Dormammu, I’ve come to bargain
If you’ve read some of my posts, you will see quite a number of references to movies. Not so recent ones, as I’ve not been really able to watch recent movies without much prompting from someone else. I like to choose, I am picky like that.
Today’s reference is from the first installment of Dr. Strange in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’ franchise. Here is someone given to his job as a doctor, good at it, aware of it and doesn’t shy away from tooting his horn.
Such a man is hauled headlong from the realm where everything was black and white and could be explained by logic into a world of fantasy and mysticism and all the rules of logic were thrown out the door.
As you may have read in one of my previous pieces, (https://medium.com/@olu_bisileko/johannes-xxix-the-unfiltered-d1038384fa0a), I am a fan of time manipulation in movies and most of my favorite movies have that recurrent theme.
I hope I have primed you enough for what I would want you to know.
At a time when all seemed lost in the aforementioned movie, Dr. Strange, who by some twist of fate had been able to wield the Time Stone and run endless loops of the same series of events, was caught in a bargain with Dormammu, the evil overlord villain of the movie.
For every time his negotiation failed and he was killed, he returned again. In that moment within which he had trapped, he was powerless in all things, save for the fact that he could return to do it all over again. The bet was never on him gaining enough power to really duel and win; it was in the fact that he had wielded time to keep asking for the same thing till his adversary got tired enough to give in.
Back to earth and relatable examples.
You are not Dr. Strange and you’ve definitely not met a real-life Dormammu. However, you’ve been through life enough to be disappointed, to. have worked on a project that failed at the last stage, to have a download fail at 90 percent or higher or a rejection from which you thought you would never recover from.
Events like this or variants of them are what we’ve all known and seen.
Like I said before, there are no real-life Dormammus or Dr, Stranges, but I’ll like to borrow you for a while. I’ll like for you to assume both characters.
Like snails, we have retreated into our shells and lost the audacity to try again. We have had huge losses, expectations built on trackable efforts and not just hope which did not pan out and we have given up and yielded a part of our will to try perhaps another battle, but not that again.
You are both Dormammu and Dr. Strange, wielding the power to keep trying and granting yourself the permission to finally experience victory on that plane.
It is not easy; as we all know every defeat, rejection and setback drains us a little of the will to continue. It could be a job application, a career shift, further studies, exams, a work/personal project or something which means a lot to you.
It’s like something dies in us at every unsuccessful attempt, and robs us of the ability to try again.
Perhaps, I might introduce you to Caleb in the Holy Bible (Joshua 14:7–11) who affirmed that though the promise had been given 45 years before when he was 40 years old, his strength remained the same to take possession of that which had been promised him.
You have tried your hands at Web 2 and its not yet making sense and Web 3 is already here and seems to be moving faster than you can grasp it.
What you need to do is find your youth again. Only with the sense of adventure of a youth can we wake up and dare to go again, irrespective of how long the wait has been or how many rejections we have received.
Whatever it is, awake and tell Dormammu that you’re back again to bargain.
Excelsior!!!
