spiders of the curse

I remember how big of a deal it was when The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was released for the Nintendo 64. The first Zelda in 3D, a great experience, all that goodness. There were these monsters called Skulltulas, basically big ol spiders with skull heads or something like that. Weird dudes. So while you're adventuring in the first dungeon, you kill these even weirder looking skulltulas that are gold in color. When you kill one, it drops off a little gold token, which you collect. Um, cool? Obviously, we've just discovered a new side quest!

Well... after stomping the life out of a bunch of these gold spiders and collecting their tokens, you finally figure out what the deal is. You get to the Kakariko village and walk into yet another unsuspecting house. You figure that there's townsfolk there to tell you boring or possibly useful information, or maybe some pottery to smash. However, inside you just see a dark, dusty, empty old house. After taking a few steps, you realize you aren't alone, when from the ceiling a gigantic, nasty skulltula pops down.. AND.. tries.. talking to you?

Your instinct is to fight it, which you do, of course, and after managing to hurt it, it lets our a horrifying scream of pain. Then it hits you- this skulltula has part of a human face on it.. and a human arm. GROSS!

It turns out that this guy and his family were cursed, cursed to live as skulltulas until all the spiders of the curse (in other words, gold skulltulas) were destroyed. Thus started a trend in Legend of Zelda Games of collecting magical items in order to turn people back into people (seriously, it's in like every game after this one)

um... hey.. sorry about uh, well, trying to kill you.

So, I figure that because of these guys.. uh.. condition, it's probably pretty hard for them to get out of the house and talk to people. I'd guess that most people just freak out when they see them. I mean, only Link is nice enough to come over and visit them. They probably really appreciate that, even if he hasn't killed enough spiders of the curse.



The thing is, there's some people who, for whatever reasons, really struggle with getting out of the house and talking to people. Or making new friends. Or just being social in general. And we, in our little happy valley/church culture tend to kind of treat them like... sinners. Or like they're a cursed spider guy, or that there's just totally something wrong with them.

Cause obviously, they just need to "be more happy" and if I tell them that then it'll fix it all. Or if they just "work really hard" then they'll be back to normal (by the way normal is just like me and the way I see things).

I'm not the most anti-social, hating of people guy out there, but I won't pretend that it's easy for me either. I have a hard time talking to people, and I misuse sarcasm all the time (though I also use it well a good deal too :P). But really, as much as I "work at" being nice to people, being positive, talking to and meeting new people, it's all still pretty hard. I don't think it's really every gotten any easier, I've just seen what good things can come of it.

But it's still a very quick inclination in all of us to judge the guy who isn't social as some kind of terrible loser or even a sinner. Or to treat the person who isn't going to ward activities (which for someone with social anxiety can be incredibly overwhelming) like they're inactive or breaking covenants or something. That's not how it is. You wouldn't go up to a person with autism or Down syndrome and tell him that if he was just a little bit more faithful, or read his scriptures more, or "tried harder" that his disability would go away. But that's the kind of stuff we tell to people with depression or social anxiety all the freaking time.. it really doesn't work that way.


And I know there's people who are just plain anti social. They don't want to be around people, they aren't concerned with others, they really should work at being better to the people around them. But most people want to have friends, want to care about people, and want to help others.. but it's hard for them to beat their fears or weaknesses.


The great thing is that there are so many people who are just doing it right. There are many, many nice guys and nice girls who don't have trouble being social. They don't do it to be popular or to be the big fish or what have you, they do it cause they want to be good and care about people. My current ward is very good at this; I've felt that most (if not all) of the people actually care for each other and are interested in making other people feel happy. When people act like that, then it is much more motivating to be social than out of some sense of duty or to feel like you're "doing your part."

I guess that's when it gets easier- when you know that people care and that you can put yourself out there without feeling like a wacky skeleton-spider-guy.