TACFIT Ventura County 805
  • TACFIT 805 - Ventura Kettlebell Sport
  • TACFIT 805 Events
  • Articles & Blog Posts
  • Contact
    • Special Product Offers

The Journey of Jack: The Pumpkin King Who Lost his Halloween.

11/1/2015

0 Comments

 

Legion, I hope you all had a wickedly fun Halloween this year. Out and about or you were like me and stayed home and enjoyed Nightmare Before Christmas after some training and a huge dinner. 

As I watched the classic Halloween film I was reminded of the running theme that the movie emphasizes with Mr. Jack Skellington The Pumpkin King. It filled me so that I decided to write today on that very theme that Tim Burton made Jack to embody. The Pumpkin king who lost his Halloween, but found it inside himself where it was all along.

Picture
In the beginning of the film we see Jack, the Pumpkin King, lamenting his crown as the master of fright claiming a longing and an emptiness that echoed in his bones. 

" Nice work; Bone Daddy...." says one of the undead Jazzists
" Yeah I guess...just like last year...and the year before that..." Jack sighs in return.

Jack then sings of his prowess of terror above all, but it isn't enough. Citing something unknown numbs his praises and lauding of his ghoulish commands.  No matter how amazing he is...no one understands his longing. 
"Somethings up with Jack!" His friends worry to each other.

Jack's world has become so dull. As he strolls though the woods he falls into the world of Christmas town and taken by all it's glories, lights, pies, and spirit. He yearns to become apart of the Christmas world. 

Many of us, I feel, are like Jack too. We feel unsatisfied by what we are and what we have. We are convinced we are not enough. So though we may be masters of fright like Jack we go searching relentlessly to find the answer outside ourselves. Sometimes we become consumed by something so different from us that seemingly has "the answer to our longing." 
Picture
We become blinded by the idea of changing ourselves. Not changing to evolve who we are but changing who we are completely. We cannot see ourselves with the eyes of the potential of the best versions of ourselves of who we are already. 

We see this as Jack feels Christmas has the answer he seeks and decides to have Christmas for himself! He sets upon having Halloweentown try to make their own Christmas. Projecting that they should be jolly NOT horrifying and it will be great! 

But alas...though Jack's friends try to oblige their beloved leader they cannot ignore their natural inclinations coming through. The toys become killer, the candy is poison, and the decorations instill fear instead of cheer.
​Many times this is how we are. We cannot ignore our true nature. It is apart of us. We can upgrade, learn, try, experiment, evolve, regress then progress, but it must all be in the service of forging our innate gifts. The innate greatness we have been born with whatever that may be. 

Some of us (for this past holiday's sake) our monsters while others are elves and such. 

Picture
This experience is even apart of the Hero's Journey I often talk about. Ignoring our own unique call to action! We become frustrated and like Jack no matter what we do we cannot make sense of anything and it just becomes worse and worse; but we are hypnotized by the surface of something exotic, like a snowflake to a scarecrow. It steals us and steals our focus and nabs our self belief; because we will not be enough until we can mimic the greatness that we project on these wild and curious ideas that are so different from us and how we are made.

We try and try...but our efforts run dry; we can never make things work. 
"Like a snowflake in a fiery grip!" Jack exclaims! 

Picture
We study and study...

Consumed that we are empty and our idea of these foreign things will solve all our problems. 

"We will be happy when...I can be happy then..." 

Eventually...                                            We become angry. 
Some then break free from the twilight zone of our self imposed lacking. Then some give up and trade in their potential for the self killing cycle of biding their time with distractions until they die.
Booze, a desk job they hate, an relationship of security, whatever their "safety blanket" may be in the form of. 

Picture
Picture
Picture
How do we keep this from happening to us?

Well this is both so easy and so hard. 

Sometimes we simply need to see ourselves through the eyes of someone who loves us and see our potential. 
Like Sally saw Jack's longing but saw that he was not seeing himself as she saw him.  
While Jack lost himself in the emptiness above him; Sally saw a king on top a mountain with all the graveyard pumpkins at his command and all the ghoulish hordes that followed him faithfully. 
​

The other way some break this spell is by simply tiring of the fruitless fight.

How no matter what one does they cannot NOT be themselves. An apple no matter how hard it tries will not be a banana, and a fish will never climb trees nor a monkey patrol Poseidon's palace.  
Some embrace this positively and some negatively. 
Some say I am a troubled individual, they say "I will never be anything more then I will be the most troubled that has ever been!" (secondary impressionism as the psychology of deviance points out). 
The positive is primary impressionism. They see how they are seen because of who they are, but the hold how the see themselves and above all how THEY WANT to be seen as the reference guide for their choices and actions. Who they want to become becomes what carves out their character until they become someone even more amazing then they had thought the could become!

Watch as Jack get carried away by this epiphany! How he finally understands his place and how who he is is his gift that fulfills the empty hole in his hollowed bones.

"THAT'S RIGHT! I AM THE PUMPKIN KING!" 
Jack realizes what he had lost all along was himself and his own purpose in life as the master of fright. 
More importantly he he sees that it's never too late to set it all right. 

Picture
We are all King or Queen of our greatest adventure and version of ourselves. 
Coincidentally as I was thinking about writing this I saw that Elliot Hulse, whom I fallow closely, is coming out with a new book soon entitled "King."
I chuckled. Funny how somethings are universal and invade all aspects of seemingly unrelated endeavors. 
Elliot if you ever read this. Thanks man. 


​So, Legion - 
I hope you take the time to realize and rediscover your own innate royalty. You were meant to be the King or Queen of you passions and your dreams. Only by following this will you become the fullest version of the Hero you are and enrich this adventure of life that is yours. 
Take who you are, who you were meant to be, who you want to be truly, and find a way to combine all these together.
You are naturally already designed to solve this equation. It is there. Under your nose as it was for Jack. It was all around him, open up your eyes to see what's in front of your face as they say. Perhaps you need the eyes of a beloved friend to show you first, but remember in the end it will only matter what you see.
It's okay to be a little mad too. You have to be to follow your own adventure. Sanity is an invisible leash someone else put on you who is scared of their own happiness and hate's seeing others find theirs. 

You must look inside. A hollow king can never hold his throne.
Search without rest - deep in your bones - look beyond how the world seems - you will find you are your own Pumpkin King! 

Happy Training, Legion. 
​   

Picture
Picture
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    Picture
    Click the product page for special access to the TACFIT products

    Nicholas Anderson
    805-901-2899

    Certified TACFIT instructor under TACFIT creator, Scott B. Sonnon.

      Enter the Legion...Here

    Submit

    Archives

    December 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • TACFIT 805 - Ventura Kettlebell Sport
  • TACFIT 805 Events
  • Articles & Blog Posts
  • Contact
    • Special Product Offers
✕