Leap Forward
To the wise, our story is within every story.
I cherish Jordan Peterson’s interpretation of Disney’s tale Pinocchio because we can dive into many a story that unravels meaning in the process of looking for our way in life.
Geppetto is a craftsman that makes toys, watches and puppets, and when he finishes one special one, the kind toy maker, wishes upon a star that his little wooden puppet turns into a real boy.
The Fairy is sent in the night by the star and animates the wooden puppet. The Fairy makes Jiminy Cricket his conscience, because a wooden animated puppet does not have one. The story goes that Geppetto does what any father would do and sends his kid to school. As fate will have it, obstacles arise, life is unpredictable as it usually is. Pinocchio meets Honest John and Gideon, a fox and a cat, con-artist duo that trick our naïve puppet. Through the story Pinocchio is driven to evade responsibility and only to have fun and games, learns to lie and does not do what his father bids him to. In the process he is tricked into going to Pleasure Island, a place where there is only fun and games… a true paradise.
Our innocent Pinocchio learns that everything in life has a price. When we are derailed out of our responsibilities and aim solely on pleasure, it turns us into dumb asses who can be manipulated by those who trick us into being pack mules. He learns this the hard way, maybe the only way to really learn worthwhile lessons. When Pinocchio realizes he has done wrong, he tries to go back home to make things better, but home is no more… Geppetto has gone to search for his boy, and a house without his father is no home.
So, Pinocchio must go and find Geppetto, he must save him from the belly of a whale where he is at as a consequence of trying to save his puppet son from the pains and malevolence of life. Pinocchio saves Geppetto from the belly attempting the most dangerous act to himself, igniting the boat on fire. As a consequence of his brave actions, the Fairy turns him into a living boy.
Brief account of Jordan’s interpretation
The puppet’s life
It triggers my imagination when I connect the scholar and clinical psychologist’s interpretation to my personal ups and downs. The gist of what he says is that we fumble our way through life when we do not follow ethics, or sometimes even when we do… mostly because when young we are like a puppet, letting strings pull and push them any which way without their conscious will having anything to do with it; these energies guide our actions, not conscious of our intentions or consequences.
Pleasure Island
When we fall outside of what is our place or way, we are shown the price we pay for our transgressions. But we are so focused on our games and pleasure, that we miss it. It isn’t until we come against a wall that we realize we have been paying a price and we need to turn back to our starting point.
Going back home
The best we have going for us is our innocence, because if we have learned to be resentful or envious, our path will be more tortuous and painful. What saves Pinocchio is his naivete and recognizing he did lie and did what was wrong.
When confronted with a fall or a great loss, there is an illusion that going back home will be safe. And so, we turn back to find comfort.
From LovePanky
And off we need to go and figure out who we are and where we come from.
Saving our father from the belly of the whale
This is the most beautiful part of Jordan’s interpretation of the story. For those of us who are lost in the midst of life and don’t know where to turn, we need to save our father from the belly of the monster of nature. We are magnificent creatures born from nature and culture. Nature has a piece of us and wants us all; our father is a surrogate agent of culture; he has given us the flame of that torch passed down from generations. This light has enabled us to be in a world which at first we found amicable, but as we grew and played in it, we found it to be violent and adverse. It pushed me to a cliff and challenged me to define who I am, or it would push me off the cliff… and all of it hurts. Reconciling with our father is at the same time, being grateful for the light I received and the culture that nurtured me until I was challenged to define who I am.
Becoming a real boy as a consequence of our bravery in the face of death
"The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why" brilliantly stated Mark Twain; the second is your way of saving your father from the belly of the monster of life. The fruit of that heroic act is you become real.
Another tale in the story: Geppetto’s perspective
He is a kind craftsman; he makes wooden clocks and toys. He knows time’s limit on life and feels something is lacking in his life. He creates something beautiful and wishes for it to be alive. It is very much like us when we set ourselves to make something of our lives and challenge our best to accomplish something worthwhile.
There is a close relation between our creation and our effort to put it forth and make it flourish and become real. Take for example the initial stages of any objective, it depends more on your discipline, how you manage the stages of its development or your clear vision so you can capture the momentum of your effort with everything else. It is a mixture of your effort and the magical conspiracy of fate or the Universe, as you want to put it… some call it luck. But nothing is truer than Samuel Goldwyn’s quote, the harder I work, the luckier I get.
The puppet becomes alive
Then the creation takes off just a bit. It is like the puppet, it has all kinds of strings attached, but it has no real life, it just moves. Then something marvelous happens, it gains momentum, and it has a will. It seems to have its own pace. It is a process, but in due time, you will be following its lead.
If we are rightly aligned, if our purpose and our intention are in sync, we are being used by something greater inside of us to put forward something greater than us. When it comes to life it is separate from us and so it has to fumble its way around. Like Geppetto we can only guide it towards what he understand to be the proper path (school), because what do we know what a puppet that comes to life needs? And it will go down its own path.
Then we may attempt to save our creation, and by doing it we will find ourselves devoured by the monster of nature or in this case civilization. If our heart was on the right track, that creation will come back to save us. Yes, even from the belly of the monster and, against all odds and in the most unconventional way, it will set us free.
One example
Steve Jobs founded Apple; it was his creation. At one time in the life of the company, it forced its creator out, after a power struggle between Jobs and the board and CEO; they thought of Jobs as an obstacle.
The creation went astray, it thought it could be whatever it could be. For Jobs it was a debacle, but because his heart was set right and he wanted to achieve his vision of using a computerized device to leverage productivity for individuals, he started NEXT, a specialized platform for higher education and the business sector. Even with all his knowledge and experience, it would have been very unlikely that he would have been successful in the short term.
Then Apple, his puppet that had come to life, run into Pleasure Island, it thought it could do everything it wanted without consequences. But it ran into a wall, it had dozens of products and had difficulty marketing them. Finance sources closed the door and the future looked grey.
So, the puppet had to go back and save his father from the belly of the monster.
Interestingly, upon Jobs’ return, he ran APPLE in a very unconventional way, he sold all his stock and paid all the board members so he could have plenipotentiary power. He was left as the sole decision maker in the company. Against all conventional marketing strategies, he reduced the products to a handful of products with little difference in specs, and set a marketing campaign that turned the company around.
At the time of Steve Jobs’ death in 2011, Apple was worth $10 billion, and today (2023) it is worth $2.97 trillion.
What lesson can we derive from Geppetto’s perspective?
We are extraordinary creatures. We can go evermore deeper in everything we choose to do. The world is a screen where I see my story. Do not be vexed if you are confronted with something you disapprove of, or even if you feel offended by; you are seeing yourself, and sometimes that is scary, and other times it is offensive.
When following your dreams with hard work, you are bound to find obstacles, feel like a fool and a cheat. The fool is the precursor of the wise, and any really smart individual would take heed of the opinion of the fool... it points us in the right direction. So, if you are attempting something new, aspiring to a great ambition and backing it with hard work, even if you fail, the objective will become embodied and will come back to save you.
Set your objectives and aim right, be upstanding in everything you do. Leap Forward, no matter how many times you fall, don’t budge. There is no shortcut to greatness. Your creation will come back and save you; your actions will empower your resurfacing no matter how deep and lost you are.
Coming next Wednesday
The new column EL PUNTO a la i:
Cómo salir del túnel del tiempo en que se ha convertido Venezuela.
[EN: How to get out of the Time Tunnel Venezuela has become]
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I don’t know if you caught last week’s notification, so here it is:
A new turn in our column…
I have been challenged by my personal objective to take a new turn. As you may have figured out, I am Venezuelan, and the pain and sorrow of my people calls to me. I have Venezuela closed in a fist inside my heart.
I have been given the opportunity to write for Analitica.com in Spanish. I have designed a new column EL PUNTO a la i, which I will publish in a new column here in Substack.com.
Due to my current level of commitment, I will not be able to do both weekly, so for CONNECTING THE DOTS I will write one article a month at least and you will keep receiving the new column EL PUNTO a la i also on Wednesdays.
If you do not want to receive this Spanish column, feel free to unsubscribe to it. However, remember you can have Chrome translate the article to your language, something a few of my readers have done with our present English articles.
I hope you understand my decision and I ask you to pray for our beautiful Venezuela and our people, we need all the help we can get.
By the end of the month, I will share an article I have been working on
The Way of Jesus of Nazareth
Leap Forward into what you truly are.
