What's it like being.....

What's it like being_______?

.... fill in the blank any way you like and you'd probably still get the same answer--- "I don't know"

At least it's the answer you'd get if the person you'd asked had never known anything different. What's it like being a woman? What's it like being blind? What's it like being rich? If the woman had never been a man, if the blind person had never been sighted and if the one who was rich had never been poor, then they would have no way of explaining exactly what it was like. How can the known be explained in relation to the unknown??

I've often wondered what it's like to be everything that I'm not. Maybe it's my inquisitive mind, or perhaps my multi-personality imagination or my innate writer. Most likely it's the delirious daydreams of someone bored/fed up with their state in life. Whatever the explanation, the end result is the same---- what's it like being_____?

Whether the answer I provide myself with is right or not doesn't much matter. For me, it's the speculation....the idea/dream of being something completely different. That's enough for me. I've had enough dreams come true to know that the dreaming is what's most enjoyable. Dreaming about having something is far more exciting than actually having it. Once you have whatever "it" is, there is nothing else to look forward to, nothing else to drive yourself toward, nothing else to give purpose to your existence.

For me, I'd prefer to have the dream.....to always ask, What's it like being______?

Comments

Y is for Yeth Hound.....

Yeth Hound--- one of the incarnations of the "Black Dog" myth, this one located specifically, in Devon, England.

"Black Dogs" appear in myths across the world, most are associated with death and bad omens... i.e. Hell Hounds.

The Yeth Hound is said to be the spirit of an unbaptised child that takes the form of a headless black dog. The Hound wanders the woods at night making pitiful wailing sounds (though, I'm unclear as to how it makes wailing sounds without having a head).

The Black Dogs were possibly one inspiration from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's ghost dog in The Hound of the Baskervilles-- "an enormous coal-black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen."

Heed Not, the Lonesome Cry
Heed not, the lonesome cry, the baleful wail echoing through the woods. Seek not, the black hound's sigh, look not where the headless creature stood.
One sound, your limbs will shake, your heart filled with the deepest dread. One glimpse, your sou…

B is for Banshee.....

Irish bean sidhe and Scottish Gaelic bean sith, literally, woman of fairyland.

The mythology and legend surrounding the Banshee is a bit mixed. The most readily accepted story is of a hag-like creature wailing the impending death of someone nearby-- most ancient Gaelic families, especially the more well-to-do families, had their own Banshees that attached themselves to the lineage of the family name. I suppose it was a sign of station for a family to be able to claim their own Banshee--- I mean, who needs an exciting/ tongue-wagging-inciting skeleton in your cupboard when you've got a Banshee wailing in your rafters?
The origins of the more familiar Banshee may have stemmed from the ancient Keeners-- women who were employed to sing a lament at a funeral. The best Keeners were in high demand to "wail" and "weep" for the great personage who had fallen.

The Great families would boast a bean sidhe or bean sith-- a fairy-woman Keener--and having foresight, the Keene…

S is for Siren.....

Sirens--- the beautiful, the terrifying.
Vicious, but, seemingly opportunistic creatures who lured sailors to their deaths by the sound of their captivating songs. Whether the stories of these creatures were a result of surviving sailors attempting to explain their near-miss in an effort to divert the fault of their shipwreck from their hands, or whether as a warning for those leaving to ensure their fidelity to the women they left behind, is unclear...

Considered the daughters of Achelous(river god), and though they have been blamed for the death of many sailors, they were not, however, sea deities. They have sometimes been called Muses of the lower world, their sad song causing the body and soul of those sailors who hear them to fall into a fatal lethargy.

In early myths, Sirens were the combined form of birds and women. Sometimes with a large female head, their bodies covered in bird feathers, their feet...scaled. Later myths show them as female figures with the legs of birds, tho…

From the Inkwell, From the Vein.....

Search This Blog