Stop talking about TAXES it's DRAGON TIME

Author’s note

(skip if you’re bored and just waiting for your subway order)

I had a plan for this week’s article. I’d written it out, found imagery for it, and then realized, I hate this topic. This... isn’t me.

I planned on writing about the internet echo chambers that are FYPs, and personalized homepages, and the like. They’re polarizing us and isolating us even further from reality, but honestly? This idea wasn’t an original thought. The post I wrote was a regurgitated mess of, well, my FYP.

I can’t do that to you.

So instead we’ll be discussing dragons.

Dragons are cool mfs

I was a dinosaur kid. I had an obsession with velociraptors and spent so many hours building dino-mammal synergy parks in Zoo Tycoon 2. This had to be one of the world’s most perfect games for an elementary nerd, but I digress. I was a dinosaur kid.

Dragons, though? Those were fantasy. Dragons belonged to boring, cliche medieval stories. They weren’t real—not in the sense that my computer game velociraptor was, at least. I didn’t have time to believe in such a dark-age idea.

Then I watched Dragons, a Fantasy Made Real.

Suddenly, dragons were more legit than my next-door neighbor’s interest in hosting the obligatory annual barbecue.

And my neighbor loved to grill.

Cryptids made real

I still haven’t seen a dragon in real life, but because of that documentary, I can actually question and imagine how a dragon’s throat could withstand the scorching heat of its flames. I learned about the diminishing returns of a dragon’s wingspan and maximum weight.

Hear that? I was six or seven years old at the time. Six or seven and wrapping my mind around the concept of diminishing returns—of the basics of flamethrowers and napalm.

I learned about these very real concepts because of a very unreal (or so they tell me) creature. With these ideas, I could not only justify dragons, but I could create my own designs of dragons.

Yes, four wings could work--but what’s the gain? Lighter weight?

If a dragon hat a longer, skinny throat, what would that do to its fire production? What could that dragon eat?

And then came the most important question.

Where did all of these dragons go?

Extinction of the ethereal

Dragons are functionally extinct in the wild. You may find them trapped center-stage in tabletop games, or relegated to books that turn them into pets. But out here, in the real world?

My god, good luck having a serious conversation about dragons.

Taxes, go for it. Mortgages, all the same. Those are all very real, very tangible (and oh so important!) things that are totally not just made-up concepts that will die off alongside the eventual extinction of the human race.

Taxes and mortgage rates are interesting. Talking about online, self-imposed echo chambers generates a good amount of clicks, too. God forbid you forget about all-important politics.

Just don’t talk about dragons. A make-believe creature that challenges the mind with its sheer existence and contributes absolutely nothing to the economy is entirely pointless.

Share dragons. Now. Do it.

TALK ABOUT TAXES

I’ve never understood the point. Taxes are as real as we make them, and we’ve made them pretty damn real. Not my thing.

MOVING ON

I think dragons, computer game velociraptors, and taxes share one thing in common: they live in the inter-subjective. This meaning, they inhabit the world so long as society wills it so. It’s the things we’re told are real, yet they aren’t tangible.

This makes up so much of our world. The inter-subjective used to boil down to a god and Divine Providence in the West. Now, we have zoning laws, interest rates, a supposed American Dream... the list goes on.

So why can’t we choose dragons for once?

We dictate what matters in this world. Laws turn those things into something “real”. (Laws aren’t real.)

My cat is realer than laws, and I don’t think she’s even a cat.

Alright, experiment. Take your downtown square, okay? If your town doesn’t have one of those, I’m so sorry. Imagine one. There’s a few advertisements for brands that exist because they claim they do, and a few stores that own their storefronts because a few books say they do.

Now, plaster that square with posters filled with juicy dragon sightings. No one knows who made these posters (you), but you know what’s inhabiting their minds now? You know what’s real, even if just for a moment?

Dragons.

Those little posters got people to pause and look up.

It’s your turn to create a Fantasy Made Real. I’ll be doing this for my sci-fi novel, as well as a few other cryptids I keep in my back pocket. You, though... your mind’s the limit.

Just please don’t make Facebook II.