I will always clap for fairies!
I was reading this article in a magazine and the last paragraph I just really like and really is how I feel so I thought I would write it here. It was an article about Santa Claus by Alexander McCall Smith:
There is a moment in J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan when the audience is invited to revive the dying fairy Tinkerbell and told, "if you believe in fairies, clap your hands." And every time, the theater breaks into sustained applause. That is not to suggest there are theaters full of seriously deluded people. What it does tell us is that there are times when we need to pretend to believe in things we know not to be true. WE know that the world is a place of suffering and hardship, and we know, too, that justice and kindness and love and such things will not always prevail against these hard realities. Myths help us to get by. The day they all die and we tell our children exactly how things are, the world will be a poorer, less enchanted place. So don't be ashamed to clap your hands at Peter Pan or act as if Santa exists. He stands for kindness and generosity, and those things are alive and will continue to be alive- as long as we believe in them.
As a side note, as I'm sure most of you can imagine, I believed in Santa for so long and long after I was pretty sure it wasn't the real deal and everyone tried to convince me he was fake, I still wanted to believe so bad. I refused to give up. When it comes down to it, I still do believe, even if I put out cookies and noone eats them, I'll just assume Santa was full, not that he doesn't exist! It's just too sad to imagine!
There is a moment in J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan when the audience is invited to revive the dying fairy Tinkerbell and told, "if you believe in fairies, clap your hands." And every time, the theater breaks into sustained applause. That is not to suggest there are theaters full of seriously deluded people. What it does tell us is that there are times when we need to pretend to believe in things we know not to be true. WE know that the world is a place of suffering and hardship, and we know, too, that justice and kindness and love and such things will not always prevail against these hard realities. Myths help us to get by. The day they all die and we tell our children exactly how things are, the world will be a poorer, less enchanted place. So don't be ashamed to clap your hands at Peter Pan or act as if Santa exists. He stands for kindness and generosity, and those things are alive and will continue to be alive- as long as we believe in them.
As a side note, as I'm sure most of you can imagine, I believed in Santa for so long and long after I was pretty sure it wasn't the real deal and everyone tried to convince me he was fake, I still wanted to believe so bad. I refused to give up. When it comes down to it, I still do believe, even if I put out cookies and noone eats them, I'll just assume Santa was full, not that he doesn't exist! It's just too sad to imagine!
Keep the dream alive! :)