“Feel my…my…my…my…serpentine!”
~Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, “Welcome To The Jungle”
(This is a standalone first part to a two-part note on snakes from the upcoming Goblincore Handbook, written by myself and Mr. A. Goblin. The other half is in the book, which you should prepare to buy. Repeatedly, if necessary.)
So there ARE Goblin psychiatrists, but it’s a difficult profession. They do help quite a lot of Goblins before they inevitably go mad, and after they go mad, they write amazing poetry. Myself, while I acknowledge it’s important, like fighting giant squid or doing tax law, it’s rather terrifying to think about.
We therefore don’t necessarily need accurate models of our brain, so much as we need accurate ways of describing them.
We’d like you to remember that you are you, a (hopefully) semi-unified whole. This is (mostly) a metaphor, but—
There’s a snake in your head. When you experience a negative emotion, an urge to do something not just inappropriate but dangerous or deeply offputting to others, it will whisper to you, “Go ahead. They deserve it. And even if they don’t, YOU do.”
The snake may be right. They MAY deserve it. That doesn’t mean that giving it to them will grant you any of what you actually seek though.
We think of it as a snake, because once we recognize these urges, it’s easy to blame your mind for having these feelings (which are generally quite natural; just not positive. Like having tonsils, or poor eyesight, or a taste for Def Leppard.)
We do recognize (most of us) that there (probably) (I think) isn’t a REAL poisonous snake in your brain. But if you start listening for it (NOT listening TO it)—you’ll start to notice that in times of high emotion, you want to express it, sometimes in ways which are not just unconstructive, but not at all fun. In fact, they can overall lead to a serious decrease in your enjoyment of life without a commensurate positive to outweigh it.
So we think of it as a snake.
Snakes are physical. Snakes are real. And there are those of us who react to frustration and pain with a desire to stomp on something.
Avoid Humand and Humanoids at that time; if you REALLY need to get into a fight, do it when you’re ready and it’s appropriate, not when you’re randomly upset.
STOMP THE SNAKE IN YOUR HEAD.
It’s much more useful.
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If you hate this, we’re sure you’ll also hate The Ambassador and the Goblins Go To War
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