"Paper Tiger-one that is outwardly powerful or dangerous but inwardly weak or ineffectual." Wshakes
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto on the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
In my younger life certain people had a great deal of power over me. I feared them and, in an attempt to placate them, I believed their deceptions, worked to please them and complied to their demands. I have since learned that their power over me was an illusion. I was the one who was giving them permission to control me. They were only paper tigers--fragile and easy to shred; I had the power to break free from the tails of the tigers I had been tightly gripping. I had to face my fear. Doing that was the hardest thing I ever had to do, but I am free of them today.
However, these tigers can be dangerous if we fail to break free from them. They may even lead to death.
The ideologies we attach ourselves to can be paper tigers, also. We become entrenched in our dogma or opinions drenching with them anger and fear; they become our obsession, blinding us to the truth. These tigers have no more power than what we give them but sadly they can also lead to destruction. They can make a person into an assassin.
There are legends of sleeping giants in folklore and it is a term often used for volcanoes. Giants dozing in our society, when rudely awakened by attacks, assassinations, and catastrophes, account for drastic changes and unforgettable historic events we have witnessed or read about in history.
I wonder what the results will be of the Sleeping Giant that was awakened on September 10, 2025.
"Here Kitty Kitty" 8 x 10 Colored Pencil Reference from Pixabay
