A Reflection

    As you may have guessed, considering that this itself is on my blog, this year’s English assignments have been submitted through said blog. Originally I had intended to write random posts as topics came to mind, interspersed with a few of my collected story beginnings, but throughout the first quarter the majority of my posts have been “Unfinished Writing”. I think this is because I have recently had a continuous stream of ideas. In looking over my blog posts, I have found interesting variations in the inspiration for these beginnings, as well as a very different tone from the highly structured essays I have also written.
    My story beginnings are not, as you may expect, inspired by any mysterious and deep part of my soul. I doubt many writers really have one of those. The ideas for most of them came out of nowhere, a thought I had at lunch, or something I read recently, perhaps. Sometimes they originate from characters, which in turn may spring from anywhere. But I think the most common origin is simply when I hear or think of a phrase that intrigues me. Take, for example, The Time of the Plus:

The Time of the Plus: The time in Metronium when all the clocks stop, new buildings suddenly appear where none were before, the Sternix reappear, and the Plus herself comes into power. Once well-known among Metronians, this legend has faded from the minds of all but a few.

This story began when my father said something about “The time of the plus is here”, although I no longer remember the exact phrasing. I do know that there was never any specific meaning to it, and so I began to wonder: What if the Plus were a very powerful person? What if the Time of the Plus were the time in which that person becomes even more powerful? Maybe the Plus is a legend, and maybe there could be clocks in it… So you see, my stories are often just embellishments of other people’s interesting turn of phrase.
    Then there are the stories that begin with a character. The prime example of this is Malt, the novel-in-progress, an excerpt of which I posted on my blog. An excerpt of an excerpt, if you will:

Who was Maxwell Malt?
Oh, everyone had heard of him, of course. You weren’t much of anybody in Eastport if you’d never heard of Maxwell Malt. Some called him a magician, others the superhero of the day, and still others the “people’s hero”, whatever that meant. He had done amazing things. He had saved the city and its surrounding area from bizarre villains countless times, including, once, an army of giant animate teddy bears. Everyone knew it. Most people had witnessed his heroism firsthand. And yet the question still circulated the streets daily.
Who was Maxwell Malt?

Malt is, essentially, about Max and the resolution of some of his identity issues; the story is driven entirely by the character, because he is so vivid in my mind. Maxwell Malt appeared in his entirety in a very strange dream I had involving, yes, an army of giant animate teddy bears. The character was so complete from his first appearance that I knew he had a story in need of telling. To get there, I combined the mysterious air that surrounds everything in dreams with the fact that most superheroes have a secret identity, and this strangeness was the result.
    One of the reasons I feel comfortable posting my weird stories on my blog is that it’s an easily moderated medium. I am often afraid to show my writing to people because I worry that it isn’t any good, and no one likes to be criticized. On a blog, however, all anyone can do is post a comment, and those comments I find offensive or don’t care for can be deleted quite easily. So far I haven’t had to do this, which helps to improve my opinion of this whole blogging thing. Without the blog, I might never have exposed my writing to others, and thus never have gotten feedback of any kind (though, admittedly, my current comments are all from Mr Sutherland). Those comments that have been posted have improved my own opinion of my writing, which is always a good thing in my opinion.
    There is one very big difference between the blog post assignments and other, more structured papers I have written: assignments submitted through the blog are looser. Without a rigid structure, it is easier for a writer’s voice to get through, and people are more comfortable saying what they think. My one truly aimless post is a testament to this:

I think about a lot of weird things in my spare time. I swear this isn't my fault; when my mind is allowed to wander, it comes back with the strangest ideas. But one that I have continuously analyzed and wondered about is this: Is reality defined by a person's perception of it?

If I were to write a structured essay about my tendencies toward existential crisis, it would sound much less like I do when engaged in conversation, and that would make it more difficult for me to get my point across. In fact, in a structured essay I might not choose this subject at all, because of the possible problems with being understood. Also (and I in no way speak for everyone), when writing along very specific guidelines, I tend to come across as excessively stiff and formal. Usually my writing style mirrors the way I speak, and it sounds much more natural. Perhaps this is an improvement, perhaps not.
    As for my goals for my future writing, I need to get better about revising things. My “official” method of writing is stream-of-consciousness scribbling or typing, later to be gone over and all its badly-written parts cut out. Or, at least, I intend to go over it. I often forget about revision and put my first-draft story up on my blog for the world to see. Afterward, of course, I reread it and find it to be severely lacking in some area or other. For example, the first two paragraphs of this story:

There were hundreds of different clans and provinces and other self-governing colonies of dragons in Attria, some of which were constantly at war or just disagreement; others pretended that certain colonies didn’t exist for the sake of peace. Dragons are not, by nature, cooperative with those unlike them, resulting in a tangle of boundary lines to confuse even the most accomplished of cartographers. The colonies were not receptive to new dragons emigrating from other colonies, and their leaders rarely had any kind of meeting because of the everlasting tensions between them.
But Draigfest was different. Draigfest happened in the very center of the valley, where no colony claimed territory, and it was a festival, or possibly a convention, for those dragons that weren’t really concerned one way or another with the misdeeds of their neighbours’ ancestors and were curious about the other colonies. Some, over the years, had even built up long-distance friendships with other dragons.

I believe there are all of three pronouns between those two paragraphs. This is a result of not revising the story; had I done so, I would have realised that the word “dragon” is repeated a tedious number of times. This sort of thing happens far more often than I would like. If I could get better about revision, my writing would definitely improve and no one would have to read the gibberish my mind spews on autopilot. And speaking of revision, reviews from others would probably also be quite helpful; I know of several people who will give me honest criticism and whose suggestions have improved my work in the past. After all, every decent writer needs an editor—and I hope to be more than merely decent.

Of Mice and Men

    Conflict is one of those things required to make a book readable; no one wants to read about characters for whom everything always goes perfectly. There will always be a central conflict, though it may be difficult to determine, as in John Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men. This book outlines the story of two migrant workers by the names of George and Lennie. One of the main issues we see, although there are many, is that Lennie has a child’s mind despite his considerable size. He seems not to know his own strength, which results in the accidental killing of creatures such as mice. This, along with the conflicts detailed below, contributes to the novella’s central conflict, the constant battle between the two migrant workers and society.
    Our first demonstration of this conflict is very near the beginning, when George and Lennie are discussing their future. They are, at the time, on their way to another in what appears to be a series of ranches, where they intend to work. George decides that they will stop for the night because they still have some distance to go--the fault, apparently, of a dishonest bus driver--and after a certain point Lennie brings up their plans for the money they will earn. From what George says, the reader understands that they intend to raise enough money to buy their own small farm so that they will no longer have to work for someone else. His explanation begins with a description of others who live the way he and Lennie do:

“‘Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place. They come to a ranch an’ work up a stake and then they go inta town and blow their stake, and the first thing you know they’re poundin’ their tail on some other ranch. They ain’t got nothing to look ahead to.’” (13)

George continues from this with an explanation of why he and Lennie are not like them and how they will eventually have the aforementioned small farm. The message is clear: society both demands and expects that they will give up on this dream of theirs, just like everybody else who works as they do. Their intention is to break this apparently long-standing mold and actually manage to achieve the future they want. This may not appear to be an actual conflict, because it is simply George stating what he believes to be true, but in fact it is more than that: it is an internal struggle against people’s expectations. The same conflict is displayed much later on as well, when Lennie presents their dream to the stable buck, Crooks, who doesn’t believe that they will ever actually manage it any more than anyone else has:

“‘They come, an’ they quit an’ go on; an’ every damn one of ‘em’s got a little piece of land in his head. An’ never a God damn one of ‘em ever gets it...They’re all the time talkin’ about it, but it’s jus’ in their head.” (74)

This brings up the interesting question of the reason none of them ever attain their desire. Perhaps it is that society forces them to. It is assumed that they will fail, and no matter how hard they try, they cannot help but live up to this depressing expectation--which goes on to reinforce the idea that none of them will ever succeed. George and Lennie, however, actually manage to convince some of the naysayers through the strength of their conviction that they will be different--although this doesn’t last forever.
   At the beginning of the novel, it is mentioned that something happened in the town of Weed which caused George and Lennie to lose their jobs; this seems to have been caused by Lennie, although it is not originally mentioned how. After what seems to be about a day working on the new ranch, George elaborates on this occurrence to Slim, whose position is identified as “jerkline skinner” and who wants to know more:

“‘He seen this girl in a red dress. Dumb bastard like he is, he wants to touch ever’thing he likes. Just wants to feel it. So he reaches out to feel this red dress an’ the girl lets out a squawk, and that gets Lennie all mixed up, and he holds on ‘cause that’s the only thing he can think to do. Well, this girl squawks and squawks...That girl rabbits an’ tell the law she been raped. The guys in Weed start a party out to lynch Lennie.’” (41-42)

This time it is Lennie who is up against society; the majority of people do not understand the way his mind works. He, with his inability to understand the implications of his action, attempts to touch the girl’s red dress just because he likes it, without any sinister motive. The girl assumes that he, probably like many other men, is making unsolicited and unwanted advances, and reacts as if this expectation is a concrete fact. The men of Weed take this girl at her word, because it is likely that they know her and don’t know Lennie, and certainly don’t understand Lennie or his mental difficulties. Based on this disconnect, they decide to take their revenge and lynch Lennie. It is clear that they do not succeed in this attempt, because Lennie is very much alive when the story takes place, but the fact that he might have been lynched serves as another example of the ways that society is fighting him, and George by association.
   Now we come to the end, the final manifestation of their struggle. The trouble begins when the rather...dishonest wife of Curley (the boss’s son) goes into the barn to talk to Lennie. He begins to talk about how he likes “to pet nice things with [his] fingers”, and Curley’s nameless wife responds by offering her hair as something for him to pet. After a few moments she tells him to stop, which confuses him--much like the events in Weed--and causes him to hold on. She screams, he tries to stop her and ends up accidentally killing her. When she is discovered, both George and Slim understand that Lennie didn’t do it on purpose, but Curley flies into a rage and will not listen to reason. Another worker on the ranch, Carlson, is in agreement with Curley, and finding that Lennie has taken his gun, is even more livid. The two of them, accompanied by Slim and George, set out to hunt Lennie down and make him pay for his mistake. George, however, splits from the rest of the group and goes to where he knows Lennie will be. He talks to Lennie about the dream that he now knows will never be, and then he shoots Lennie in the back of the head to prevent him from suffering. He does this because he knows that Curley would make Lennie suffer if he were allowed to catch up with him. This is demonstrated by an earlier statement of Curley’s:

“‘That big son-of-a-bitch done it. I know he done it...I’m gonna get him. I’m going for my shotgun. I’ll kill the big son-of-a-bitch myself. I’ll shoot ‘im in the guts.” (96)

To Curley, it doesn’t matter that Lennie doesn’t know his own strength, or that killing Curley’s wife was an accident. He refuses to believe that it could have been an accident because he already dislikes Lennie for other reasons, and because he cannot accept that others think differently than he does. In a way, Curley might be representative of society; he does everything within his power to control his wife, he antagonizes Lennie because Lennie is different from him, and he doesn’t bother to think about whether Lennie’s actions might have been accidental before deciding that he deserves to suffer. It follows, then, that the boss’s son is the embodiment of all George and Lennie were trying to fight.
   As demonstrated above, George and Lennie are engaged in a continuous conflict with the pressures of society, which control their lives up to and including the time of Lennie’s death. This could be said to mirror our lives today, even though we have long since escaped the Great Depression; more so now than ever, society demands that we conform to a certain mold, and as in Of Mice and Men, anyone not following expectations will find themselves ostracized. George and Lennie’s doomed attempt to attain their dream is an example of an attempt to break the mold, and it raises the worrying question: are all such attempts destined to fail?

Getting Existential

I think about a lot of weird things in my spare time. I swear this isn't my fault; when my mind is allowed to wander, it comes back with the strangest ideas. But one that I have continuously analyzed and wondered about is this: Is reality defined by a person's perception of it?

Perhaps I should explain. The world around you, what you see and hear and feel, what you experience through your senses--this is your reality. This is what you expect the world to be like, and if it were any different, you would probably find it extremely confusing. Your reality may insist that elephants are firmly bound by gravity, and if you saw an elephant floating by, this would be unusual. And you, like most of us (most of the time), assume that the reality which you live in is the same one everyone else experiences; but what if it isn't?

What if everyone's reality is fundamentally different from everyone else's? What if your perception of the world is nothing like the way it actually is?

For example: I perceive you as being what I think of as human (unless you are a superintelligent dog or cat sneaking onto your human's computer, in which case I commend you). My experience of you--sight, sound, smell--is based entirely on the assumption that you are human, and I believe that your existence follows all the rules human existence must. But what if this perception is inaccurate? What if you are, in fact, a very small salamander? This fact is not true in my reality--so which reality is actually real? (This also works if you flip it around: maybe you perceive me as a salamander when I am not.)

Take it a few steps further. If I say "Hello" to you, I may perceive that you also say "Hello" to me. But maybe you're not saying that; maybe you're saying "Go away" or "Sqhvuak wiejin" or something equally incongruous/in some unheard-of language. In fact, you might have heard something completely different from what I think I just said. Or maybe you're not really there at all. Maybe I just think you're there because it makes sense in my reality. Maybe the entire universe is something I'm imagining--it's not really there, but I think it is.

Maybe I'm not really here. Maybe I don't exist--I just think I do.

This is the point where you should stop thinking, or your brain might melt or implode. Therefore I leave you with my question still unresolved. What do you think?

The Nature of Money

I have often wondered if civilization as we know it is merely a series of thought experiments continued so long we believe it is real. Rokhsor Yusufi has given me an opportunity to explore this possibility:

People are so obsessed with money that it is slowly taking over the world. Money is nothing but paper so I do not see why we need to ruin our bodies and waste our time trying to bring green sheets home to your family. It is not as if I do not enjoy a bundle of money now and then, but I do not think it is necessary to base our lives on how much of it we have.

I think this is a very valid point of view. The way people center their lives around money is an issue that interests me greatly. There are several arguments that could be made against the excessive importance of money in our society, but the most convincing (in my opinion) is the nature of money itself.

You see, despite what people seem to believe, a dollar bill is a piece of paper. A quarter is a disc of metal. It has value only because someone, at some point in history, decided it was worth something. The worth of ten dollars exists entirely in our heads--it is us who decide that it’s worth a certain amount of food or whatever it is you’re trying to buy. If you give a dollar bill to a dog, the dog will not go out and buy a bag of chips. It’ll simply stare in confusion or chew it up. Green bits of paper do not have inherent value. They’re worth the effort put into making an object because we say they are.

An interesting fact, if memory serves, is that the objects originally used as a ‘currency’ were not thought of in the same way our money is today. They were counters, objects representative of a certain number of animals or other valuable possessions. The counters had no inherent worth of their own; they simply were used to show that a person owned a certain amount of something. If you showed a certain amount of a certain type of counter to someone and the counter represented, say, a cow, that might mean that you owned the number of cows represented by the counter. But if you just had a bunch of counters in your pocket and didn't actually own any of the things they stood for, it probably wouldn't do much for you.

At some point the value of currency was no longer assigned to the objects it represented, but the currency itself. There is no longer any kind of barter system, which was also used in the past: rather than trading an item of value for another item of value, I give you some sheets of paper and a few bits of metal in exchange for my lunch.

So why are these green papers, these metal discs, so important to us? Why are they the source of so much misery as well as happiness? Why do we value them so highly? We can't eat them or drink them, and they won't protect us from the weather or wild animals or people. Who decided, innumerable years ago, that they were so very indispensable?

Agreeing to Disagree

It's always very interesting to find quotes on people's blogs that are in tune with my own thoughts...like this one, from Stan Anderson's blog:

What I dislike is when people try and convince me of their religion, yes, i can respect that they have their own beliefs but it doesn't mean that these ideas have to be opposed onto me...If I thought what you are trying to explain was correct, then wouldn't I already be a part of that religion? And besides, If i am respecting the fact that you have your own beliefs, then why can't you respect mine?

This particular quote, at least, is something I agree with completely. It is my considered opinion (which I realise sounds a little pompous) that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs. Now I, in fact, am Pagan, a belief system which is misinterpreted quite often. I have known people to call it devil worship, which is not true at all, and there are many prejudices against it in general. I see no reason for this. Just the fact that someone does not share my beliefs does not give them the right to assume it's something specifically against theirs. I am not a Christian, but I don't go around saying that Christians are all terrible people who, I don't know, eat babies or something. There is no reason to say that, because it most definitely isn't true. I don't know anyone who eats babies. Keep in mind that this is an extrememe example and I've never been accused of cannibalism either.

And then there's the issue of people trying to convince you to believe what they do. I am perfectly willing to accept the fact that you believe in one god or five gods or no god at all, but when you start telling me how much better your belief system is than mine, that's where I begin to object. Why can't we all just let people be as they are? There are a lot of issues that work like that, actually. Nobody is ever willing to say, "Who cares what your religion/race/sexual orientation/fill-in-the-blank is? You're still a person anyway."

I guess that's what I'm really trying to say: we're all just people, regardless of how we think. As long as you don't go around doing terrible things to people, I will respect your beliefs and I will consider you to be as much of a worthwhile person as anyone else I know, and I will not make accusations to the effect that you do the aforementioned terrible things. It would be much appreciated if you would do the same, and maybe that's the first step toward changing the world.

Unfinished Writing Vol. 4: Stations

Before anyone says anything: I am not being a slacker by sticking my writing up here. I have nothing else interesting to say, it's a good way to get feedback, and someone might even find it interesting. This will not be the only kind of thing I ever post, anyway.

---

    There is something indefinably lonely about train stations. Perhaps it is the fact that they are transitory places, holding a thousand impressions of humanity for only a few short moments before letting them go again, and so many people pass through them that there is a feeling of isolation despite the crowding: too many people have taken memories from this place, and there is nothing left for you but the faded imprints they have left behind. This feeling seeps into your soul until even the people rushing by to catch their train seem faded, almost incorporeal, even the man who asks you the time or the woman who accidentally spills her coffee on your shoes. And the fragmented impressions you do manage to gather are washed out still more once you board your train and are whisked away from the crowded emptiness of the place, the vague images of people in your head becoming more indistinct still, until they are as old photographs of blurred sepia, carried forever in your mind.

    New train stations, on the other hand, are different; that is to say, the ones that have only been recently built, and have only had time to have a few impressions taken away. When you enter a new train station, far from being a lonely and faded place, it seems full of light and sound and people, and your very mood is lightened by being within it. When the man stops you to ask what time it is, you answer him and then inquire about his destination; when the woman spills her coffee on your shoes, you wave away her profuse apologies and engage her instead in a discussion of the best cafés in the area. The images you tuck away in your mind are bright and full of colour and wonder, and when you leave the station it is with an oddly lingering reluctance to return to the reality of life.

    I spend much of my time in train stations, or at least I did some time ago, and I have learned to tell which stations are which sort even before my train pulls into them. There are several distinct tells: the tone in which the station’s name is announced, the demeanour of the other passengers, their reactions on hearing the place’s name, and the general atmosphere of the land outside the window. This last does not apply on rainy days, when any public place one enters has a sort of wondrous gloom to it, a melancholy of contentment that brings freshness even to the oldest of train stations. There is no explaining this feeling which seems contradictory to one who has not experienced it; but I was speaking of train stations, and one in particular which I doubt will ever fade in my memory.

    When I disembarked from my train in this particular station, it was nearing midnight—half-past eleven, to be precise. It was one of the older stations, and the name was in large white iron letters on the wall, but I do not remember what it was. The letters were only white because of the paint, which was beginning to peel and chip, a latticework of cracks showing rusted metal between the flaking dirty whiteness that had a strange beauty to it, as indefinable as that lonely element of stations. And this was one such station, the feeling emphasized by the pinpoints of lamplight in its darkness and the few people still milling about.

    I had just come to England from somewhere in Scotland, I believe, possibly from Edinburgh but potentially any other city there big enough to house a train station. I had but one suitcase, very light, and a much-worn wallet in the breast pocket of my overcoat, which I believe was brown; it still hangs in the very back of my closet. I had neglected to bring an umbrella, forgetting that most places in England are rainy most of the time, but I hadn’t ever purchased one and certainly didn’t intend to now, what with the sudden need to save money. I had up until then been living in a hotel, which was paid for nicely by my job and was far less expensive than the rent on the apartment I had previously lived in. I would have continued my sparse existence there indefinitely had it not been for the new management, whose preposterous production standards I had been unable to meet. So I had taken my few possessions and come to this small town, which I do not recall the name of, to seek—not my fortune, precisely, but merely some fortune, preferably of a good nature, because I had been lacking in this area until then. I intended to start anew, in a new position, possibly journalism, because I have always had a fondness for facts.

    It was, unsurprisingly, raining when I emerged from the train station, and the darkness of near-midnight was compounded by the darkness that comes with all rain. There were not many people about because of the late hour, and most of the nearby businesses were closed, but there was an inviting sort of diner across the street with a pleasant glow to its lights.