Category: Blog Posts

Ah, Brother Bear (2003). One of Disney’s forgotten children. Say what you want about Disney, the mouse is a ruthless, unscrupulous businessman. And it works out for ’em. And us too because I was able to watch Brother Bear recently thanks to Disney Plus.

I remember watching the Tuke and Rutt commentary on the special features when I was growing up. Thanks to my grandparents for tolerating watching that over and over. And if you have access to the DVD or the special features I highly recommend it. It’s a director’s commentary but with the moose from the movie instead of the directors. Pretty funny.

Alas, today I’ll be talking about the regular version of the movie and why it’s more a story about misunderstanding than it is about brothers.

Brother Bear takes place in the Pacific Northwest during the last ice age with a tribe of Inuit natives. Three brothers are fishing before Kenai, the main character, has his totem ceremony. A ceremony in which he will receive his spirit animal.

At the ceremony, Tanana, the village wise woman, gives him the bear of love. Kenai is confused and disappointed. He was hoping for something tougher or manlier.

After this, Kenai and his brothers, Denahi and Sitka, discover that a bear has eaten the fish that Kenai failed to secure properly. Kenai decides to go after the bear for, erm, vengeance? The brothers are against the idea but he runs off anyway and they follow in an effort to stop him.

After a fight with the bear, Sitka is left dead and the bear has escaped. At Sitka’s funeral, Kenai decides to hunt the bear again. He removes the bear of love totem from his neck.

After another fight, Kenai kills the bear but is then transformed into a bear by the spirits.

This leads Denahi, who had been trying to catch and stop Kenai, to believe that the bear has now killed both of his brothers.

Kenai wakes up on the shore of a river after falling off a cliff into raging rapids. Tanana shows up and explains that Sitka must’ve transformed him in order to show him something. Sitka’s totem in life being the eagle of guidance.

Tanana tells him that to speak to Sitka, he must go to the, “mountain where the lights touch the earth.”

Kenai then meets Koda, a bear cub who is trying to reach the salmon run; a place where all the bears gather once a year to feast on salmon and have fun. Sort of a harvest festival for bears, if you will.

The salmon run conveniently happens to be right next to Kenai’s destination. Kenai decides to go with Koda because, well, he doesn’t know where the mountain is.

They set off together but they bump into Denahi, who has now taken up the mantle of revenge against the bear.

After they escape him, the bears keep traveling and we are treated to a traveling montage with a song sung by none other than Phil Collins. Who also wrote all the songs for this movie. What a legend.

Anyway, the bear duo happen upon a few cave drawings. One depicts a battle between a human and a bear. Koda says, “those monsters are really scary.” In reference to the humans.

Kenai has a moment of realization at this point. If he were human and a human child was sitting next to him, it would be safe to assume that the child is referring to the bear when they say monster. But if that’s true, then it should also be safe for Bear Kenai to assume that the bear cub next to him is referring to the human.

They are nearing the salmon run at this point and Koda says their last obstacle is this place:

While they’re walking through the caldera, they are once again attacked by Denahi. As if walking through there wasn’t enough of a trial in itself.

When they cross the ravine on the other side of the caldera and evade Denahi, they arrive at the salmon run:

I thought that the way Disney handled the two above images and their corresponding scenes provided a nice visual metaphor for the idea that to get to Heaven, you have to go through Hell. But that’s a topic for another time.

Koda tells the other bears at the salmon run that he and his mother have been separated and he will wait for her at the salmon run. Kenai realizes who the bear he killed was.

He runs away. When Koda catches up to him, Kenai reveals the truth. He says that he has done a terrible thing and tells Koda the truth. Including where Koda’s mother is.

Koda runs from him.

On top of the mountain where the lights touch the earth, Denahi once again ambushes Kenai. Kenai tries to flee and Koda joins the fray but it is not enough, Denahi has the upper hand. Right before Denahi kills his own brother, Sitka (the brother that died) intervenes and the northern lights explode above the mountain in the middle of the day.

Kenai is turned back into a human and Denahi realizes the truth. Kenai approaches Koda, who is now hiding behind a rock.

After a moment, Koda realizes that it’s the same Kenai he knows and loves and jumps into his arms.

Kenai makes the choice to return to bear form; he knows that he cannot leave Koda. Sitka obliges him.

The movie ends with Kenai’s paw print being added to the wall where the villagers have added their hand prints over the years and Kenai’s bear of love totem once again rests around his neck.

The song playing at the close include the lyrics…

“Show us that in your eyes
We are all the same
Brothers to each other
In this world we remain truly
Brothers all the same”

It explicitly refers to the spirits in question in the film but I must admit, the song has a very, “gospel-y,” feel to it.

Regardless of who or what the song is speaking to, I believe those lyrics are at the heart of the film’s message.

You see, Brother Bear asks us: how often do we fail to understand someone else’s position? How often do we not even care to try to understand their position? Particularly when they have wronged us.

So often, we do not stop to think about why that person did what they did and what we might’ve done in their shoes. Even when we do think about what we might’ve done, it’s often a quite forgiving opinion of our character and judgement and it also often doesn’t take into account certain variables and circumstances that the person was faced with.

Kenai made the choice to go after the bear for doing what a bear does. Kenai failed to tie up the basket of fish properly despite his brother’s warnings. So it is his fault. Not the bear’s. What fish-eating animal would not capitalize on an unsecured basket of fish?

But, being the young, hot-headed person he is, he doesn’t stop to think about what went wrong, ignores his brother’s protests, and hunts down the bear.

It’s easy for us to watch from afar and think, “Why would he do that? I would never think to do that.” But are we always so clear-headed and wise? It’s easy to say we wouldn’t go after a bear. I wouldn’t. Even with a high-powered rifle, let alone the stone-tipped spear that Kenai was equipped with.

Let’s put it another way, one that’s a bit less hyperbolic than ‘hunting down a bear that has eaten my fish’:

You’re watching a WW2 movie, some of the characters are panicking when they come under fire. Some of them make dumb decisions and die, the main character is saved by his commanding officer. Your friend says throughout the scene, “Run! Why aren’t they taking cover? Why aren’t they shooting back?”

These are natural things to think and you may have even said them yourself. But let’s propose some answers to the questions your friend was asking.

Could it be possible that they are in shock? Assuming your friend is not a combat veteran, they have never been in a war-zone and have never experienced artillery shells exploding around them and bullets flying towards their head.

How old is this person? In WW2, a 16-year-old could join the military if they had parental consent. Do we count on 16-year-olds to always make sound decisions? Well, they cannot vote for one thing.

As for why they aren’t shooting back, perhaps they’re afraid to poke their head out. Perhaps they do not have a clear shot. Perhaps they are out of ammunition.

It could also be that the filmmakers just decided the character would do that in order to build tension.

We often criticize the actions of movie characters and say something along the lines of, “I would do X if that happened to me.”

But would we? It’s very easy to criticize when we are at home, sitting on the couch with a blanket and a sweatshirt. How would we know exactly how we would behave in a scenario that we have never been in and have received no training for?

We can say that, in Kenai’s situation, we would not attack the bear that ate the fish. If it were us. But it’s not us. It’s Kenai. Who is a hot-headed young man from a hunter-gatherer tribe, eager to prove himself a man and who has just been disappointed at a big coming-of-age ceremony.

Had Kenai not tried to go after the bear for a second time, or even the first time, he wouldn’t have been turned into a bear, and Koda wouldn’t have lost his mother.

Had Kenai simply thought to himself, “If I were a bear, I probably would’ve eaten the fish too,” and went home, we wouldn’t have a movie to watch.

But you get the point.

Through the events of the movie, we are shown that if we take the time to learn the other side of the story, maybe we wouldn’t make as many mistakes.

In the movie’s context, if Kenai had taken the time to understand his own responsibility in what the bear did, Sitka and Koda’s mom wouldn’t have died.

In our context, if we take the time to think things through and understand our own part in things, maybe we won’t make so many rash decisions and misjudge so many situations and people.

And we won’t be the annoying friend who always knows exactly what every movie character should do in every moment.

Like the song lyrics, this movie shows us that we can see new things if we just open our eyes to them.

We are not as different as we sometimes think. Forgive one another. Think before you act or speak.

Those are the lessons that I believe are at the core of Brother Bear.

Thank you for reading.

*All images featured in this post belong to Disney.

Last weekend I took the time to re-watch UP. It certainly stands up to the test of time. Nice visuals, quirky animals: classic Disney/Pixar stuff.

I’ve been reflecting on the message that UP presents and I wanted to analyze some of its elements and share that with you.

There will be spoilers… but the movie came out in 2009 so I think the no spoilers courtesy buffer has long since come down.

UP is a story about and old grump rediscovering his spirit of adventure. In other words, his sense of wonder.

In the beginning of the film we get the very famous sequence of Carl Fredricksen’s life as he grows up with his wife, Ellie. It leads up to where he’s an old man, Ellie has died, the vibrant colors of the opening sequence are replaced with dulled colors and a crotchety Fredricksen.

There is a corporation tearing down everything surrounding his house in order to build skyscrapers.

The image of his house is in direct opposition to the buildings around him. Where they are grey, bland buildings, his house appears to be from another era where form was also a consideration in building homes and buildings, not just function. It’s also contrasted by the colorful paint Fredricksen and his wife put on it when they were newlyweds.

A man wearing a black suit and a white shirt is trying to gain control of Fredrickson’s property and thus be able to completely fill the street with skyscrapers. The man also has pale, dull skin which I thought was a nice touch. It emphasizes his soulless, empty nature beyond that of his bland clothing.

After an incident involving Fredricksen and one of the construction workers, Fredricksen loses a court case and is ordered to move into a retirement home. He defies this by turning his house into an airship using thousands of balloons and flying away. Thus beginning his journey to Paradise Falls. The wondrous place that he and his late wife had always dreamed of living.

UP is a story about loss as much as it is discovery and rebirth. Throughout most of the movie, Fredricksen is totally focused on getting his house to Paradise Falls; only begrudgingly going along with what his companions want to do. It’s understandable, the house represents his late wife and the dreams they shared together.

Fredricksen’s companions are a husky boy scout named Russell, a colorful, legendary bird named Kevin, and an endearing, talking golden retriever named Dug.

Eventually, he comes across his childhood hero, Charles Muntz. Decades ago, he vowed to not return from Paradise Falls until he’s captured a certain legendary bird alive.

Fredricksen’s childhood hero turns out to be deranged. Having killed anyone who wanders into Paradise Falls over the years believing them to secretly be out to get the bird before he can.

Fredricksen ends up battling Muntz and his dogs in order to protect himself and his new friends. He has to let go of his house in the process. The thing he held onto so dearly up to that point.

Fredricksen and friends win the battle. Then they use Muntz’s blimp, the aptly named, Spirit of Adventure, to return home.

Taking ownership of the blimp of that name was both symbolic and physical for Fredricksen. Where once he was a disenchanted, grumpy old man who clung to distant memories, he is now fulfilled and has become a father figure to Russell. He also owns a blimp and a lot of dogs. Sounds like a dream if you ask me.

In my reflections of the movie, I noticed a sad truth that UP presents to us. More often than we like to admit, we become like Mr. Fredricksen before he goes on The Hero’s Journey as we age: grumpy, close-minded, and tired of life.

Life is tough. By default, it’s the toughest thing we will ever do. It can be easy to let it beat you down. There’s a reason the stereotype/trope of a grumpy old man exists.

I’m by no means old, I’ll only be turning 24 this year. Even so, I feel massively more intelligent and wise than I was just two years ago. Go back four, six, eight years ago and that gap increases more. While I wouldn’t trade what I know now for the blissful ignorance I once had, I do sometimes catch myself being pessimistic and embittered. At least more than I once was.

I’m glad I’m able to notice this behavior so I can correct it. Any of you youngsters that might be reading this, I hope you do too. That goes for the oldsters too.

You can be like Fredrickson, grumpy, smacking the alarm clock in the morning, and clinging to his past. Not that memories and the knowledge you glean from them are a bad thing, of course.

Or you can be like Fredrickson, uprooting his house with a giant mass of balloons and going on an adventure he’s dreamed about his whole life, only to find a new one and regain his spirit of adventure.

You don’t have to try and uproot your house with balloons. There are certainly easier ways to do it.

One way that’s been working for me on my own temperamental vigil is simply spending less time looking at the news. I don’t do it to such a degree where my head is in the sand; but I also don’t do it to a degree where I’m bogged down and annoyed by the bad in the world and the talking heads that make it worse.

The balloon thing won’t work anyway.

Nonetheless, I believe the message of UP is to maintain or rediscover your spirit of adventure. Life is hard no matter what. You might as well do it with a smile on your face and a talking dog by your side.

Don’t be a Scrooge. Be a Fredricksen.

Thank you for reading.

P.S. In Scrooge’s defense, his story is similar. Going from a cranky old fart to an old fart who’s rediscovered his love of life. But you get the point.

Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it before.

If the world were to end, who would you want on your team? Obviously you’d pick your loved ones. What about people with other skills that would help your ragtag band of survivors, survive? We all tend to think of the obvious: a doctor and/or nurse, a soldier, preferably one who’s a good shot, an outdoorsman, a farmer, a builder, etc.

My time in quarantine made me think about those people and skills that we never think about until suddenly they’re unavailable. Luckily, the world isn’t ending so we don’t have to worry about finding people with these skills to add to the team. Nonetheless, these are people we may consider adding to the group now that we have new insight as the quarantines slowly come to an end:

Weaver/Tailor

Right now, we almost never need a tailor unless it’s for getting our fancy clothes fitted and our textiles are made by machines. What about when we don’t have those machines?

When your clothes inevitably wear from farming, building up your fort to keep zombies out, and fighting off roaming packs of chihuahuas, you’re going to need someone who can make fabrics and craft them into clothes unless you want to strap furs and rags to yourself like some kind of Neanderthal.

For this purpose, I recommend you find someone with the last name Taylor. That will be the easiest way to identify someone with the skills to do those things.

Musician

Or at least someone who can play an instrument.

What have we been doing since the quarantines began? Binging TV shows, watching movies, listening to music, shoveling ice cream down our gullets, things like that. Somebody who can play an instrument could potentially do wonders for your group’s morale.

And if he or she decides to play the indie crap they did before the apocalypse they’ll still do wonders for morale by uniting the rest of you against a common enemy. Win win!

“Play Free Bird or it’s guard duty for you.”

Cobbler

This one goes along the lines of the tailor. Except for your feet.

In the apocalypse world, gone are the days where international companies with a swoosh for a logo can get Vietnamese children to make shoes for you.

Your current pair of Vietnamese shoes will eventually fall apart from the stresses of running from bears, running from alligators, running from other people, running from Canadian geese, and running from roaming packs of chihuahuas.

You’re going to need someone who can make shoes from the raw materials.

For this purpose I suggest you abdu-

Recruit someone with the last name Shumaker or Schumacher.

Barber

Ah, the haircut. So mundane, yet so important. This one may top the list of things that we never think about but desperately desire now that we don’t have access to it.

Having someone who cut hair for a living will help keep us happy and less ugly.

Barber’s of course having no relation to the Barbary pirates; North African pirates who terrorized the Mediterranean and even as far as England for several centuries.

Yes, I’m sure the word Barber has nothing to do with the word Barbary.

Barbers aren’t pirates.

That would be crazy.

I’m sure it’s just a crazy coincidence that those words are spelled suspiciously similar.

Barbers aren’t pirates.

Plus, it’ll be much better than some teenage girl in your settlement going, “Oh, I can cut your hair!”

I’m sure you could, but I’m concerned that I will look like a monk at the end of it, so no thank you.

Teacher

Although it may be a few years out, having someone who’s learned in the ways of education would be immensely helpful for when there are ankle-biters running around.

In this case, I’m referring to ankle-biters the human children. Not ankle-biters the trembling beasts known as Chihuahuas.

For this one, I recommend finding someone with the first name Mr., Ms., or Mrs.

Honorable Mention: Librarian/Archivist

This one receives an honorable mention because, in the end times, I’m sure we wouldn’t be able to specialize as much as we do today so I think a teacher doubling as a librarian would pair nicely; particularly if they’re an English teacher.

Once the necessities are covered and you begin to rebuild, I’m sure it would be quite nice to have someone recording and archiving your group’s history.

And when someone is being too loud while you’re hiding from a roaming band of chihuahuas, you’ll have an expert ‘shusher’ in the group.

Thank you for reading.

Amid all the panic, national emergencies, political fearmongering, and theft (external link), I began meditating on the shortsightedness of the people and what this all means.

It made me think of a line from Men in Black. After seeing a shot of the Manhattan skyline, World Trade Center still standing, Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) is sitting on a bench with the not yet initiated Agent J (Will Smith). Agent J, not understanding why the Men in Black can’t tell people about aliens says:

“Why the big secret? People are smart, they can handle it.”

To which Agent K says, “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.”

I’m not suggesting that it would’ve been better had the government tried to cover this whole thing up, but what’s happening now is an especially good example of what Agent K said.

A few questions that always come to mind for me in response to the oft silly actions of the populace:

“What are you gonna do when you run out of the toilet paper you hoarded and kept from those who might need it more than you?”

“What are you gonna do with all that extra toilet paper when this whole thing blows over and the shelves are restocked?”

“What are you gonna do with all those useless surgical masks you bought? Are you aware that they’re meant for protecting other people from YOUR germs and not the other way around?”

“What happens when you run out of water bottles?”

I realize most people aren’t interested in self-sufficiency or survival techniques. An even smaller group of people consider themselves preppers.

Fortunately for you, dear reader, I, in my humble glory and infinite wisdom, have always found survival and outdoorsman-y topics interesting. No, I am not a prepper, I just happen to think the stuff is cool.

So, without further ado, here are some tips to survive and rebuild when all is lost, your neighbors have died of unwiped bottoms, and you’ve just ran out of Spam.

For food:

• If you can get your hands on some seeds, you can grow food. Enough to feed yourself consistently and your fellow band of survivors? Maybe. Gotta have a lot of plants. I also understand that actually watering the plants you buy is the most difficult step in keeping a plant alive. Most of us just can’t bring ourselves to do it. The water pail is five feet away and it would take sixty seconds but we just. Can’t. Do it.
• Hunting is also a good way to obtain food and some more remote people already tend to rely on such methods. Of course, with no society, this means you’ll have to kill, skin, bleed, and butcher the animal yourself. I believe in you!

For water:

• Before modern water delivery methods, people used to dig wells, gather from streams with buckets, even collect rain water.
• Don’t forget to filter and boil if you’re not sure about the sanitation of the water. Alternating layers of sand and charcoal can make an effective water filter.
• If you have a dehumidifier and electricity, the air will give you free water! Thank you, Mother Nature.

For heat:

• Hearth.
• Dog snuggles.

For air conditioning:

• You’re screwed.
• Basement.

For fuel:

• Yeah that’s a tough one considering it comes from deep underground and unless you have access to oil drilling and refining facilities and the required knowledge, I don’t know how you’re gonna manage that one. Even if you go all Mad Max about it, it’s still gonna be a very limited resource.
• I have heard whispers that the Amish have a way of circumventing the entire fossil fuel thing. Perhaps if you can gain their trust they will impart their secrets unto you.

For butt-wiping:

Hiding in a toilet paper fort is all well and good. Butt what happens when you inevitably run out?

• * We could always revert to leaves. I personally recommend the Toxicodendron radicans plant. It’s very soft and offers a good amount of surface area with which to clean up your poopies.
• I suppose you could learn to create your own paper products. I have no idea how to make it from scratch other than that it comes from wood. Experiment! Involve your kids! It’ll be a fun activity for the little ankle-biters. If they don’t want to do it, you can always motivate them by telling them that whoever figures out how to make toilet paper first gets to wipe first. Friendly competition!
• Your little sister’s favorite shirt.

Of course, I’m being facetious (Some of the tips are genuine. For example, sand and charcoal actually do make a good water filter). You should listen to reasonable advice from people like healthcare professionals and the CDC.

My point is, look how easy it is for people to panic and act selfishly today. Don’t hoard things, it will be useless in the long run. Act reasonably, work together. Learning self-sufficiency and things that campers, hikers, backpackers, and otherwise outdoors-y people already know, would serve you better than cases of water and toilet paper.

Thank you for reading.

*Don’t come crying to me if you actually go wipe your ass with poison ivy.

Valentine’s day has arrived once again. Such is the nature of the calendar.

I wanted to make a post that was relevant to the holiday this time around and I thought to myself, “What about Valentine’s Day could I write about?”

I could write about how it’s important to love yourself as well as those close to you. About not neglecting your loved ones regardless of what day it is. There are probably a great many of topics and angles I could’ve taken.

But I thought, well, I’m a writer, I like stories, I like reading, and love is one of those themes that permeates almost all of our stories. Maybe almost all of our actions. Maybe almost everything there is. Hopefully almost everything there is.

Some of our oldest stories feature love. The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer are two VERY old stories that come to mind. The Trojan war was fought over love. Over the love of and for one woman. Odysseus spent ten years trying to get home to his wife.

Those stories both have a great many things going on but certainly, love played a large role in the character’s stories.

William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a tragic love story set in fair Verona. I would argue it’s one of his most famous works and one of the most famous love stories, no, stories in general, that we have. It’s hundreds of years old and we still love it today.

As with Iliad and Odyssey, the stories don’t have to be specifically about love, as Romeo and Juliet is. Movies and books and TV shows often have a love interest for the protagonist despite the story not being centered around their love.

Think of the songs you listen to. How many of them are about love? I personally prefer jazz. Big band stuff like Frank Sinatra and Michael Buble. That genre is particularly filled with love. Nearly every song I hear is about love. Pop music is filled with it, country music is filled with it. You don’t even need lyrics for music to be about love. Classical composers of the past and present convey romantic sentiments in their works.

Why do we feel so compelled by love? We can’t seem to escape it. We spend our lives looking for someone to share it with. And there isn’t much that hurts more than a broken heart.

I could dispassionately tell you that it might be a biological tendency of ours as animals and mortal beings. To pass on our genes is at the base of our nature and is required for our species continued existence. I could dispassionately tell you that there are legal and financial benefits to marriage.

But that wouldn’t be very romantic of me, would it?

We are more than beasts, led around by our instincts alone. We are the only beings on this Earth blessed (and cursed) with higher thought. We are more than legal and financial entities.

Thus, we find ourselves with love. The most powerful force in existence.

Love for your neighbor (Even if they’re annoying. I’m looking at you, Flanders). Love for your significant other or spouse. Love for music, for books, and for food. For your pets. Your pet’s love for you. Love for yourself. For God. God’s love for you. Love for life itself.

Love opens us up to feeling. I don’t just mean feeling love. I mean feeling everything. Sorrow, joy, spite, forgiveness.

Feeling is the essence of what makes us human. We feel because we are. We shouldn’t lose it nor should we want to.

All the pain you’ve felt, all the happiness. The losses, the gains. Those are the things that made you who you are. And I bet you love had a hand in it in some form or another. You worked at your craft and bettered yourself because you love yourself enough to improve your lot in life. You wanted to share those experiences with someone else so you fell in love. It didn’t work out and you experienced a pain so intense that you thought no one else had ever felt before. But they have. And they’ve gone on to do amazing things and they continued to love. And so will you.

Valentine’s Day is undoubtedly a Hallmark Holiday, but there is potential for something more.

The next time you step outside and look up at the pale moon and twinkling stars, consider what it means to you. How many stories of star-crossed lovers have been told under that same sky? How many stories of a true and pure love?

The next time you hear the story of Romeo and Juliet, consider how you will one day be reunited with your love and your family and your pets.

Consider the words of Alfred Lord Tennyson when he said, “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” I remember a time not long ago when I would hear those words and ask, “is it?”

It is.

Regardless of if you are with someone you love tonight or if you find yourself alone, consider what love means to you. Do you push it away, letting yourself grow cold?

Or do you let it into your heart? Do you allow yourself to ply it into your trade and into your life?

We are obsessed with love because it so often defines who we are and what we do. Do not try to escape it.

Thank you for reading.

I recently discovered an old blog-style piece I had written before this website even existed. It’s a welcome remnant of the past. Particularly one that was thought lost to previous computer crashes.

Needless to say, I now back everything up with redundancies.

Without further ado, the piece that survived the calamity:

—At least a year before writing this, I had written down a vague story idea in one of my notebooks:

“Something that used to be great, but fell apart because of indifference/negligence. The saddest thing is indifference.”

At the time, it was just a reflective thought. I had no idea how to turn it into a story. Now, I’ve realized what those words mean.

I decided to put it in terms of a fairy tale.

This is the story of the castle that fell apart:

Once upon a time, there was a grand castle. In this castle lived the fairest king and queen, the most beautiful princesses, the most handsome princes, and the most noble and chivalrous knights the land had ever known. The people adored them. They were gentle and attentive.

No, this castle won’t be taken down by an enemy army, or a natural disaster. This castle will be destroyed by indifference.

Over time, the king got complacent. He was comfortable where he was and eventually he forgot what it took to build up his kingdom; or where it could go in the future. The queen got bored. She tired of the work involved in maintaining the kingdom. To her, there was no point.

The princesses and princes stopped caring for themselves. They ate and drank more at feasts. They didn’t bother to improve their skills or knowledge.

The knights got lazy at their posts. They let their weapons and armor rust.

The people lost respect for those in the castle. They were not the paragons of royalty that the people once knew.

The walls started to crumble. Feasts became an obligation instead of a celebration. The residents started to leave. Eventually, everyone had left in their own separate, defeated directions.

The all too unfortunate, end.—

Why do I think this kind of ending is worse than one where they die in some blaze of glory or at least a tragic accident?

Because it’s their fault. Instead of being remembered for when the kingdom was great, they’ll be remembered for their failures; how they were at the end.

All those involved will be left wondering what went wrong. It might be hard for them to identify those things and they’ll be stuck in an endless cycle of “what-ifs?” What if I had done this differently? What if I hadn’t done that? What if I said this? What if I didn’t say that?

Posing this idea as a fairy tale helped me to understand what I meant by, “Indifference is the saddest thing.”

Is your castle suffering from indifference or apathy? Your familial relationships? Your professional life? Your health goals? Your romantic relationships?

Can your castle be restored to it’s former glory? If it can, do it with all your heart and your sincerity.

Maybe you already walked away from the castle because you thought it was done for. Thinking back, was it? Can you return and restore the castle? There are plenty of real life examples of castles being rebuilt after being brought to ruin. Although I admit rebuilding a physical castle is much simpler than rebuilding a relationship or a life.

When you have rebuilt the castle, don’t forget what it took this time.

Finally, if it is well and truly ruined, maybe you can build a new one. Just remember the first castle and the lessons you learned from it.

Thank you for reading.

So, you completed another year around the sun. I suppose a congratulations is in order.

Did you make a New Year’s resolution this year? What was it? Will you follow through?

Unfortunately, we usually don’t. The stereotype that people buy a gym membership just to stop going after two weeks is all too true.

Why is it that it’s so hard for us to stick to our resolutions and fail to build these new habits or whatever you may have resolved to do? It’s not like we don’t want to exercise more or read more or spend less time on our phone.

I’ve written before about the fickle nature of motivation and a way to combat it. Today, I wanted to shift towards a different tactic: Limiting enablers.

Motivation is fickle, discipline is better, but we’re surrounded by distractions and options every moment of the day. We have the internet in our pocket and junk food in the fridge.

When you’re going about your New Year’s duties, it may help to limit your access to things that would get you off track.

For example, when I’m trying to read, I often leave my phone in the other room because when it’s right in my pocket or beside me, I have a hard time focusing in on the book.

When I’ve decided to put down the queso dip, I simply don’t buy junk food when I grocery shop. That way, when I go fridge-diving, the only options available are the healthy ones.

The hardest thing about starting a new habit or doing something different is just that, starting. It’s easier to scroll mindlessly online than it is to read pages of text; even though it might eat up more time than reading a chapter or two. It’s easier to open a bag of chips than to wash carrots; even though it only takes a minute.

Mind you, I fail miserably at this sometimes despite me preaching to you about it. Regardless, the most important thing for us is to keep trying. I’m not telling you anything new by saying it doesn’t matter how many times you fall down as long as you keep getting back up. One day, you’ll win.

Your new resolution doesn’t have to be something life changing. In fact, sometimes it’s better to start small. The big things can seem too big if we’re not ready and then we don’t even bother. You wouldn’t try running a marathon without building up to it so why try to change something big overnight?

Even if you’re still working on it December 31st this year, keep working on it.

My New Year’s resolution?

Walk the dog more often because she deserves it.

Thank you for reading.

In my forays into the internet and even the dreaded, horrifying, real life, I sometimes stumble across posts and pictures and things people have scrawled on various mediums saying something along the lines of, “You can do it!” Or, “Never give up!”

These are worthwhile encouragements and certainly better than the opposite. But I then I hear the question in my head, Can I? Can you?

Our goals and aspirations can seem difficult or even impossible. To use myself as an example, my dream career of being a full-time writer sometimes feels like just that, a dream.

When we’re faced with impossible tasks or odds, what do we sometimes do? Give up. Before we even try. If it’s impossible then why even bother?

But if we look back to our great teacher, History, we’ll see time and time again of people doing the impossible.

Beethoven famously wrote amazing pieces while being mostly, and eventually, completely, deaf. Jonas Salk invented a vaccine for Polio. Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first to reach the peak of Mount Everest.

As we can see, the impossible is not always impossible. So why do we struggle with our motivation to do things that we know we are capable of?

It may be very simple, it is easier to take the easy way. But you and I both know that’s not what we want for ourselves nor is it the noble path in life.

We often say, “I want to,” or, “It would be nice if…”

What if we started to tell ourselves that we had to? To use myself as an example again, I could say: I have to write and therefore pursue my dream of being a full-time writer.

Perhaps that’s how Sir Hillary and Norgay felt, they had to reach the peak of Mount Everest. Not that they just wanted to.

Want implies you can do without. A need is something you have to do or have to have.

C.S. Lewis once said in a talk he gave to BBC, “It is wonderful what you can do when you have to.”

Can you do it?

You have to.