Be Brillig!

"`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe."

Jabberwocky, Lewis Carroll

This famous poem has been studied, dissected and analyzed for years in high school english and college english literature courses. The poem is loaded with nonsensical words and phrases that nontheless paint a picture of the legendary mythical monster and describe the fear and terror of the beast in vivid (if abstract) detail.

Fear of the unknown is one of the most powerful and crippling forms of terror. Fear, anxiety and panic are thought to be neurochemically driven responses that are encoded in our DNA as a survival mechanism. It has been said that the body retains no memory of pain. We can recall pleasant times when we felt relaxed, calm or secure but to call up an accurate memory of physical pain is difficult. Ask a mother if it is easier to relive the pain of her baby's delivery or remember the feeling she had watching the sun set from the deck of a cruise liner she was on many years ago and she will recall the pleasant memory much faster. Fear, has an achilles heel.

To me being 'brillig' is to be on guard, to draw a deadly weapon, wait calmly for an attack and to be the first to strike when the monster lunges. I don't know if it is an adjective or a noun. I don't really care (and neither did anyone else in my high school english class). The poem is still a classic.

Never mind the mome raths!

BE BRILLIG!!