A Luckdragon Story

Like most kids who grew up in the 1980’s, I hold a romanticized nostalgia for the cultural bastions of my youth. We love our G.I. Joe’s, and Transformers, Oregon Trail, and Nintendo, and we most certainly love the movies of our childhood, especially the litany that featured other kids, usually thrown into some larger than life circumstance like running from criminals through underground tunnels in search of One-eyed Willy’s gold, or befriending a malfunctioning talking robot, or being visited by an Extra Terrestrial, or sneaking into the school’s maintenance closet to read a stolen book whose characters are magically aware of the child reading the book in another realm.

We loved recess, as all kids do, but in the 80’s, when it rained during recess, they’d sit us in rows in the gym, roll in the TV cart from the AV room, and pop a VHS into the VCR. At my elementary school it was a rotation of The Last Unicorn (can’t believe they showed us this one), The Last Starfighter, Batteries Not Included, and our favorite, The Neverending Story.

As a kid, I was captivated by the idea of a kid hiding out in the maintenance closet of his school, the weird characters in Fantasia, the traumatic scene of Atreu losing his horse, Artax in the swamp of despair, the beautiful empress, and Falkor, the luckdragon. For those who don’t know, Falkor was a friendly, wingless, flying dragon with the face and ears of a spaniel who joins Atreu on his journey to save Fantasia from The Nothing. Pretty nerdy stuff, but I’m telling you, we all loved Falkor. He’s maybe one of the most recognizable characters in movie history, at least to our little sub-generation of kids born between the late 70’s and early 80’s, the Xennials, we’re called, or for some, the Oregon Trail Generation. Our childhoods were full of magic, and crazy creatures, and wild scenarios, and big stories, even if the telling of them required Muppets and animatronics and green screen effects that don’t hold up.

I tried to watch Neverending Story again as an adult and didn’t make it through, probably because I wasn’t in a place to see past those bad effects at the time. Recently, somewhere in the middle of a fantasy movie marathon with my daughter, we played Neverending Story. This time around, something was different. I recognized things I didn’t notice as a kid, like that Bastian, the early middle-school-aged main character, and his dad are likely grieving the loss of Bastian’s mom at the beginning of the movie. They are battling depression, sorrow, and uncertainty.

As he reads the book he “borrowed” from a bookstore into which he’d found refuge from some lunch money thieving bullies, he becomes intertwined into the story. Its characters are somehow aware of him. The world they live in, Fantasia, seems to represent Bastian’s mind, his imagination, his confidence, his joy. The problem of Fantasia is that it’s being destroyed by something called The Nothing. Just like Bastian’s own childlike psyche, it’s under attack, crumbling away from the outside in.

Atreu, the child hero of the book is connected to Bastian, the boy in the real world. Atreu is on a quest to save Fantasia. He’s journeying through obstacles, racing against time to get to the empress to give her a new name, which will stop the Nothing from destroying Fantasia.

Stay with me. Along the way, Atreu encounters Falkor, who says a Luckdragon shows up when you need him most. Falkor helps Bastian when he’s stuck, he flies him to safety, he encourages him on his quest. He was the perfect sidekick for the moment. He was the friend Atreu needed.

As I watched the movie with Indie, I was captivated again by the story. I loved the analogy of Fantasia representing our imagination, our hope, and our confidence. I loved the statement that maintaining those things sometimes requires a fight, and sometimes that fight requires help from a friend. I loved that The Neverending Story is a reminder of the power of stories to help us understand complex things. Bastian confronts his life’s problems through the story and comes out a hero, having restored the things that were fractured inside of his own mind.

I’d been planning for a while to do consulting work following my stint in the Mayor’s Office. I knew what kind of things I wanted to help people with but often struggled for the words. When asked what I’d be doing, I’d just kind of jokingly say something like “ya know, Blake for hire.” Lame answer, I know.

The reality is, in some of the opportunities already presented to me, I’m excited that I might be helping developers navigate the process of engaging with neighbors and City Hall. I might be helping people ideate what to do with a property. Sometimes I might be working on strategies to advance a complicated set of goals. Sometimes I might be working with individuals who are stuck and who just need someone to come alongside them for a while, helping them to imagine a different life. Whatever it is, I know it will likely look a lot like the work I was fortunate to do at City Hall, at OKPOP, and even in my life as an elected person and entrepreneur. It will likely include working through problems, building relationships, and connecting people to other helpers and resources.

All this interesting work that is a little bit creative and a little bit strategy will recognize the power of stories, especially those that stir our souls, that help us see things from someone else’s perspective, and that teach us things only a story can teach. That’s all, just kind of a mouthful. It certainly hadn’t been easy for me to express succinctly. Still isn’t, thus this wordy thing you’re reading.

For now, it’s just me, but I’ve got friends who I know to be about these same things who will sometimes be called in to help based on the nature of the problem. I wanted a structure that allowed for a skilled team of freelancers to be able to be assembled when needed, so that’s what this will be, a potential collective of problem solvers, strategists, storytellers, sidekicks.

When I watched Neverending Story, some things just came into focus. I want to be like the friendly dragon. I want to be a helper who shows up when people are stuck. I want to be able to leverage my experiences and abilities to help people see things from a different perspective. I want to fight for hope, and joy, and confidence, and imagination and I want to live in the magic of story. So, I gave it a name. I decided Falkor would be the example on which I’d base my new consulting business, and if it was a little cheesy, or if not everyone got it, that’s okay. I don’t mind explaining it. It’s a chance to tell a story.

So, if you or someone you know needs a sidekick on the journey, now you know a Luckdragon.