THE LETTER FROM THE MENTOR
Copywriter • Creator • Chief Call-To-Adventure Officer
Artwork by Ryan McConnell • Animation by Abigail Hogue
COPYWRITERS WEAR MANY HATS. ONE OF MINE WAS A WIZARD’S.
I’m the guy with the triangle nose and beard below. Only one of these attributes is true in real life.
Every Tuesday for the past two years, “The Mentor” wholesomely catfished 60,000 people with weekly encouragements, life advice, and a little nudge toward adventure.
Greetings, hero!
As the Mentor, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in the position of breaking the news to people. See, being a Mentor isn’t all fun and games—every now and then, I’ve got to strap my pointiest hat on my head and go spill the beans on the biggest secret the universe has to offer. I’ve seen every reaction you can imagine, from joy to horror to excitement to sheer terror, and everything in between. And today, I get to do it once again—I get to let you in on the secret.
See, the world around you isn’t everything it seems. Not everything plays by the normal set of rules. And there are times and places where the normal laws that govern our reality turn out to be closer to suggestions, guidelines more or less on how things “normally” function, but not how they always have to.
I’ve heard that secret called many things, with many names given to describe its attributes (and those who know about them). But personally, I’ve always been a sucker for the simplest explanation, the one that still fills my heart with courage and awe even to this day: magic.
Magic is real. And I know it rarely seems like it is—for the world all to often feels like the least magical place of all, the most ordinary of all imaginable places. But can you really prove me wrong? Think: the brief moments when everything comes together, when all the random, ordinary parts of life brush up against something new, when a strange, wonderful, terrifying reality crashes into ours. The moments, ordinary and extraordinary, where the whole adds up to so much more than the sum of its parts, and the only word we feel can even begin to accurately describe the moment is magic.
And what is magic, anyway, except for the ability to, with our words and actions, change our reality? Isn’t that what we really dream of? Not just the wands or potions or scary monsters, but the ability to make things as they currently are not, to use our words and actions to shape everything around us into something new, something different, something better?
Well, today you are in on the secret: that power has been yours all along. Magic is real. And you are now brought into the fold of those who can change reality. It takes time and effort, yes. And instruction and perseverance. But all of that can come later—for now, know this. Magic is real, and you are a magician.
May the road rise up to meet you!
The Mentor
Greetings, hero!
As I write this letter, I know many of the people who would normally read it will not—and with good reason. They’re off cavorting in the snow, spending time with their families, remembering old traditions and singing songs that only come up this time of the year. And I doubt most of them want to step away from eggnog and the fire long enough to read a letter like this one!
But every year, there’s a second group of people. Those who either go through the motions of the holiday season without really feeling them, or those who have no reason to even keep the pretense. And this year especially, with so many people stuck at home or away from their normal holiday patterns, it can be especially hard to feel any kind of magic this year.
It’s those people, I think, who are probably reading a letter like this one. And while circumstances may prevent me from making space for each and everyone of them by the fire, insisting you try a cookie or two, and finding something to wrap and put your name on, I can offer this instead:
Whatever holiday you celebrate, if you find yourself celebrating this time of year, you also find yourself in the dead of winter. The days are at their shortest, the weather bleak, and all the trees and vegetation is as close to dying as it ever finds itself. We also find ourselves stripped away from our normal comforts, the patterns and rhythms of work and rest that make up our ordinary lives, disrupted by maybe a little too much introspection.
It’s the reason why, in Narnia, the worst possible world imaginable is one covered in perpetual ice without the promise of the coming spring, when the world will thaw and grow again—a world where it’s always winter, and never Christmas.
But I think there’s also a reason why we celebrate the Holidays at this time of year. It’s not just that we love sledding, or that hot cocoa is scientifically proven to taste better when it’s cold outside. It’s that the holidays are about hope, the hope of the coming spring, the belief that, in the midst of deepest, darkest parts of the year, the world will once again be warm and bright.
So if you find yourself reading this letter, feeling a little less festive than you might wish, all I can tell you is that you have adequately apprehended the nature of the world. It is, in a very real sense, not the most wonderful time of the year. But deep beneath the frozen earth, past the darkness, isolation, and drudge, there is a glimmer. A tiny flame, waiting seed, the beginnings of a hope that will soon come roaring into life—the coming spring, a new life. Something worth hoping for.
May the road rise up to meet you!
The Mentor
Greetings, hero!
Do or do not, there is no try. Those are familiar words from a familiar mentor, words that have been quoted and misquoted so often that they now feel almost cliche.
In fact, I’ve heard those words so many times, seen them on so many mugs and T-Shirts, and read so many parodies of them that I almost forgot that for the longest time, I didn’t actually understand what it meant.
The reality is that life is trying: it tries our courage, our virtue, our strength, our patience. It tries to get the best of us, tries to have our back, and sometimes tries us on for size!
Not only is life trying, but life requires trying. Trying new hobbies, food, and clothes. Trying to meet new people. Trying your best. So much pushing and pulling and prodding that the words of a small green jedi master telling us that there is no try seem bizarre, almost comical.
But there’s a different kind of trying—one that is far too easy to slip into. It’s our natural reaction to tasks that feel impossible, when we come up against something we think we can’t accomplish. It could be a great feat, like moving a mountain with your mind, or an old wound, something that has become a mountain within your mind.
We tell ourselves that we’ll try. We’ll try going to the gym again, to see if it’s different this time. We’ll try picking up the guitar in the corner, or dusting off the novel we abandoned. But we know in our heart of hearts that it’s all futile. We know that things will not have magically gotten better. And secretly, we know we don’t want them to—we’re trying instead of doing because we’re really just trying to prove to ourselves that we could never do it all anyway.
Because if you tell yourself that you’re only going to try, you end up not actually trying in the first place. And that, my dearest heroes, is why there is only two options—to do or do not. Yes, the path to any heroic endeavor is a long one—but it’s a long path doing the small things you can to advance, not the short path of trying once.
So do or do not—but don’t undercut yourself by just trying.
May the road rise up to meet you!
The Mentor