February 22, 2005
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Riding the Dragon
People with schizophrenia have trouble interpreting parables or proverbs. One of the diagnostic tests for schizophrenia is to give someone a phrase like, “A stitch in time saves nine,” and see if they can apply it to a real life situation.
Most schizophrenics can’t.
There are some people in my old life who were very unreflective, and I still wonder if they do not have some kind of psychiatric disorder. I am just very thankful not to be around them anymore. People who cannot learn from their past experiences are scary people indeed.
There once was a dragon that was lost at birth by its parents and raised among farm animals. It grew up to eat grass and walk the fields like other tame beasts. One day an older dragon flew over the fields, breathing fire and scattering all the animals in the barnyard. The young dragon on the ground was fascinated and frozen in its tracks. The older dragon, spying its younger cousin, swooped down, grabbed the younger one in its huge jaws, and flew far up into the sky. When they were so far up the houses looked like toys, the older dragon dropped the younger one from his mouth, causing him to fall screaming toward the ground. Then, just before the younger dragon would have been killed, the older dragon swooped down, caught him in his mouth, and returned him to the sky, where he promptly dropped him again.
This horrible fall happened several times before the young dragon, frightened and angry, finally spread his own wings and with a roar of fire, sailed high into the sky — becoming — for the first time in his life — his real self. . . .
