Suppose that Red represents the innocent child only recently born into the world and that her Grandma is her at the end of her life.
She is heading through the woods which stand for life and all the dangers and troubles she will encounter.
Now, here is the central concept of this book.
Her purpose in visiting her Grandma. To deliver to her the basket of goodies.
But along the way the Big Bad Wolf puts in an appearance and ends up replacing Grandma and in fact tries to impersonate her in her bed.
The basket of goodies symbolises what Red was born with, her uniqueness, her special qualities and talents, her destiny - the ingredients for the goodies which are what she has made with her unique talents.
By taking the basket of goodies through the forest - her life - to Grandma, Red at the end of her life, is she trying to tell us something no-one else is telling us?
That we were not born with a 'clean slate' and we bring nothing with us at birth?
That the purpose of our life is what we do with those talents, our unique gifts, our destiny if you like.
I'm suggesting that we did bring something with us when we were born and, more significantly, it's what we need to make us succeed in life, what we are here for, what makes us unique.
It's that half a life most of us are missing.
The other half is symbolised by the Big Bad Wolf who tries to represent the end goal of life, by impersonating Grandma.
He tries to take the basket of goodies from us.
As if that is not enough he tries to impersonate Grandma, preventing us from our ultimate goal at the end of our lives, to have lived according to our unique gifts and fulfilled our destiny.
Who, then, is the Big Bad Wolf?
He is the world as we see it - as we all see it - that lumps us all in together as if we are all the same.
It's the politicians who tell us what is important to us, the economy, education, health, to consume, to acquire debt.
It's the media who tell us how we should live.
We look to religion to set our moral standards.
Our education system teaches us the 3Rs, reading, writing and 'rithmatic.
That' s okay but it's only half the story.
Half of .our life is missing from this picture.
The missing half is the half nobody tells you about (unless you read the story of Little Red Riding hood).
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Neil Smith is a writer, blogger and author of a non-fiction book about life ... 'What They Didn't Tell Us About Life'
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