Armin Van Buuren - Mirage
youtu.be/mfJC34tOZms



This is what ten meters of behavioral problems look like. He follows me everywhere, although he's afraid of everything. Sticks to me like my shadow. My Shadow? Yeah... He's my shadow! The only friend.


Sometimes it's really hard with him. The more I get to know this dragon, the weirder it gets. Something other than human, something other than animal. Something in between. Civilized, sure, but how? This mentality does not fit into any of the patterns known to mankind. It's also hard to find effective forms of help, there are no dragon therapists or psychologists. It's all trial and error, and dragon behavior is always unpredictable.


You can't civilize someone twice, so I don't project expectations and requirements on him in the standards of humanity or anything known to mankind. Despite all the problems, we can get along great, having known each other for about a year and a half, although we had seen each other before, since my birth.


#Golgaaryol


The dragon that arose as the hero of the Split Of Fate story and has become someone who broke the mirror barrier of fantasy.



He grew up mostly alone with no other dragons around, so all of his development is due to his genetic code and observation of his surroundings. Definitely a pretty typical Western Dragon. They are characterized by an almost extreme individualism, but it's not at all egocentric. I think he's deeply attached, very loyal.


Thanks to the dragon, I can operate a bit on the facts about what has been quite a mystery until now.



After birth, a human develops for a long time and is not ready to live independently for many years. After birth, an animal is almost ready to survive on its own - it will be guided by instincts and adapt to the environment.


The main difference is that we are dominated by the world of abstraction, and animals adapt to real conditions and basic, physiological needs. Humans and dragons can make the choice to be non-aggressive.


Mainly because our basic needs are almost globally assured - this pushes us to develop higher values. It’s our "spiritual" self-development and the desire to be valuable to others - something beyond physiological needs, almost ignoring them.


This shows how much the human race has complicated its existence and based it on existence in society. Man is like Tabula Rasa - these instincts are repressed in favor of being guided by abstract thinking - that is, we start with an empty book, and each experience writes more lines. And you can really write everything there. This is what is called "civilizing." Almost like a heated piece of glass taken straight from the furnace. We shape and solidify, like any other creature, but it is abstraction that drives us to be shapeshifters.


So think about how complicated a dragon is that it only develops its consciousness in 25 - 30 years - up to this age he's something of a baby, and at the same time his animal sides are fully developed, giving him the possibility of an independent existence almost from the moment of hatching.


However, it should be remembered that the lifespan is roughly 600 years. Golgaaryol is an adult male, about 120 years old, and his mentality and consciousness is constantly changing and developing. In this way, nature has secured this rare breed, giving them the ability to be deeply abstract, but without losing their strong instincts, which sometimes clash in their heads, leading to a severe internal tear, which is one of his major problems.



Humans are deeply religious beings. Even if one doesn't believe in gods, certainly believes in other “religions”, for example, the system, policy, money - all this is a belief in the abstract.


The dragon can understand all abstract concepts created by the human race, but he's completely not a follower of any of these concepts! He doesn't believe in gods, and can understand systems, economics, market principles, and money perfectly well, although he's not a materialist at all and is not interested in consumerism.


Understanding all this makes it a universal creature in terms of living in any human culture, able to understand everything and adapt anywhere, as long as the environment would allow him to remain a free individualist - otherwise, he will leave or rebel. It's certainly best suited to the western civilization of people due to individualism - this is a place for world explorers. Although he doesn't feel part of any civilization at all. He doesn't belong to any nationality - we should never project our human standards of understanding the world on them. For him, the world has no countries and no borders. I think that due to the lack of other dragons around, he became irreversibly damaged, which strongly shaped his too muted character.


One of the odd things for a human being could be that the dragon seems to treat humans and animals equally, but neither dehumanizes humans nor humanizes animals, as humans often tend to do. For the human race, he can certainly be a model of common-sense tolerance and outlook on the world, although he can be a harsh judge. He's mostly a silent creature, deeply broken down in depression, but there's an incredible level of pride about him in a way.


Why do dragons tend to hide from mankind? Because they know perfectly well that human life is always guided by some faith from abstraction - this faith has developed so that people can create unions for large communities, i.e. the combination of many different individuals, for example, into one nation - which is also only a faith from abstraction. And the worst thing a man can do to their mind is to blind its clarity with complete faith in the abstract, then realism becomes an unconscious shadow.


This problem can also apply to dragons, if through many repetitive experiences, they lose faith in other possibilities. However, this would be an individual problem, not a collective one.


Since there were never too many dragons and they never farmed, they never had to create property protection systems or unite for security. They missed the kind of development that involved people in rice culture or wheat-farming culture. They have always been predators. However, they had to survive through millennia of changing human cultures and conditions, which developed their amazing level of intelligence.



…



I was just doing a sketch, but unexpectedly shaded it, and this was created… The sketch was intended to show the size of the dragon, and the rest came spontaneously, at the request of the dragon. For the first time, I made the effect of directional light, a strong cut-off between light and shadow, which happened quite by accident - like everything i do. The plan was to make a simple sketch without any description…




…



It was inspired by my old sketch, the music mentioned above, and the study of other cultures;


https://www.deviantart.com/qahnaree.....king-976889053

More about it;
https://www.deviantart.com/qahnaree.....tion-982545136