Blue Flower Power: Courage

Apr 24
6 min read

Updated: May 19

Why participation in life takes courage in the modern world

As you may know, Sparkle Valley started as a gift for my daughter. It was private and a reflection of the world that we shared. It was a gift meant for her 18th birthday, and it contained what I thought were the important things in life.

I never intended to make it public. I'm actually a private person, and of course everything is metaphorical, but there's still something uncomfortable about writing a story that’s based on personal experience, and then letting strangers look at it. Even more so when it's a story about wonder, imagination, fear, meaning and growing up—the types of things that you learn to hide behind irony and detachment as you get older.

But at some point, over the years of writing these books, I realized that the problem the story was addressing wasn't just personal. It was much bigger than the “Magic Garden” behind the house.

People were emotionally flatlining. I sat on a cross-country plane ride and I saw a woman scrolling for over four hours. She would look away from the screen and take a deep breath every 20 minutes or so, and then return to her phone. And it wasn't just affecting adults, it was kids too.

As I was finishing the books I realized that if I genuinely believed that these things mattered, then keeping the story hidden forever, while certainly the safer choice, was not the more courageous one.

So I decided to put it out in the world.

And the main reason I did it was not because I was certain I had all the answers or that it would impact or be appreciated by anyone.

Mostly the opposite. It's because I wanted to set an example for my daughter. I wanted her to see that participating in life matters more than endlessly standing outside of it.

And I think that this is the thing about courage that gets misunderstood the most.

Usually when people talk about courage, it’s about being fearless or confident, or taking some kind of massive risks. Of course that is courage. But in Sparkle Valley, courage is quieter and in some ways harder. It means choosing participation over a more passive existence. That's the real fight.

Especially now in this modern life, passivity is so easy. Endless scrolling, consumption, distraction. You may never fully enter your own life. You end up slowly drifting toward some kind of emotional sleepwalking where the days just blur together. I think about this woman on the plane. She looked exhausted, but she couldn't stop. Days blur together and nothing feels vivid anymore.

Joseph Campbell recognized this condition. And he described the hero’s journey like this.

"Wake. Come on a trip. There is a whole aspect of your consciousness, your being, that’s not been touched.”

That idea feels especially relevant now.

Emily sees the Magic Garden has been invaded

Participation Over Passive Existence

The call to adventure isn't necessarily about climbing a mountain or going on some grand quest. At least not in Sparkle Valley (although Abigail does climb a mountain). The call to adventure is about something smaller and more personal. It's about trying to reconnect with those things that once made you feel alive.

That takes courage too.

The danger for Emily isn't physical harm. It's disconnection. Her openness to the world is shutting down. She's withdrawing from wonder and meaning and participation in life. But Abigail fights for her. Refuses to let her get cynical and stop caring. This part of Emily continues to engage—continues to show up even in the face of uncertainty, embarrassment, and grief. Because she ultimately knows a fulfilling life requires participation.

Marathons

Let’s step back from Sparkle Valley for a second. There’s a reason I think why so many people are running marathons now. You don't do it because it's comfortable. In fact, it’s the opposite. All the training, the struggle, the inevitable setbacks, that's all inseparable from the feeling of crossing the finish line. Without the actual climb up that mountain, there is no transcendence. It makes sense that people are discovering it.

The same thing applies to creativity and emotions. The artist who doesn't want to leave the safety of unlimited potential and never releases her work. Cynicism is easy. It’s safe and makes life manageable. But ultimately it crowds out meaning and connection. You can't be fully alive and stay completely safe all the time.

By the end of the story, Emily realizes this.

Emily’s Choice

By the end of the trilogy Emily has basically forgotten about Sparkle Valley. Her inner life has gone quiet. And the easiest thing for her to do would be to continue growing numb and leave that part of herself behind forever. But she goes back. And that decision matters because it hurts.

Real courage often hurts.

I talked about this before, but that’s why I think Doris’s line in Book 2 may be one of the most important in the series:

“I think I can grow up and keep my imagination.”

This captures the entire balancing act.

Not refusing to grow up. Not escaping reality. Not living in a fantasy world. But rather keeping that part of her open.

The Romantics were obsessed with this kind of courage.

Emerson painted it in terms of the courage to trust yourself,

even when the world pushed against you.

“Whatever you do, you need courage.”

Edgar Allen Poe wrote in The Raven about being haunted by the memory of his lost love. He understood that courage meant you had to confront difficult emotions directly even in grief rather than avoid them.

Wordsworth too believed that even in solitude and darkness, “the good man’s cause” was never meaningless. That idea really matters because courage is not recklessness.

And then finally there’s Nietzsche (not technically a Romantic, but he’ll do because the quote is so good).

“One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.”

What he is saying so beautifully here is that creativity, meaning, love, and growth and all the important things require uncertainty. You cannot stay perfectly guarded and be a “dancing star.”

The Middle Path

Speaking of “dancing stars,” let’s turn back to one of my favorite characters—Frank Needlenose. Because, as we know by now, he shows us one extreme: total openness, total transcendence and emotional freedom. Everything is vibrant and alive, but his world collapses into chaos eventually.

Hank Needlenose shows us the other extreme: total control, total emotional closure. And his world becomes barren.

Emily and Abigail ultimately choose the middle path. Openness with grounding. Imagination in the real world. And that’s the “Courage in Blue Flower Power” we’re talking about. Step fully into life, despite uncertainty, potential failure, even grief.

The alternative is much easier. You’ll definitely be tempted. Everyone is. You can sit down on the couch and scroll. But that will start to feel flat. This is the message about courage that I was trying to convey to my daughter, and now to anybody who reads these books.