We are no strangers to the fairy tales and stories. As a child, one gets to hear different stories with different plots, the ones about good friends, the people living in austerity are suddenly given boons, the ones with with enemies taking revenge and failing at it, the ones with different morals to learn from and help us to implement or remember when faced with a similar situation in our life.
Most of the stories I heard or read, offered comfort to me and made at least some of us fantasize about being a princess or a prince and explore the world, live in castles and fly on carpets. We must have our imaginations flying across the sky on a unicorn with rainbows all over the sky. We dreamt of witches and their potions, the fairies and their magical wands and spells, dungeons, magical beings straight away being our best friend as if they saw a potential in us, and every damn person was special and was meant to save the world. Even waiting to be rescued by a prince. It made me dream of a world that’s good and bad, which is wicked and humble in other words a black and white world!
And the “Hero” who saves the day, gets richer, walks away with a happily ever after with his love of his life. He is rewarded with boons and wishes, which project a happy life after you find your love.
The magic in these stories makes us believe in hope and a supreme power that can provide you with things you coveted the most.
Now, Life never seems to work that way!
It’s hell bent on throwing yourself at the monsters of life without much training or preparation for the situations.
You start to believe in yourself until you reach your teens and then suddenly you are pushed into the depths of the oceans of troubles.
It just waits on the shore with a grin, and you struggling to swim out of it! The only thing that runs in your mind is how to stay afloat. As despair washes in you may think it’s better to sink than struggle at every step! It’s a test of will against life
A story offers comfort, but it also makes us believe in a utopian world. which never exists that which leads you to fantasize. They say a child’s brain grows to its maximum level of capacity by the age of 7. Imagine the kind of influence these stories make when the brains are so receptive to all the information it gets.
Stories need to be more realistic, needs to be more connected to the world that children live in. There should be a clear communication to the brains of impressionable kids about who they are, the world they live in, the kinds of people they may have to deal with etc. In other words a clear understanding of how she/he deal with the circumstances and situations of life to get a happily ever after! A hero (not being gender specific) is someone who overcomes her/his daily struggles, sails it through like a pro and has hopes of doing the same thing over and over again.
