story – DOLCE

Happily Ever After – A Fairy Tale with a Twist

It was a cloudy morning when Rapunzel first spotted the prince, riding on his majestic horse, towards her tower. Even from the distance, she could feel his glorious, royal, entitled, prince-like vibe. She shuddered in disgust even thinking about it.

Rapunzel wasn’t a normal princess. She wasn’t cute, charming and charismatic-that was what everyone else pictured her to be. Oh, no. She was rebellious, stubborn, daring, adventurous. And just when she thought she had had enough of sitting still and looking pretty, she decided to leave her royal castle and lock herself up in her beautiful tower, called Antilia. Of course, she had her pet dragon, Ares, for protection.

Rapunzel hated unwanted attention. But her isolation had only seemed to have gained her more attention than she used to get in the first place. People all over Europe thought she was a damsel in distress, a frightened princess, waiting to be saved. And so they sent their finest men and bravest knights to save her.

They never returned. Ares constantly craved for human flesh.

And now, there was another ‘knight in shining armour’, wishing to save Rapunzel. Another knight unaware of his likely death in a few minutes.

“So much for heroism,” Rapunzel thought to herself.

She watched nonchalantly as the prince approached her tower and she signalled Ares to stay alert and get ready. But as she continued watching, she noticed something different about this prince. She felt his arrogant determination, and in that instant knew he wouldn’t stop until she was saved. When the prince reached the tower, he valiantly leapt onto the dragon’s head, and within mere minutes, he slew the dragon.

None of this even seemed to bother Rapunzel, who only grumbled in response and picked up her long, black Stygian sword.

Oh, and she definitely didn’t let down her hair when he asked her to.

When the prince painstakingly climbed up the tower and finally made it to the top, Rapunzel looked him dead in the eye, smiled gracefully, and in the most charming way possible, said, “Thank you!”

Aaand then she stabbed him in the heart with a swift and clean movement of her sword.

“Ah, fairy tales,” she thought to herself, as she climbed down the tower.

“The stuff that dreams are made of.”

She then took the prince’s horse and rode away into the horizon, ready to chase down another adventure, and equally ready for other men to chase down her.

Featured Image: warrior girl by staino

#TEDTalkTuesday

From TED Talks: The Official TED Guide To Public Speaking by Chris Anderson :-

The house lights dim. A woman, her palms sweating, her legs trembling just a little, steps out onto the stage. A spotlight hits her face, and 1200 pairs of eyes lock onto hers. The audience senses her nervousness. There is palpable tension in the room. She clears her throat and starts to speak.

What happens next is astounding.

The 1200 brains inside the heads of 1200 independent individuals start to behave very strangely. They begin to sync up. A magic spell woven by the woman washes over each person. They gasp together. Laugh together. Weep together. And as they do so, something else happens. Rich, neurologically encoded patterned of information inside the woman’s brain are somehow copied and transferred to the 1200 brains in the audience. These patterns will remain in those brains for the rest of their lives, potentially impacting their behaviour years into the future.

The woman on the stage is weaving wonder, not witchcraft. But her skills are as potent as any sorcery.

Ants shape each other’s behaviour by exchanging chemicals. We do it by standing in front of each other, peering into each other’s eyes, waving our hands and emitting strange sounds from our mouths. Human-to-human communication is a true wonder of the world. We do it unconsciously everyday. And it reaches its most intense form on the public stage.

The campfires or old have spawned a new kind of fire. A fire that spreads from mind to mind, screen to screen: the ignition of ideas whose time has come. From the first time our ancestors teamed up to take down a mammoth to Neil Armstrong’s first step onto the moon, people have turned spoken words into astonishing shared achievements.

We need that now more than ever. Ideas that could solve our toughest problems often remain invisible because the brilliant people in whose minds they reside lack the confidence or the know- how to share those ideas effectively. That is a tragedy. At a time when the right idea presented the right way can ripple across the world at the speed of light, spawning copies of itself in millions of minds, there’s huge benefit to figuring out how best to set it on its way, both for you, and for the rest of the world who need to know what you have to say.

Are you ready?

Let’s go light a fire.

#TEDTalkTuesday

From TED Talks: The Official TED Guide To Public Speaking by Chris Anderson :-

The house lights dim. A woman, her palms sweating, her legs trembling just a little, steps out onto the stage. A spotlight hits her face, and 1200 pairs of eyes lock onto hers. The audience senses her nervousness. There is palpable tension in the room. She clears her throat and starts to speak.

What happens next is astounding.

The woman on the stage is weaving wonder, not witchcraft. But her skills are as potent as any sorcery.

Are you ready?

Let’s go light a fire.

Watch the most popular TED Talks of all time:

https://www.ted.com/playlists/171/the_most_popular_talks_of_all