WE are each others dragon slayers

I​'ve been taking a break from Facebook. Not to be off Facebook, but to refocus my writing energies. To take on a project I've long  needed to but couldn't for many reasons.

The break hasn't felt like a break. I told a friend it's much easier to write the stories around you than it is to drill up the stories within you. But there comes a time when the stories within feel like they are eating you alive, taking fiery dragon size chunks out of your soul, and truth becomes an urgent leap for a life preserver.

I wrote this one of the first days of this project:

We are born with dragons. In the moment of birth, life becomes a conflict of us against the dragons.

In some childhoods, the dragons grow and breathe a forever inferno that sears the heart and the soul and the mind of the dragon's captive. And yet, in more hopeful spaces, the dragons are slain. And the slayer is always truth.

All my life, I had lived out this battle between me and my dragons. All my life, I had felt a searing pain with no idea where it was coming from. How on earth does a man unknowingly have dragons living within him? And how on earth is it, that in a world so vast, it would ultimately be a complete stranger who would introduce him to them.

I don't know the answer to those questions. They are buried somewhere in the truth. And although I have a deep longing to speak that language - the language of truth - it is still a struggle.

It is still an exploration.

In many ways, that is what this story is. It is my attempt to learn and practice the language of truth. To grab hold of and never let go of the mighty weapon that truth can become in our lives.

The weapon we can lift high above our heads and plunge once and for all into the fiery mouth of the dragon and kill the relentless pain that countless other weapons could never manage to kill.

My writing project is far from complete. The more I write the more I know that. But I felt called to share that piece of the project. A calling that comes with a strong and heartbreaking sense of urgency.

Last week, I was in a work meeting. Some of our consultants shared data from a survey that was conducted among young adults in Virginia last year. Young people who are 18-25 years old.

The data showed that young people are still using a lot of drugs and alcohol. The most startling part about that is they are starting younger than ever.

But here are the heartbreaking numbers. Numbers I wish would take away the collective breath of every living person.

Of the 5,000 young people who responded, almost half of them said they were so sad or lonely or depressed at some point the previous year that they couldn't do their life - school, work, relationships - for at least a 2 week period.

Further, 65% of them said that if they had something hard going on in their life, they didn't feel like they had anyone they could talk to about it.

Half of them desperately depressed, more than half of them with no one to talk to about that. We have an epidemic of young people walking around being eaten alive by their dragons.

Yesterday, I saw the story of a man people call tWitch. I myself wasn't very familiar with him or his work. But it was clear he was dearly loved by the outside world.

I found myself wondering yesterday, what is it he couldn't tell the outside world that so dearly loved him? What story did he have that couldn't be translated into truth. What story had he held onto until it could not longer be held a second longer?

I strongly support suicide lines. And therapy. And checking in with friends and loved ones. And reminding people that they will be missed.

But I need everyone to know, all of those things are helpful, but quite often they don't slay dragons. It's very risky to outsource dragon slaying.

Because dragons are slayed in the middle of deep and loving human connection. WE - WE are each others' dragon slayers.

Dragons are slayed when we become lovingly curious about each others truths. A curiosity so deep that we are willing to slam on the brakes of our lives and listen. Not tomorrow or this weekend or when we have a little more free time. But right now.

Dragons don't operate out of convenience. I assure you of that.

Dragons are slayed not out of obligation, but out of intense desire. An intense desire to slay someone's dragons as much as they want them slayed.

A desire not only open to but inviting of truth. Truth - the universal language of dragon slayers.

I don't know if we see it or not; it scares me to death that I don't believe we do. But we live in a world that is largely hidden from the truth.

I know, how can that be? We have a billion media outlets sharing the truth. We have social media platforms hosting billions of contributors sharing the truth. We have thousands of religions sharing the truth. Politicians and non-profits and corporate executives sharing the truth.

Truth is everywhere.

You can believe that, until you look around and see a world disappearing before your eyes. The famous and the not so famous. And they are all taking the ultimate truth with them. A truth they didn't know how to tell because truth is such a hard language to learn and speak.

Until it eats you alive. Like a dragon.

You will be with someone who has dragons today. I promise you that. You will be face to face with them. Let them know you speak the language of truth.

Let them know the truth you speak and hear looks like love and acceptance and holding. Holding on to one another as you watch dragons die.

There is no more difficult but beautiful kind of holding.

65% of our young people say they have no one to talk to when they have something hard going on. Dragons love those numbers; humans die because of them.

WE cannot afford to outsource dragon slaying; dragon slaying is a WE thing and WE must hold each other and lovingly invite and honor the language of truth. Each others truth.

Or we will watch it disappear, faster and faster, and take with it too many that we all deserve to have with us just a little longer.