“The longer you went without speaking, the harder it gets to break the silence.”
― Richard Bachman, The Long Walk
Let us paint a picture to illustrate an individual's journey through life. Imagine life as a long walk, a path we travel from beginning to end, where we can only pack what we need to survive along the way. We have a container for water, food, medicine, and hygiene supplies. We must be extremely strategic in what we bring—to keep the weight down but also to be prepared for whatever lies around each corner. Yet, there is one essential need that can never be packed in a bag, worn, or carried in any way: our need to abstract and conceptualize.
How do we bring that into the long walk of life? This need is embodied in a parallel self, one that is packed strategically and compactly with symbols, stories, and art. This parallel self, which we might envision as our "dragon self," contains all that we ever were and all that we ever will be. It walks beside us on this long journey, guiding us holistically. The dragon represents our intuition, creativity, and wisdom—those intangible aspects of ourselves that help us navigate the complexities of life. These journey partners, the physical self and the dragon self, move in parallel, occasionally intersecting at critical moments where we confront our true nature—each traveler packed to the max with what they can carry, helping each other along the road.
These intersections are vital because while both travelers must remain separate, they must never deviate too far apart nor come too close together—like Yin and Yang, always separate but ready to flow when possible. This flow represents the balance between dark and light, subjective and objective. These intersections occur in vulnerable places, in the cracks and fissures of our lives. It is not us that creates these intersections but time, space, and the environment around us, which bring our subjective and objective selves together, aligning us more closely with the path.
The Importance of a Symbol
The mathematics of the universe, the language we learn to communicate, and all the bits and pieces of our reality—these are the building blocks of our existence. We must hold a word and its meaning as sacred, like a vessel of meaning from which we drink. A symbol is similar to a word but can contain entire worlds of meaning. In the vastness of space and time, we see the language.
In this illustrated picture, our dragon self carries a survival pack of symbols. Each symbol is condensed and full of information, developing throughout our lives as an interactive piece representing complex information, like a model. When we dream, or even lucid dream, about these symbols, we see the interplay of complex and holistic symbols. When we interact with these symbols in a physical way—through traditions such as the Eucharist, tea ceremonies, pilgrimages to Mecca, or pledges of allegiance—we plug our models into our surroundings, bridging the gap between the symbolic and the real world. For example, when Colin Kaepernick knelt for the anthem, he connected his personal symbol with the world’s symbol, creating a powerful interaction. Whether good or bad, these symbols work together, develop, and evolve. While empty symbols remain empty, it is up to us to fill them with meaning—they are our Holy Grail.
Handling the Pushback in Our Lives
How do we handle the pushback we receive in life? Consider the perceptions of others that imprison us in expectations, the uncertainty of a world that lacks harmony, or the apathy of others. As we navigate our lives, not everyone will want us to succeed. Some, concerned with their own success, would choose theirs over yours. Even the store from which you buy your goods cares only about what it can take from you; the machine of the economy bulldozes the consumers. These are tricky waters to navigate. But with our developed dragon self—our intuitive and symbolic guide—we can step around these hazards in a timely harmony.
What Does This Have to Do with Navigation? The Interplay Between Determinism and Free Will
Many aspects of life are predetermined: we are born with a certain combination of genes and personality, into a specific environment, with many influences and people that determine the flow of our lives.
On the flip side, we make choices every day that are ours to control—our free will. We can create or destroy depending on our will. We can be nurturing or apathetic depending on our will.
It is with our symbolic self, our dragon, that we exercise our free will within a deterministic model and create a plan for ourselves. Our subjective and objective plans are plugged into the world and serve as our navigation. Our meaning—our full cup of meaning—sets the arrangement of deterministic factors and aligns our free will with them as we travel through life. This alignment connects the seconds, minutes, hours, days, and years to the arrangement of our lives.
Developing This Symbolic Dragon Self: A Parallel Traveler
We need to be fully invested in the idea that children must develop this way of navigation at some point in their childhood through coming-of-age rituals and traditions. They must learn to train their dragon self, rather than developing it too late in life, which may result in trauma, as in Fight Club, instead of a healthy coming-of-age subjective journey. At least once in our lives, we must take a symbolic journey and let our subjective self take the lead. This journey is as essential as the air we breathe.
A Final Reflection
As you continue your long walk through life, consider the relationship between your physical self and your dragon self. Are you allowing them to intersect in meaningful ways? Are you filling your symbols with rich meaning, or are they empty? Remember, the path is long, and the journey is complex, but with a well-developed dragon self by your side, you can navigate with wisdom and grace. Embrace the symbolic journey, for it is not just a parallel path—it is the very essence of our existence.