
Fancy Believing in the Goblin King (2017) - ttronicm
http://lifeonmagrs.blogspot.com/2017/10/fancy-believing-in-goblin-king-my.html
======
jerf
The ultimate "hack" is to hack your own brain. It's how the metaphorical man
riding the elephant [1] gets the most mileage out of his efforts, figuring out
how to manipulate the elephant any way necessary.

The intelligent, rational part of the brain sneers derisively at the invisible
mask. It's obviously not there. It obviously can't do anything. It is, in its
own way, entirely correct. Yet the elephant does not think that way, and to
it, the mask is there and effective, and in its own way, it too is entirely
correct.

This is how you break bad habits, make good habits, deal with procrastination,
and any number of other life goals the rider may find desirable. You don't
just sit there futilely trying to kick the elephant harder directly in the
direction you want to go; you figure out how to lead it to want what you want
it to want. The rider has an immense amount of control, once the rider
embraces how little control the rider has.

(At least for a while, one of the YCombinator entrance questions was to
describe a time you hacked a system or something. I think if I were ever to
apply, I'd pull my answer from this. One of my biggest personal ones is just
telling myself "Look, literally millions of other people have done this (in
some cases billions), surely I can manage too?" Is, for example, the first day
of college scary in some ways? Sure. But how hard can it _really_ be? An awful
lot of people make it through the first day.)

[1]: [http://sourcesofinsight.com/the-elephant-and-the-
rider/](http://sourcesofinsight.com/the-elephant-and-the-rider/)

~~~
pier25
Interesting metaphor.

Any links you can share on taming the elephant?

~~~
jws
Years ago, in possibly Thailand, I went for an elephant ride through the
jungle with my early teenaged daughter. She was very much into “how things
work”. The guide sat up on the elephant’s neck and drove by touching her
behind the ears with his feet. We sat further back in a pair of seats. At one
point the guide got down and ran backwards in front to video my daughter
sitting on the elephant’s neck and driving. Being who she was she decided
actually drive and put her foot against one of the elephants ears just like
the guide. Without missing a step the elephant reached around with her trunk,
looped around my daughter’s leg and placed it gently back on her shoulder.
(The elephant’s shoulder.)

Ok, this isn’t a lot of practical help on taming an elephant, except that
maybe “befriending” or “establishing a working relationship with” would be
better words than taming.

~~~
pier25
Nice parable :)

------
pier25
This reminded me of the psychomagic thing by Alejandro Jodoworsky. It's a
therapeutic technique to heal psychological traumas via symbolic acts much
like the invisible mask. The premise is that through these symbols one can
communicate with the unconscious.

Much like hypnosis or placebos it seems to work on some people.

------
pjc50
Interestingly I've heard this mask meme before - but from a different fantasy
author, Terry Pratchett, in _Maskerade_. I wonder if there's a common origin.
Either way it's a lovely story and empowering for some who hear it.

~~~
mcfunk
Definitely shades of Bowie's 'the mask' routine from his mime days
[https://vimeo.com/249177125](https://vimeo.com/249177125)

------
Qw3r7
David Bowie really is neat guy. Him and Trent Reznor used to best pals too. He
helped Trent come clean from his smack addiction.

I would also hands down believe this man's story knowing the issues David went
through balancing all of his personas.

------
waltwalther
This is beautiful. I love it, and thank you for sharing it.

------
RickJWagner
Great story. And really great of David Bowie to do such a thing.

------
sandyarmstrong
Amazing! But not Neil Gaiman. Follow the tumblr chain long enough and you find
the original source: [http://lifeonmagrs.blogspot.com/2017/10/fancy-believing-
in-g...](http://lifeonmagrs.blogspot.com/2017/10/fancy-believing-in-goblin-
king-my.html)

This is an absolutely lovely story. Thank you for sharing it. I choose to
believe it's true.

~~~
riffraff
Indeed, I would say the link should be updated to point to the original. OTOH,
this feels gainmanesque enough.

~~~
wrinkl3
Yeah, I read the whole thing in Gaiman's voice and it fit perfectly. The only
thing that tipped me off was that Gaiman would've probably been less surprised
about someone he knew having met David Bowie.

------
cypherpunks01
Since this post is not a story from Neil Gaiman, I figured I'd post one that
is—It's a short anecdote about his experience with Imposter Syndrome that I
like:

[https://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/160603396711/hi-i-
read-t...](https://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/160603396711/hi-i-read-that-
youve-dealt-with-with-impostor)

------
rahuldottech
@mods title is incorrect. It's a post by someone else that was re-blogged by
Neil.

~~~
dang
Yes. We've changed it now, and changed the URL from [https://neil-
gaiman.tumblr.com/post/166082106996/my-friend-t...](https://neil-
gaiman.tumblr.com/post/166082106996/my-friend-told-me-a-story-he-hadnt-told-
anyone) to the original source.

