sweet but not sickly sweet fruit whose real flavour I discovered when travelling. The fruits available in Europe aren’t fully ripe, they are refrigerated and they arrive bland, tasteless.
One can believe to know a flavour for real and be wrong, so sometimes it’s necessary to move your butt and go straight to the source. I hope to discover the real flavor of many things.
Besides, this year it’s the year of the Dragon in the Chinese calendar and this Summer I received a Dragon as a gift (my sign in Myanmar’s calendar ,that depends on the day of the week you are born). I also live by the Dragon-house imagined by Gaudí and in my town it’s elebrated yearly a festivity that involves dragons, red roses and books. Too many chimeras not to investigate.
Hence, From here on, be dragons.
Yo también me confieso dragonófila y me apunto contigo a aventura!
Muy chulo el post
Me declaro adicta a la fruta del dragon! Me encanta su frescura y dulzura, pero no tiene nada que ver con lo que llega a Europa, es una lastima porque no podemos disfrutarla de su sabor unico.
Este blog promete mucho. Tendre que seguirte muy de cerca para saber a donde llevará el proximo post! Tengo muchas ganas de saber de que tema se tratará.