So, we two were watching a movie, How to train your dragon? For those who are very much like me, it is an animated movie. Also, for people like me who fail to keep up with ever evolving literature, it is an adaptation of a book written by Ms. Cowell, whose first name I am forgetting.
The story revolved around a small far away place , named Berg, which is covered by snow for most of the year, precisely 9 months in an year.
In script writer’s words, “Food which grows there is tough and tasteless like people who grow there”. These lines are an apt description of the Vikings (people living in Berg) and the kind of difficulties they face while gathering and storing food. Vikings, as we very well know, are people of great physical strength and take pride in exerting and reveling in their strength. They have a strong sense of leadership and citizenship. They follow the conventional rules of leadership, hierarchy and organization where the most powerful person will be the head of the tribe. Similarly, our organizations where most powerful employee will be the head of the organization. Now, this power has different descriptions and connotations attached to it, depending on the kind of tribe, you are living and working in.
Like Vikings, value physical strength so here, power represents physical strength. Similarly, the kind of values, your tribe believes in dictates what kind of person will move up the corporate ladder or will climb the social ladder. This also, dictates what kind of values you need to inculcate to climb social or corporate ladder, which are the values admired by your tribe.
Now what if you don’t fit in like son of head of Vikings Tribe, Hiccup who was realizing his name in the beginning of the movie. What if, you lack all these abilities, skills and most importantly those values.
Let’s say, your value system is entirely different from your tribe’s value system then, will you succeed in gaining respect and admiration of ones surrounding you?
The answer in bold is NO.
Will that mean, you should quit and leave your place and change your tribe?
Hold on, for a second, you are too quick at making conclusions.poof!
In most of the cases, like with your life and your family, it will be difficult to make a U turn and choose something else.
The brutal truth is you cannot leave your tribe(workplace, work or family) most of the time by choosing another one. Completely changing your tribe is a drastic step and will need more than a catalyst to bring it upon yourself.
So, does the idea of perfect harmony exist only in movies and books?
Will there be any tribe (workplace, work, family, partner) where I will be completely fit in, the answer in bold is NO, again? Oh god, life and overthinking sucks, we all know right.
We are again, missing the whole point. The point is unless we stop concentrating on imitating others’ value system and principles in order to be respected and admired by, unless you stop trying to fit in set rules laid by convention and formality resting in system we just, cannot go ahead and become king of tribe unlike our Hiccup who eventually became king in the end of move.
So, what did he do?
He was not even concentrating on becoming king of the tribe, he was trying to be loyal, true to his principles and value system by acknowledging that he cannot kill a dragon. The act of killing a dragon is admired by Vikings tribe and was a prerequisite to become king of tribe. Hiccup did not want to kill a dragon because he was frightened and he acknowledged same fear in eyes of dragon which shows that he was compassionate and kind unlike his Viking brothers.
In the beginning of the movie, he was refusing to recognize his emotions and was feeling weak and vulnerable. He was confused at his best, and was unable to locate his identity. He could not connect with others, in his case, a fellow dragon or a Viking because he was unable to connect with himself.
Once he accepted his fear, he could locate his identity and was not anymore a confused soul. He could look at Dragon with renewed compassion and kindness.
Later, he explored ways of tackling and training dragons by practicing his values of leading by love rather than leading by authority. In course, he became the first Viking to fly and train a dragon.
He lead by love and by doing what he was best at, rather copying others. Also, it tells that there are n number of ways to solve any problem. If killing the dragon does not work, look at the other ways of tackling it.
Now at the end of the movie, when Toothless (a night fury dragon, which Hiccup did not kill when he could easily, instead he saved his life and became friends with Toothless), was in trouble, he came to rescue it. He did not leave toothless because his purpose of learning to tackle a dragon, was served. He went out of his way to save toothless and in return lose one of his limbs.
In short, life throws a number of draconian problems at everyone. Even the ones, who are best and have noblest intentions may get hurt. So when this can happen with best among us, it can happen with rest of us. No point in sulking at it, and making it another dragon in our lives.
I am prompted to write on friendship, loyalty, citizenship, hierarchy, leading by love etc by watching this movie, which I have tried to highlight a little in my post. Out of all these concepts, the one which has touched my heart is the loyalty and sticking to our value system.
What about you? Which movie or book, you have watched or read, that has touched your heart and made you bore others by talking or writing incessantly about it?
Look forward to hear from you!
By Anamika 