Truth, Myth, Legend

Farewell

2010-05-30T20:16:00.001-07:00

Here we are at the end of another year, of another era, of another time. It’s the end of a grade, of [life at] a school, and even of some acquaintanceships, as we are splitting and moving in different directions. In a way, it’s not only an end of all that, but also an end of a part of our lives--for high school is when we have to start making choices for (although I hate to say it) our futures; the end of careless freedom.

It’s funny to sit here and look in both directions: to the past and far to the future. It’s funny to remember how it was when I was half my age now, in second grade, before most of the things that make me who I am had happened--and a little further on, in third grade, trying to make sense of my new place in things in Spectrum--fourth grade, learning about writing and about who my friends are--fifth, trying to reorient (and perhaps I made the wrong choice, but what’s there to do?) “for my better survival in junior high”--sixth, just trying to balance things out…

And then it’s funny to think about 15 years from now, when I’ll be double my age, in my 30s. I wonder will I have figured things out then? And what’s in store between here and there? What will come in the murky depths of the future?

No one can answer that question just now. There is only to wait and hope. But this is a farewell, and all farewells are bittersweet. And every ending must know itself, however hard it is.

There are things I’d like to say, but can’t put into words. The quest of a writer, though, is to try--and so I will. I’d like to say how glad I am that I’ve been here, how glad I am that I’ve done everything I’ve done, and how, even when I felt like it was pointless, I think it turned out well in the end. I want to say how sorry I am that there are people I may never see again, and I want to say that I love you all anyway. I want to say that even though things are ending, they were worth it…I want to say that I have hope for what will happen in the future and that I

And to Mr. T, I wanted to say thanks for everything--the encouragement, the challenge, the random discussions. This year has been amazing in many ways, and I’m…proud of it. Of everything that’s happened. I’ve learned a lot, realized a lot, and I hope some of that will stay with me. Only time will tell.

And so it’s goodbye to another year and another time. Someday I’ll look back on this and wonder what I was thinking, and someday I’ll look back on it with a feeling of reconciliation. Every ending must be understood and every path must be come to terms with…and so it will. Farewell…

(PS I got distracted, so it falls apart a bit...)

Satisfaction

2010-05-24T18:09:00.001-07:00

Triumph is sweet. After 8 months of training, stress, mixed bouts of elation and depression, we’ve gone there and back again from the National Science Olympiad. And we have done all we needed to. After all the time and pain and struggle, we have TRIUMPHED!
2nd place in Bio-Process Lab. FINALLY I’ve earned more than a bronze-colored medal. And it’s absolutely beautiful. And that’s not even mentioning the stunning 5th place in Solar System, a sweet reward after the misery-creating 7th place (one off from medaling) in Reach for the Stars last year. No one who saw us could say that it doesn’t pay off, because it really truly does. Although I didn’t do as well as I wanted to in my other events, I reckon it doesn’t matter. I did my best (although I still think we could have gotten gold in Bio-Process. >> That was my fault for starting at the station just after the microscopes…).
And anyway, it was an amazing trip after all. The sheer smell of the Hershey store might have been enough…but then there was the American Girl store with the creepy look-a-like dolls, the staying up late to talk about philosophical/theological topics with one of my best friends, the amusement of the plane ride home (aka sitting behind a lady with the worst case of BO known to mankind and doing all the things we could to circumvent the terrible smell, including concocting a potent smelling potion), staying up late the other night to be entertained by boys…not to mention the 8th grader Hawaiian and my teammate. :P Now that was a picture.

And then there was everything else. There were the screams of stunned joy as we medaled in Solar System and Write It/Do It. There was the frustration of the mousetraps’ failure in Junkyard Challenge. There was the baking heat of Chicago and the pouring rain we returned to. There was the red-bricked campus and the skyscrapers of the city. Did I mention the Cheesecake Factory (best ever!) and my birthday? Or the Museum of Science and Industry and the Fairy Castle? Absolutely stunning.

Mentioning that fairy castle, I wanted to give a few words on it. Let me just say this--it is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. In the entire museum, after coming out from that room everything else looked bland. That is something that’s truly enchanting. The carefully crafted structures, the beauty, the stories it ties to, and the way things are thought out are poignant and touching. If you get a chance, look it up sometime. It’s amazing.

Anyway, moving on. I’m glad, in the end, after all of this that this happened. Even though sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it, I always know in the end that it is. Maybe it’s like that in life too. Perhaps there’ll be a resolution after the long dark years in the night. We can hope. We can dream. And we can trust. <333333333 to my partners and my teammates--GO FALCONS!

Trepidation

2010-05-14T14:37:00.000-07:00

Sometimes a realization comes as a shock--just hits you. Sometimes it creeps up on you for a long time before you can finally face it. Well...just like this. Nationals...is next week. We are LEAVING in six days!

And then you suddenly start panicking...

"I am up to the ends of my hair in homework!" says my partner for the triumph, and I wholeheartedly agree. Not only am I worrying about not being ready for Olympiad itself, missing three days of school at the end of the term is a real pain. It forces everything else to get pushed together...rather like the Doppler effect, with it being compressed on this side of Wednesday and rarefied on the opposite side of it. I find it especially convenient that I can rant about my homework while doing it...or some form of it...though.

I can't help looking forward to next weekend. Nationals really is the best ever--5 days with some of your favorite people in the world (well, and maybe a certain person you'd really rather not see...certain readers will know I mean "YKW"), doing all sorts of things you love. I have a feeling that this Nationals trip is going to be better than ever before. Although I've been like a horse digging its heels in, trying (hopelessly, of course, for no one really can) to slow the flow of time, I find myself in an odd sort of peace once more. Once again I've done all I can, and then it'll just be up to the very day of to see what shall happen to all of us.

Still, I'd have to say that trepidation is a good word for my feelings at the moment. My events are such that I actually do have several chances at medals--namely Bio-Process Lab, Solar System, and Experimental Design--and as it's my last year in which going to Nationals is a (almost) certainty. If I don't make something of this chance, then a lot of people (including myself) are going to be very disappointed.

In fact, the worst feeling is that you haven't done anything. This year I'm not really sure what I've accomplished--and this is my last chance for something big this year. It feels like so much hinges on this--even though it's something that we usually don't worry about, just do because it's so much fun. I'm not sure whether my fears or worries are founded or pointless, or whether I should be trying more, or if I'm doing something completely wrong...

Isn't indecision such a funny thing? Or the feeling like you should be doing something but don't know what? There's that old saying about the only thing certain in life being uncertainty (although that's a bit of a contradictory statement in itself). I wonder if that's a good thing or a bad thing, and if it's better to be so confident in something or to expect something bad to happen? Is it better for the outcome? Or your feelings after it? We'll see after next week...

Thoughts

2010-05-02T15:49:00.001-07:00

If time were to stop for a day, and everything in the universe were arrested in place, would we even notice? I guess not. Isn’t that an odd thought? Who knows—maybe there are times where everything is arrested and we don’t know.

Now, now, I know you’re going to be on my case for the ridiculous unlikeliness of this. But wouldn’t that be interesting if it were to happen? In any case, that’s how you need to think if you want to be…a good writer? An imaginative person?

Maybe someone who wants to change the world?

I wonder what the people who turn out to be so amazing think early on. I wonder if they start out with wonderful intentions in mind, or if they start out for themselves. Does it make a difference, whether you do something for yourself or for others? I’d like to say it does, but sometimes I wonder.

Most of all I wonder about writers. Everyone dreams their writing will be a best-seller, I think. I wonder how it comes to them, really, the amazing ideas that turn out to be so much, even a form of sustenance! I know that many writers have their own sites where they try and tell these things, but sometimes I wonder if it can be explained.

I wish that were me. Writing is something I’d love to do—maybe that I’m more passionate about than other things. My mind’s always been rather active, as certain readers will know—all through elementary school, lying in bed at night, trying to bring myself away from reality. Maybe it’s not the best idea—after all, they always talk about facing things, but sometimes there’s only so much you can do. And sometimes it’s just nice to get away.

Books have always intrigued me. I was taught to read at the age of 4, and I loved it at once. According to my mother, I was always the better one with words in our family (although you probably can’t notice it here--this is what happens when I get in a hurry!). And I’ve always been drawn to fantasy and science fiction (although I won’t deny there have been other periods—mystery books in the third grade, horse books like Heartland and Thoroughbred in about the 5th…) because they had so much possibility for other things. You could create any kind of a world—even one in which time stopped for a day without anyone’s notice.

I’m writing a novel, of course, and I know that you can’t really just create anything. There are always rules to follow—and you’re not the creator, you find. You’re just the tool; the recorder; the historian. You see this world and what happens and you write it down for the rest of the world to find. I like to think that those worlds exist somewhere—books are the portals to reach them, and then your imagination can find what follows later.

So I wonder how the big writers feel? How is it, to write and discover every day of your life without having to go too far? That’s always been a dream of mine. Maybe someday…

Thoughts on Art

2010-04-25T10:46:00.000-07:00

I am of the opinion that all the fine arts are connected and all help one another.

For instance, just yesterday I performed Lady Macbeth’s monologue at the theater festival. Afterwards, I came home and practiced a session of piano, specifically Chopin’s 1st Concerto. Now, I’d been thinking about ballet as my multi-genre paper for creative writing is closely tied to it. And as I played this giant 50-page piece, I couldn’t help thinking about all the other performing arts I’d ever done. And I came to the conclusion that they help with my music a lot. And, probably, vice versa.

You see, theater helps with music because it helps you learn how to find and express emotion infinitely better. And it helps you take something like a script or notes and turn it into something more, the way a good play or true music will be. You learn to see all the hidden nuances behind the little black marks on the page.

And dance helps with music because you can visualize dancers as you play. Costumes, moves…it helps you see what, perhaps, your audience is seeing, and it reminds you that things have to flow from one thing to another, not suddenly, but with grace, as a dancer does. Swift fingers do dance across the ivory keys, controlled, creating something beautiful.

With the help of other things, the art of music can be furthered in many respects.

It works vice versa, too. The knowledge of music helps you understand and feel when you dance. If you don’t know anything about music, how can you relate and react to it when you dance? And music is often a part in theater…music brings intensity to movies, everything to musicals, interest to plays. And you never know when performing experience comes in dead handy. Dance helps you learn to orchestrate movement in theater and to be on time, precise, and controlled—and theater teaches dancers performing and emotion.

After a while of this, you realize, of course it’s interconnected. All life is interconnected. Everything you do in one walk of life can be transferred to another somehow—because although you learn specific things for each, you also learn lessons about confidence, about learning, about different parts of life and about different kinds of people. You learn how to work with others instead of against them, you learn how to strive for your very best; you learn patience and determination and perseverance.

I guess that’s why I love the arts, even though sometimes they drive me crazy. Art can give meaning to the rest of life. It can enhance the experience we have on earth. Art can drive us to realizations as we explore its mysteries, which we may not fully understand (/reference to a poem from 4th period), but which can stir something inside of each and every one of us. It lends another dimension to the theater of life, something both real and not, something strange and surreal and infinitely beautiful.

Cleansed by Fire

2010-04-14T20:11:00.001-07:00

Fire. An epitome of the duality of nature. On one side, the warming flame that has helped man since the beginning of everything to stay alive. On the other, the burning, raging, destroying inferno that lays waste to our homes and our lands. Balanced in between, it is also cleansing and purifying…the fire of roses.

Since the beginning of our memories, fire has held a sort of sacred place in the legends of mankind. We tell of how the sun is like a great ball of life-giving fire, and fire is indeed almost life-giving. Fire, I am sure, protected early people from wild animals, and it is the basis of civilization, allowing us to cook, fire our tools, and many more things that, although maybe done in other ways now, fire was once essential to. It has a special place in our minds.

Legends involve fire in manifold ways. Fire was once one of the 4 or more elements in different cultures, along with water, stone/earth, and air/wind, at least standardly. It has been embodied and praised as a god or goddess. There are all kinds of stories told about how man acquired fire, how it’s been helpful to us, and more. Fire has also been a symbol of both destruction and purity, both darkness and light. Almost…paradoxical, in a way.

And yet, fire does destroy. Even as we warm ourselves with it, it burns down the candle, the wood, the fuel you throw upon it. Even as it gives, it has to take from something else. What do we sacrifice to give ourselves warmth?

In a way, fire is like the balance of life. When we want something, we have to give something else up. And sometimes, what we want gets out of hand, and we have to start all over at the very beginning. Is this good, or is it bad? Can you really describe nature as good or bad? Everything has a gray area for someone, no matter how white or black it may seem to you. You can’t condemn fire because it destroys, because you rely on it for warmth. Unsurprisingly, this seems to apply to a lot of our world.

It’s like building a tower out of Janga blocks or cards. You work until it becomes exquisite and tall, and then something happens to tip the balance and it all falls down, destroying your entire work and leaving you to start anew. It’s like that in nature as well. Fire gets out of hand when the natural balance has tipped, and it falls upon us and destroys all of it, leaving us to start again. When the natural balance is tipped, we have revolutions, or wars, or plagues. And then, we start over again at the very beginning.

The thing is, even though fire is terrible, even though war is terrible, things always start anew. The lichens return and the forest grows. The people pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and start over. After destruction, even by fire, we can rebuild.

Fire…what does it mean to you?

Uncertainty

2010-04-07T12:14:00.001-07:00

Where do dreams go? Do they remain, somewhere in the ether of reality, when they have passed? Is there a record somewhere of all the yearnings of mankind through the ages? If one could look into dreams, I wonder, what would one find? Perhaps all dreams have been dreamed before. Perhaps the secret yearnings of our hearts are desperate echoes of other dreams, repeating through the ages.

What are dreams, anyway? Anyone who remembers their dreams remembers the desperation of their real life, the people they think about, but they also remember things so far-gone that they cannot even begin to explain their strangeness. What wanderings in the deepest part of our mind produce these twists—and what do they mean? Are our dreams trying to tell us things?

It is more than likely that they are figments of our imagination, nonexistent, and completely out of our control. But one can’t help wondering what there is in our minds that causes them. It’s mildly unsettling to think that, indeed, we do not have complete control over our mind, that there is something below the level of consciousness. One can’t help thinking … how does it influence us? This subconscious…what does it do? Does it see as we do? Does it think? Is it obedient to our will? Is it, well , benevolent?

So, the depths of it are like science fiction, and perhaps improbable. It’s no secret, though, that we still have much to learn about ourselves. We lack the capacity of using so much of our brains—science has proved that. If we could use it; if we were capable of doing it; if we could only learn to do it; what would change? Would anything change?

Possibility is endless, as it were. Before certainty, imagination fills up the gaps so quickly and voraciously with millions of explanations. Is, then, certainty always better than the unknown? How often has your imagination created hopes of many things only to be surprised (not always pleasantly) when the reality is revealed? Perhaps simply not knowing is better than the absolute certainty.

Yet after all, the uncertainty is one of the reasons why we have wars. If we were certain that something was right (if we were certain of the nature or existence of a higher power!), our lives would be much different, but they would have the potential of being so much better (or worse).

In my understanding, the only thing we can be certain of is that uncertainty is a part of us and shapes our lives, in all its forms: in dreams, in reality, in faith, in hope. We err because we are human. We lack certainty because we are human. And as long as we still continue the search for certainty in the knowledge that we don’t know everything and likely never will, we will continue to be human. The moment we imagine we know more than we do, that we are the masters and not part of everything, is the day we fall into our darkness once more.

Warnings in the Mist

2010-04-03T16:13:00.001-07:00

Stargirl Caraway. Clarisse McClellan. People who made a difference. People who changed a life. They are the most important people, our guiding stars, the people who bring us back to the path we need to take. But if you look at them, who are they? Oddballs. Strangers. They never stay long, and they’re always unexpected. Is this gift going to die out? Disappear? Become rarer and rarer? Will we become the bookburners, the firemen, convinced that we’re doing it for the greater good?

Look at our civilization. We have everything. Technology, comfort, entertainment. But are we truly better than the cavemen playing with fire? Maybe all we are is a different, more advanced kind, and more dangerous. People wrote those books to leave some kind of a warning for the future generations, and yet I watch this generation groan and grumble through them and I fear we are on the train headed straight for that direction with the cliff looming ever nearer as we, still young and ignorant, throw more coal on the engine fire.

We scoff at these words, and in these very actions we show that there is still a reason and a need for these stories, that there is danger in the things we do. If we cannot bring ourselves to understand this, then, indeed, that culture, that repression, will become the fate of our sorry race. We will become the pleasure-seekers, the layabouts, and we will accomplish what? Nothing. Progress without spirit, without soul, means nothing. Technology and all the improvements it has given to our society means nothing if we don’t progress in how we use it. We may say it’s for entertainment, but do we want to end up like Mildred Montag, a videot, engrossed in things that don’t make any sense to her just because they talk to her? “I laugh, they laugh!” Did we come out of the dark ages for this?

We seem to be following some kind of life cycle. After all, how does the human life go? Babies, knowing nothing, understanding nothing, doing everything. Children, bright-eyed and innocent. Teenagers, growing sharp, maybe jaded. Adults, in their prime, capable, working. And then? Elderly, feeble, and falling into the “second childhood”. Well, we had the adult stage, it seems. Days of explorers and people who did things, days of expanding and working and collaborating. Is this the result? Second childhood? Confused and not understanding again?

Let these words serve as a warning. Let these tales serve their purpose. Let them pull us away from the danger of the plunging cliff. It’s not too late. As long as there are willing, ready minds, as long as there are people willing to take a hand in things, as long as there are people willing to be active, and as long as there are people willing to remind us, we can still survive. As long as there is one person left with hope and the fire to do something, there is hope. Let that person be you.

WE DID IT!

2010-04-03T14:05:00.000-07:00

.WE DID IT! WE DID IT! WE WON!

Yesterday marked the 15th year that FFJH has won the State Science Olympiad—in a row! It was a milestone year and a most incredible feeling. Something about being on the team that did it again against ever more increasing odds fills one up with pride. The little bit about getting to be the one who receives the trophy was nice too.

It’s a funny feeling you get right before an eventful day. All day on Friday I was walking down the halls, I was thinking about how the next time I’d show up at school, everything would be different. Well, it was true—but in a good way, not a bad way, thankfully.

Not only that, but on Saturday morning, we couldn’t help imagining what would happen if we didn’t win, if we broke the streak…14 years of Olympians angry at us, a dead quiet bus ride home, a drab ice cream social…but we won.

We won! Two little syllables that mean so much—in this case, at least. Our team has been preparing for this since October, and to know that effort and work have definitely paid off is a rewarding experience, especially as it promises more fun things to come (in the form of Nationals, which happens to span my birthday).

This is good for other reasons, of course, I have to say that I’m glad this happened, because it’ll hopefully get everyone motivated again and “off their rumps”, as someone so kindly put it. There’s nothing like winning to get people psyched, and nothing like a large golden trophy to make people proud of the team. To be honest, I don’t feel that this year’s team is as close as last years, but I’ve no doubt that that will change now.

Personally, I’m proud of myself and the team I coached. I medaled in every event: a set and an almost-set, lacking a bronze. My Experimental Design team (you’re amazing, guys!!) took silver, matching last year when we had a much more competent coach. It was a success in many ways, although I feel a bit like Apolo Anton Ohno—lots of medals, but not the best ones. Apparently my brother had 4 golds his equivalent year.

The best reason to be energized is that we are going to Nationals and my gold medal goal (<3333 “Smartiepants”) has a possibility of realization. And that is much more than exciting. I have a chance to earn the gold medal I know we can make, and maybe even another—I have my eye on something for Experimental Design (6th? Maybe? 10th last year) and Solar System (please tell me we’ll beat 7th).

It was an exciting day all around, though I swear I’m never taking 5 events again. It’s very hectic to have to run from room to room and event to event in a hurry with little time to study and relax. Be as that may, it’s certainly an experience one ought to have as an Olympian. And really, it’s the experience that counts, for everything. So…

GO TEAM!

(This should've been published last week but I forgot to do so after I wrote it. >>)

I Should be Working

2010-03-20T15:25:00.001-07:00

I Should be Working

I should be working

but

Outside the sky is deep, deep blue

And clean, puffy clouds drift by—

I should be working

but

The grass is so green and new

And the gentle breeze brings

Fresh

new

air.

I should be working

but

Someone’s calling my name out there

And the promise of the day is simply too hard

to resist.

So pardon me, my homework, my grades, my parents—

I can’t refrain

From going out there

Today.

—H R M

I never thought writing about why I didn’t want to do my homework would classify as working, but there you are. Welcome to my blog post about procrastination. Why do we procrastinate? All sorts of reasons. Deadlines don’t look real until they’re right in our faces. We’re tired. We’re lazy. There are other things to distract us. But most of all, we just don’t feel like working.

Unfortunately for us, in this competitive society, always working and being on top of things is one of those things we have to do if we want to make it in the world. Kind of ironic that the thing we’d rather not do is something completely and utterly necessary.

I think we realize this, but as with so many other things, it’s hard to admit to ourselves and others. So, we procrastinate. I’ll admit that I feel like there are so many other things I could be doing (and want to do) that the prospect of spending an hour at the dining table drawing pictures that don’t turn out so well isn’t the most exciting. It’s even worse when someone’s offered to do something, or when the weather is amazing. And, especially when there are several days before it’s due, there’s always the little voice that says, “You’ll be able to do it tomorrow anyway.”

Of course, then we get to “tomorrow” and end up staying up late. Why’s that? It’s a lot of annoyance either way, just postponed. Some people, of course, work better under pressure, but I daresay that’s not all of us. And with less time, we’re more likely to produce a slipshod job and then be frustrated because it doesn’t turn out the way we wanted it to.

But we human beings manage to defy reason every time. That’s why we’re people, not automatons. Reason at all times is reserved for robots. If we always followed reason, well, we’d be predictable—the world might be nice, but then it would be all the same, too.

Does that mean procrastination’s good? Not really. I didn’t honestly mean that. But it’s a fact of life and it proves we’re human and we can make mistakes…even the same ones over and over and over again. It’s just one of those little things that shape us. We shouldn’t do it, but we do. For better or worse, procrastination is pretty much a part of our lives (for teenagers, anyway). With a bit of luck, we manage to get by. Just don’t put it off too far!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I should be working.

Headlines

2010-03-12T17:15:00.001-08:00

Headline News! Student stabbed 16 times with a steak knife! Senatorial scandal revealed! Economy makes worst downturn in 68 years! Breakout from prison! Hurricane strikes the southeast of the country: 68 killed!

Sure, maybe it tells you things, but it’s downright depressing.

Do you ever think how nice it would be instead of seeing all that on the front page, we had things like…The first rainfall in 16 years leaves a town in the Sahara Desert celebrating in joy! 2 captured endangered species survive in the wild! After the fire 14 years ago, forest covers 6 acres of the devastated park! A cancer patient recovers from the brink of death!

Maybe it doesn’t draw people in, drive them to know exactly what happened, make them talk in the streets worriedly, but it gives a lighter tone to things, and you know what? It should. We should be just as concerned to hear about the great things that have happened in our world as hearing about the bad things. Reading the newspaper, you’d think that nothing good ever happened in the entire world. Perhaps they think to make us try and find the good things in our own lives and then alert us to the bad things, but a better balance would be nice.

And what’s with the reports on scandal and all that? Sure the general populace enjoys that kind of stuff…just like people in a crowd are idiots compared with people on their own. The general IQ of a crowd is about the average of everyone in it minus about 30 or 40 or more points. People turn into mobs that way. If you’re going to report the darker side of things, at least you could report things that affect people, rather than things that make nosy people opinionated about others.

At least, though, the focus of newspapers ought to be more balanced. Some good things, some bad things, interspersed throughout the paper—both on the front cover instead of the darkest things taking up most of the front page. Perhaps you could divide it into two parts, and have one happy thing and one direr thing per page. Uplifting and educating at the same time. To remind us that all is not hopeless, that good things still happen, but that we need to do things to preserve them as well, that bad things do happen, and that maybe we have a chance of righting them.

If we could only communicate with everyone else in the country and the world, if we could only find a way to show everyone that we’re all on the same side, that we’re not enemies, but friends, the same people, part of the same clan—one earth, children of the same planet that shelters us, no matter what else we might believe in. The concerns of one people are of all people, but the joys of one people are also of all people. And all are equally important. If everyone could realize, there wouldn’t be a need to talk about war or destruction or misery, and we could show all the other things in every issue, everywhere.

That’s not likely to happen anytime soon. But we can always hope, can we not? We can always try and hope and work for it, and then we wouldn’t need to worry which to focus on. <3

A Fable

2010-03-07T17:00:00.000-08:00

(...So I thought I published this ages ago but apparently I didn't hit the button. >.< I added lots more on since, so...I'll publish it as one big thing!)

Is it better to be ruled by logic, or by feeling?

Once upon a time there were two brothers. The first was a very logical man. He prided himself on his coldness and his ability to judge everything objectively and rationally. He was so logical, he said, that he could follow connections between objects that would lead him straight back to the original object. He could invent an explanation for everything that was based on pure logic and the simplest explanations. The second brother was ruled by his emotions. He did things on the spur of the moment depending on how he felt. He would feel sorry for the little birds in the winter and give them his dinner bread, and have none himself and feel sorry later. He felt for everything however they deserved and went through every span of emotion there was, sometimes in the course of just a single day.

One day the two brothers decided to go out into the world and seek their fortunes. They came to a fork in the road. “Which way shall we go?” asked the second brother. “I’ll choose the left-hand way,” said the first brother. “It goes downwards, and everyone knows you must go down before you can come up. Furthermore, downward-running roads often lead to streams, for water always runs at the lowest point, and streams will run out to the plains and the sea.”

The second brother took a look at both of them and frowned. “I’ll take the right-hand side—it is lighter and brighter there. The birds sing more beautifully. I feel sure that the right-hand path will bring me good fortune.”

“Farewell, then, brother,” said the first one, and went on his path.

“Farewell,” said the second brother, not without feeling, for although they were very different, he loved his brother very much. He, too, set out on his path.

We shall follow the second brother first. He walked through the forest with a light heart, for the trees were thin and the sun shone down. “Surely I have picked the better way,” he exclaimed. “It is bright and beautiful here. I think I will lie down and have a small nap.” And he did so.

When he woke up, it was full dark. An eerily bright crescent moon lit the forest up. “Oh no!” he said with more than a touch of fear. “I slept too late, and now I shall never find my way out!” And he began to weep inconsolably. Never a thought occurred of getting out, following the road that was still there, or even of sleeping until morning and going on. Neither did a darker thought of what might be out there occur.

Soon enough he felt a touch on his shoulder. He jumped up immediately. A figure dressed all in glowing white was standing in front of him. “Who…are you?” he asked, now entranced by the mysteriousness.

“Who I am is not important. Would you like me to show you the way out?” replied the figure in an ethereal voice. The second brother nodded vigorously. He followed the figure, who said no more, until it led him out onto a plain facing a castle on the other side, then vanished.

The second brother immediately went straight to the castle town. “Where am I?” he inquired of all the people he could.

“In His Majesty’s town, of course. Would you like to buy a meat pie?” replied a hawker. It smelled delicious, so he bought it, leaving only a few silver pieces left in his pocket.

Having nowhere else to go, and mindful of the figure who had led him there, he went up to the gates of the castle and knocked. Surprisingly, they opened, and a suspicious-looking man stuck his head out. “Whaddayawant?”

The second brother took offense at this. “Why, to marry your princess, of course!” he said rudely, thinking of the most outrageous thing he could. However, the doorman simply blinked. “All right, come along then,” he beckoned.

Completely bewildered, the second brother followed him.

And now let us return to the first brother…he had followed his path, which indeed led downward, but unlike his brother’s, his path was dark and overshadowed and he was soon lost. He bit his lip and kept going. “Surely after this is must get better,” he muttered.

Soon enough he was lost inside the forest. Being very logical, he went to look at the trees, for he knew that moss grew on the north side. “I was traveling east when I entered, and that will be the shortest way out.” He quickly found the way he thought was best and followed it.

It led out to the same open ground his brother had found, and he, too, went straight to the town. He refused the offerings of food and went straight to the center of the town, where he found an announcement.

His Majesty’s Subjects:

The good King’s eldest daughter, fair Rosalind, has come of age and is ready to be married. Whosoever shall come and who can prove themselves worthy shall have her hand.

Now, the first brother thought that it was high time he obtained a wife, and so directed his footsteps to the castle, where he met the same greeting as his brother had and the same question. “I noticed an announcement about the princess’s marriage,” he said courteously. “Might I present myself as a suitor?” The doorman drew his head inside and beckoned.

When the second man saw his brother led into the great chamber, he was overjoyed. “My dear brother! What brings you here?”

The first brother raised his eyebrows. “Did you not see the announcement regarding the King’s daughter?” The second brother shook his head. “Certainly not, but I’m glad you are here with me.”

Before they could say any more, the princess entered the room. Both were stunned. The first brother recovered first. “Fair lady…” he said softly. The second just gazed at her.

“Welcome,” she said. Her voice was musical and added to the enchantment of her appearance. “You seek my hand?” Both brothers nodded. “Then, one will show you to your rooms tonight. There are tasks you must do. The first night you may not sleep or take any rest, no matter how weary you may be. A shape shall appear and entreat you to sleep, but you must not. Come to me tomorrow morning.” And she dismissed them.

The brothers were led to adjacent rooms and ushered to bed. “Good night,” they said to each other, and without further ado, they entered their rooms.

The second brother sat awake on the bed, the only furniture that could accommodate sitting, wondering what would happen that night. It was only to be expected that he felt a thrill of confusion. Who knew what he would see? In the next room, his brother sat calmly, awaiting what would happen, sure he could handle it.

The clock struck 9…10…11…both their eyelids began to droop, though they fought, until…

Dong….dong…dong…the clock struck twelve.

Suddenly soft, eerie music began to play. The first brother stoically refused to listen to it. The second brother was entranced. He rose and looked out of the window, searching for the source of the beautiful, ethereal sound. The moon appeared especially bright, as it had the last night, and a faint silver glow suffused the air.

Suddenly, a bright figure appeared behind the second brother. He realized it to be the one he had met the other night, and instantly turned toward it.

(TBC)

Love or Perish

2010-02-13T16:42:00.000-08:00

With Valentine’s Day tomorrow, the ideas of love and romance grow on everyone’s mind. We think about roses, chocolates, perfume, and all the other things that characterize this time. What we don’t think about, though, is everything that we miss every day of the rest of our lives. Our culture, despite having a holiday that celebrates it, has managed to suck a lot of real love from our lives, substituting it with artificial things that don’t give us what we truly need.

Take a look around, if you will, and see what we embrace. Look at our music, our movies, and our books. Many of them have ties to love and romance, and we attach ourselves to them like barnacles, as if hearing and seeing perfect stories could make our own lives much better. We accept them as supplements for what we want in our own lives and sadly lack. Instead of finding and giving support and love to our friends and those close to us, we desperately cling to unreal echoes of what we really need and somehow cannot get.

After all, when there are so many other things to focus on than helping and loving other people who need it, how could you? Money, personal gratification, work, advancement, staying ahead of everyone else and making more money and more profits and more things than what everyone really needs. Our culture has made it so that love is a little thing by the wayside and everything else comes on top, or else you can’t succeed. It’s made it so that too many things inhibit what we feel translating to how we act.

Even the words we use have made a change in things. Words like “love” and “hate” are bandied around like snowballs in a field full of kids and new snow. Exaggeration makes it hard, I think, to say what we really mean when it’s something really big. “______? I love him,” is something you hear often that means nothing of the serious sort. “He’s awesome,” or “He’s so much fun,” or “He’s a good friend,” would fit the job just as well, but the amount of times you hear the first, at least with modern teens, equals the amount of times you hear the rest of them.

And the thing is, the topic is nothing to be thrown about so easily. Love is a real thing that so many people, even those that are considered “fortunate” and “happy”, lack. It’s something that people do crazy things for and are constantly hurting for, and are definitely not getting. Our culture isn’t helping. Ask yourself, “Am I really happy? Or am I lacking something? Could I use more love?” Chances are the answers to the last two questions will be a yes. Everyone could use more love.

So when you’re there on Valentine’s Day, surrounded by flowers, hearts, chocolate, love songs, and wishes, think about giving more love than you’re getting. Think about how everyone’s hurting for love just as much as you are, and how glad they’d be to get some. Think about how much you need and want it, and open up to the rest of the world. Everyone’s stuck inside his or her own mind watching everyone else. Anytime you make someone less alone is a beautiful thing.

And if you do have a special someone, show them. Maybe they’re just waiting for you to say it.

Success

2010-02-06T16:05:00.001-08:00

(I have a point. Bear with me.)

Rain in the winter doesn’t fit, somehow. Washing it away—for what? Dry, yellow grass. Nothing to want in the slightest.

Why is it that what’s such a blessing in the summer is torture in the winter? In the summer we’re desperate for a drop of that life-giving liquid that’s so precious to break the endless heat. In the winter, we look upon it dully and wish that it were snow.

It’s the same with other things, I find. In the summer I’m desperate for something to happen because it’s so monotonous. However, in the winter when everything’s piling up, I’m desperate to get out. It’s never been as bad as this year. I don’t feel prepared for anything and if I could just let everything go I probably would.

How can something be such a blessing and such a curse? It’s supposed to be great to be involved and to be able to do so many things and have opportunities. Somehow, the reality doesn’t look anywhere near that good. Why do we do what we do?

They always give you answers. “College. Money. Support yourself.” But if you’re always working for something that never really comes…in college it’ll be “good grades, good job.” When you’re working it’ll be “Money, promotion.” When you get there, you don’t have time to enjoy it. Why do we force ourselves so hard? In another century will we start school at age 2 and have it all year long until we’re 24, then throw ourselves into a horribly competitive workplace? If that’s where this is going, what good will it do any of us?

But people will always say, “Well, if that’s what you need to do to succeed.” What is “succeeding” in this case? I think that succeeding should honestly be making a difference. It doesn’t matter how many degrees or money or anything you made if you didn’t make a difference for people and for the world. When you’re dead, will it say “S/he made a lot of money and spent it all on their house, got 10 degrees, and sat at home all day”, or will it say “S/he didn’t make a lot of money, but s/he was the greatest parent, community person, friend, and gave everything s/he had to help others”?

What is the point of forcing yourself to the brink in something that won’t matter in the course of the thing?

I think we really need to change this. In Lewis Carroll’s Sylvie and Bruno, there is a section where the mysterious figure Mein Herr tells all about another planet where competitive examinations ran wild. “Teach them everything that’ll be on the examination and don’t bother about letting them learn anything else. It won’t be useful. As long as they can answer all the questions right, they’ll be good and successful and so will you as a teacher.” Will that be our goal? Just to learn everything on the examination and ignore everything else because the examination is what matters?

Don’t let this happen. Make it your quest to succeed because you know and you understand and you can apply it to the rest of your world, however small or large it is. I think that’s the measure of success (even if I meandered on the way to getting there!)

The Beginning

2010-01-31T12:13:00.001-08:00

(Aka Idle Thoughts)

Twice rang the bells, for death, for birth,

Twice the shining flare of light,

Twice read the story of all the world,

And the lightened soul burst into flight.

I have here a tome. Black as night, bound with silver, with hints of red. It is only so tall, and so wide, as you can see, and just so thick. It is not very large, indeed, for a volume of its destiny…

For it is the fate of the world.

The silver key enters the lock, and turns. Slowly the dark, dark cover lifts and the pages begin to fly, faster and faster, until they stop abruptly. The single cream page grows larger and larger, and the flowing script and misty drawings consume everything…

The candle sputtered, and the small pool of light it spread across the loose pages of the notes wavered slowly. It was almost dawn, and gray light filtered through the windows of the small room. Still, Cairon checked it nervously, fearful of its extinguishment but worrying about notice.

His fine pen skated across the page, recording his thoughts and observations. It had been a fine night for it. Cool, dim, quiet, without the noises he’d heard from the other day. The Lords must have done something to suppress them. They often had to nowadays, but they always did. It was one of the unchangeable facts of the world.

Except, then, what was he doing here at this time of night with only the light of a candle? At the least he should have a glowlamp, but he had been afraid of being…well, discovered. The light would have attracted a Watcher, who would have intruded and asked him what he was doing at 6 after Blacknight…and he would have been questioned. In this place of unchangeable, unquestionable things, what was Cairon Elarind doing here tonight doing a very questionable thing?

It had started not long ago. An urge, a whispering, to go outside when there was no one and no task to be done, to find out what things were like that he’d never been able to see. It was an honest feeling, and an excusable one. In the daylight there were always tasks, but at night there was no one, as everyone was lawful. Everyone except Cairon Elarind.

What would his parents have thought? He had never known them, being orphaned at a young age. According to custom he had been fostered and sent immediately to a school to find out his strengths. At 15 years, he was hard on the track to being a talented architect, or so his Masters told him. His aptitude for design and aesthetics had combined to create a wonderful mind for it, one that would help the community, they always said on his portfolios. It was what was expected.

He stacked his pages, finished for the night, and extinguished the candle, using the gray dawn-light to make his way back to his quarters. He stretched out on his bed, exhausted, trying to catch an hour of sleep before morning Calling.

They came for him that day.

I am

2010-01-23T16:04:00.000-08:00

I am

sunlight

glowing in the west

just beyond the far edge

of

Everything.

I am

starlight

glimm’ring on the sea

So close, so real, yet untouchable

The measure of

Eternity.

I am

summer rain

cooling, gentle, clean

Breathing life into the stillness

with whispers of love.

I am

snowfall

purity, and silence

Reflection, and grace

rebirth.

I am

music

symphonies of sound,

Truth that’s held in

understanding

Beyond sight, far in thought.

I am

the story

of everything I love,

Everything I’ve seen,

Everything I’ve touched.

I am the wind in the trees,

The laugh of cool waters,

Sweet morning dewdrops,

The smiles of the world.

I am life.

I am…

me.

Note: This really should be in a different, centered format, but I can't do tabs here, so this is what you get. ^^

We are intriguing things, us human beings. We are who we are because of what we've seen and done, because of what's touched us beyond all. Somewhere we retain a memory and a thought and it changes what we do and how we act. By the time we die, we're a collection of scenes from many places, the good and the bad, the sweet and the sad, the dark and the light. We become something more than just us--we're also what's shaped us, created us, everything that's ever mattered to us in our lives. We become our friends and our families and our teachers, keeping a little part of them locked inside us forever. We become everything that nature has to give and we have to receive. We are like written books, books of everything and anything we may have encountered. If we could open others up and read their stories, perhaps there wouldn't be so much pain and darkness in the world--perhaps we could understand each other, by seeing the wheres and hows and whys of each other.

I want to say thank you, I think, to everyone that's done something that I held onto, everything I remember. Without others, we are nothing, in several ways. People who touch others' lives give them the greatest gifts of all--themselves. When you touch someone else's life, no matter what way, you teach them something about themself, and help them to find their way and place in our crazy world. No matter if it's positive or negative, people need them both, need them all, in order to really learn who they really are. In every year of their lives, there is something important, no matter how young or how old. Remember that, well, everything you do influences the ones involved. We are the greatest gifts we can give to each other--the lessons we can teach, the things we can help with, the love we can give, and the knowledge of oneself and each other. It is a priceless thing, to be able to know our place. We give it to each other.

Author's End Note

2010-01-17T13:07:00.000-08:00

Author’s End Note

Dear readers. I have not written “The End” here, nor will I ever in any tale of mine. For, you see, stories never have an ending. Our part in them may come to a close, but the mantle is always there for another to take up and bring to new light. It is part of the world, part of creation, part of the endless cycle. We are all part of the same story that has gone on since the beginning of time.

In a way, reader, everything you do is part of a story, whether you think it or not. And stories are powerful. I hope that you have found something of yourself and the world reflected back at you in this one of mine. Words are precious things; they can give wings to thought and make it fly, open your eyes, show you things you’ve never seen or even dreamed of imagining. The world of thought and story is full of infinite possibilities. It is limited only by the walls you yourself have created in your mind. If you let go, why, who knows what you may discover? It is not all about creation; story is a journey of discovery. You may surprise yourself.

I hope this child of the journeys of my thought has given you some hope, some happiness, some understanding, and some laughter as you have perused it. It was all I ever wanted, to make something to leave behind and bring joys and lessons to those who come after. Everyone yearns to leave a legacy, some mark on the world. This is mine, the child of my imagination and what I believe I have learned.

Take what you will from it. To every face it is a different lesson, a different feeling, the same words with different meaning. Find what it is to yourself, whether a lesson, or an amusement, or something to turn to in a dark hour or a light one. I will never forget what stories brought to me through all the times of my life, and still do. I hope I have returned some of that to the next generation of those to come. I hope you will find some starlight pushing through the cracks of velvet night in it.

Until next time.

That is what I would like to see at the end of my work, to motivate me to continue and create. This is why I continue. That's what I want to accomplish--to create something that can mean something to others like the books I love meant to me. There is nothing like what story can do, where it can take you, and what it can teach, barring the limited actual experiences we can receive. Somehow, in the dark of the night, it is story that returns and brings messages to me. So this, I guess, is what I want to achieve for myself and for the future, to leave behind something worthwhile to all.

Dust in the Wind

2010-01-10T15:17:00.001-08:00

“All we are is dust in the wind.”

In the grand scheme of things, we really are just tiny specks swirling in the great wind of time and space. We live, love, laugh, cry, and then, well, we die. In the long run, you’re just one of many.
So why does it matter? Why do you try?
It all comes down to two things, really. Do you try for yourself, or do you try for others? People who try and gain power, money, recognition, they do it to…be remembered. Somewhere in the back of our minds, we recognize that the only people they talk about in history are those who did something memorable. The people who ruled for a long time, who conquered, or who created. Is that what you seek, though? Just to be remembered by people who won’t care who you were, what you were inside, only hate you or love you for what they thought you did? History is a fickle thing.
Or you can make the other choice. Live for yourself and the people who care who you are and what you are. What you do doesn’t matter to everyone else. Ten years will go past and they won’t even remember what gave you such embarrassment or pride on that one day. It won’t matter if you bombed that math test or if you won the mile. What matters is how you helped people, how you made life better, how you made the best of something bad. How you rescued a friend, how you prevented a depression, how you pulled through yourself despite everything against you, how you made a difference… and what you did for the secret self inside of you that’s begging to be heard.
Do we care about what others think too much? How much of what you do is to please other people, to fit in? How has this become such a large thing for us? Why is it our nature to care what other people want and be what others want of us? Is it so different to want to be who we are for ourselves.

Of course, they say that without a listener, words are nothing. But don’t do everything to be heard; or all you do is build up a mask around you. Keep to your inner truth, because otherwise you’ll never find the inner peace we search for.
What kind of a legacy will you leave? One of hope and peace and joy and caring for the people who loved you and cared about you and those who come after? Or one you left so that you would be remembered to the whole world, who won’t care? It’s your choice: to the few who it will matter to or to try for the greater. Because we live such fleeting lives, the difference is for yourself.

Christmas Thoughts

2009-12-22T16:45:00.000-08:00

“Sleigh bells ring, are you list’nin? In the lane, snow is glist’nin! A beautiful sight, we’re happy tonight, walking in a winter wonderland…”

In the danger of being Captain Obvious…It’s Almost Christmas!!! Of course you knew that already, but sometimes it’s even better saying it out loud. Everything in these few days just seems to lead straight up to this magical day. The snow, the shopping, the gift-wrapping, the decorations… it all fills the heart with a wonderful feeling.

This season holds so many memories for almost everyone. It’s a time when people get together to share stories, presents, ideas, and memories. It’s a time when the world tries to quiet its hectic, frantic spinning and think of peace, goodness, generosity, giving, and open hearts. With all this, who wouldn’t support Christmas and all it is?

It’s a pity that Christmas isn’t every day of the year. Of course, this would cease to make it different, but the ideals it upholds should be kept year-round. Who knows? It might even do us some good—they stopped fighting for a day in WWI on Christmas. Maybe if we had Christmas for an entire year we’d reconsider what we’re really doing to ourselves and each other. They had Christmas songs, entertained each other…if you think about it, the people you’re fighting probably aren’t bad guys themselves, and are the people you’d like to sit down and have a cup of coffee (or tea, or whatever) with and enjoy a morning with. You’re just two people on different sides, is all…

Christmas is simply full of good times, though. It seems as though the entire world (although that’s not quite true) is caught up in the same mindset, of being good, of caring, of family, and friends too, and a glow of happiness. The things it brings…all through the years of my short life, there is something that stays the same. Our fat old Christmas tree, for instance, which seems doomed to being lost to a new, skinnier, “prettier” tree that can’t hold half the ornaments or memories that our big one we’ve had forever can. The ornaments themselves, all gathered through years of collecting from many places—Crater Lake, Mount Vernon, my dance school, my brother’s college, and more. They’re precious, and each has a little story behind it. Then there’s the cookie baking, ripping open presents, enjoying ourselves, being stupid. I mean, what’s Christmas without a little stupidity between family?

I think it’s true that we really forget these things when it gets to sometime in March. It lingers in our memory for a month or a few, and then it disappears as other things overtake it. But then it grows in our minds again in November. Let’s relax and see how long this Christmas can last. In spirit, perhaps all through the year. Have as much fun as you can, and will, because it’s a blessing every year. And at the end, a new year dawns, just like the blank page full of possibility.

If You Just Believe...

2009-12-19T19:42:00.000-08:00

As Christmas swings around, everyone returns to examine that funny thing called belief again. Including me. It’s one of the most extraordinary things in this world, you know. The simple conviction that something is, or can happen, is what achieves the most amazing things. Without belief in one’s abilities, without belief in good and right, the world wouldn’t be the way it is, and it would be so much worse for it.

Mainly, though, aside from the belief in what you can do, what you can achieve, that lets us create what we can, it’s belief that brings us through tough times. Even if it’s not belief in a higher power, as it often is, and which is powerful in its own way for it, it’s the belief that there are good times ahead, that there’s a sun behind the dark storm clouds, that gives strength and hope beyond what you think can be done.

At times we lose this belief. We stand there under the storm and wonder why we even try. But you have to believe that there really is a light behind the darkness. Because there always is…they who lived long ago in the darkest of times, could they but see where we’ve gotten to they would be stunned, to think that their world could turn into ours. Life goes on. The story goes on. Stories never end…we’re all part of the same one that’s been going on since the beginning of time, the story of our world and our people and our pains and our triumphs. If we could step out of the world and take a look at time flowing by, we’d see that the problems we think are so desperate are really just little wrinkles in the great flow and weave of the pattern of life, fate, and time. We have to be able to step back and realize this, and feel our belief pulsing through us again.

And that’s why we return to the strength of hope and mind every time this year. We look around and we see happy people, joyful celebrations, and they’re more than just a celebration of your religion—they’re also a celebration of life, and the happiness that always exists somewhere, and of hope and love. We take joy in the season, of giving to each other, of returning to this happy time each year, in part because it renews our belief that there are good times after the sad times, that we won’t always be fighting, and that there’s a little something around the corner to make us happy.

So remember to believe. It’s belief that gives us strength, the conviction of something else that we can’t always see. In the dark, try and remember the light that you’ve seen so many times. Because it’s real, and it’s good, and it’s beautiful. If you can believe, you can wipe away the tears, uncover the windows, and let the real light within stream out. Only when you believe can you really live.

Mastery

2009-12-11T15:55:00.000-08:00

For thousands of years the other creatures that share our earth have walked its paths in a quest for survival. Battling sickness and Nature and predators and hunger was enough to engage their lives. But when man came along, this wasn’t enough. They settled down and started figuring things out, how to use things to cure sickness, how to grow food instead of search for it. And this was good. Then came modern times…

See, sometimes the human race worries me. All around there are all these new breakthroughs. Something has been invented to do this! Now they’re working on this! What I fear is that we care too much about controlling, about having mastery over things around us. We want to be able to control the wind, the seas, the snow, to our will. We’re interested in discovering how to do everything so we can work less.

But…Nature’s job is to keep the world balanced. Her job is to keep everything right. When a population grows too large, sickness plagues it, or it breaks, and it moves on to a better place. When one selection of creatures is wreaking havoc on others, the others form defense, attack, and things are regulated. But the human race is growing too fast and adapting so quickly that these things cannot help. And our only aim is our comfort, our enjoyment. We fail to see that without the work, we cannot appreciate it. Without the struggle, we cannot see the value in the fruits.

I fear for us. I can envision a time when everything will be controlled. We will raise mountains and drain seas at our will, and the rain will fall when we want it to. Lives will be elongated and there will be too many people, but we’ll build towers as high as the mountain to live in and grow food in our homes, and the blight of this “civilization” will cover the entire earth.

You might imagine the good about this. Rain when the crops need it, suppressed when they don’t so plans aren’t ruined. But the beauty of the rain and the forests and the wind is that…it’s free. It comes and goes as it wishes, and grows and changes to further beauty, to enhance the gentle earth. It brings wonder and awe. If we could control things, what would they be but another toy to play with, another machine, another thing we had to deal with every day and thought no more of?

So again, in another way, we need to move slower. Think of the consequences of our actions not just on us, but on the world. This tired world that has endured so much, that shelters us, that gives us life. It’s more beautiful than we can imagine, holed up in our tiny places who have never seen the hidden wonders that exist. But with our arrogance we would change and destroy it, shaping it to what we think is right, when in reality it is in its own right more stunning than we could even envision. We need to see this truth and think on it, for without thought we are moving into the collapse, the last stand of something that is great and beautiful and vaster than we think, we with our planes and cars and spaceships. Appreciate more what we have, for the more we think we gain, the more we lose, and the more we hunger. It’s a downward spiral…unless you can change it.

Shattered Glass

2009-12-06T13:51:00.000-08:00

I closed my eyes and saw the light
Twixt the lines that brought the truth
Only dark can fence this out
Only light can now break through
Across the endless iron ocean
Across the rolling fields of green
I watched the sun set in a blaze of fire
And I knew
There’s so much more that’s to be held
Break the bonds that hold you tight
Wash the darkness from your eyes
Open up and see the sun on the green, green grass
The world is more than you can know
The sky is wider than you dream
Eternity is there in every glance of tired eyes
So feel the snowflakes on your skin
Breathe the crisp frost in the air
Hear the laughing of the clear cold mountain stream
And hold tight to the things that make this world alive
For without them there is nothing
Touch once more the things that bind you
For without them you are nothing
Only shattered glass

~HRMA

Between the Lines

2009-12-06T13:10:00.001-08:00

When you walk around outside, do you see what you are looking at? Do you notice the azure sky, the crisp smell after a cool spring rain, the sound of laughing water? Why is it that there are so many wonders flowing past us that we rarely pay attention to? I’ve seen many beautiful things in my life, and they are part of what makes life good, and rare, and unique, and precious. Some things you’ll never see again in your life. Doesn’t it make sense to look for them? I wonder exactly how many things we pass by as we rush through our daily lives. We need to walk slower, to see everything we can, to actually touch the things rushing by. Because who knows? If we cease to do so, what happens to it? Without regard for the things that make up the world just as we do they will vanish like rain in the parched desert, lost forever beyond reckoning. So many things are being lost, because people don’t watch where they step. We are not blameless ourselves. But we are, as they always say, the future. If we don’t look and see, then we are a downward spiral, for our children will not look if we can’t teach them.

So take things a little slower. Look around and see what you’re living in. Is it really so bland as to be passed by? Here we are taking our focus on things that in the long run probably really don’t matter. Sometimes we feel like we can’t get anything done, like nothing’s important anymore. Because we focus on the unimportant, fence ourselves in with routine and the mundane, we think we can ignore in our little cells all the other things that are happening and think that life is amazing, when we’re missing so much. Remember, although the big things in life are what shape life and shape people, it’s the little things that make or break it. It’s the little things in life that are the sweetest and most precious. Take some time and find them!

RolePlay

2009-11-29T12:28:00.000-08:00

This is solely for RP purposes...

Demerole
His great talent is his proficiency with knives. He's mildly insane, for when he was 15 his parents and his beloved baby sister were killed...by orcs? He's a wanderer and shows his talent at odd times. Moody!

Meldorin
Gondorian, Lebennin area. Member of a defunct House, Iselin. Wields a broadsword. Escaped primarily from parents and nagging younger sisters. Has an odd passion for mapping. The most honorable.

Calen
A young man, born by Dol Amroth, raised in Rohan after his mother brought him there upon his father's death. Idealist and the nicest of the guys. Doesn't carry a weapon regularly, but a good shot. Loves horses.

Alardan
He's Alivair's twin brother, but they've been separated since the age of 7 for 15 years. He's the quiet one and prefers not to be in situations, but aids those in need and is fairspoken. Carries a haunted look in his eyes from the past.

Alivair
Alardan's twin. He's rougher and disdainful from his different upbringing (He was abducted by not-so-nice people, and Alardan was found by decent people. Their parents were killed when they were separated). The twins can feel each other if they're close enough, and are still trying to figure things out now that they've met again.

Felderon
Thief. Light-hearted.

Kariel Arenfall
Gentle and mild. She carries a few daggers but dislikes fighting. Her brother was killed as a soldier, and it devastated her. She's in need of comfort and someone to rely on and forget things. She's wandering and wishing for something to happen...

Cristiel
Fiery and strong, has a sword and proud of it. Outspoken and confident. Ranger type, half-elf. Pretty if one would take an interest in her (rare so far).

Jaena Orderon
Brooding type. Elemental/sorceress type deal, you'll see if you ever have to fight her or alongside her. Goes cloaked and in mannish attire. Fights well. Darkest of my girls--the kind to sit in a corner eyeing people.

Rayelin
A young woman from Minas Tirith. She has a brother and father in the Guard. They taught her fist and blade fighting. She's kind at heart and good with horses. She spent time in the Mordor dungeons before Sauron was overthrown.

Allora
She's a Numenorean...adaptable for RP purposes. Loves ships and the sea. Her father went on a journey and never returned, and her mother died of grief. Her younger brother is 8 years younger. They were raised by an old family friend.

Aerwyn Caladhiel Elena Telcontar
The second daughter of Aragorn and Arwen. Takes after her mother's kindred. Usually thoughtful and well-spoken. Feels trapped by the city walls at times.

Imagination

2009-11-28T21:02:00.000-08:00

Imagination. We use it so abundantly as children, and then somehow it seems to slip away some time. I remember many days in elementary in which we ran around, pretending to be this, or that, even believing it to some degree, and creating worlds and people on an everyday basis. It’s such a powerful thing, the imagination, but somehow, at a certain age, it’s like a switch turns it off. Boys start hanging out on the blacktop and playing sports. Girls start sitting on the playground and gossiping. It comes at different times, but eventually seems to happen to all.

Why is this? Looking back, I think I looked forward to recess more, enjoyed our off-time more, than in after days when it wasn’t “cool” anymore. Imagination is becoming a lost art; it seems that at younger and younger ages the switch is turning. And yet it’s such an important thing. For without it, what would we accomplish, or achieve? Without the will to dream of things, we would be nothing. But for some reason we’re moving away from it at an alarming pace.

Some will tell you that it’s because of TV and video games. I wonder, though. When I watch or play those, my imagination is rather fired off rather than diminished. Watching such things stirs me, and brings one to imagine the glory, the adventure, and the deeds (or the love, as the case may be). They were spawned by people who had very vivid imaginings. Why shouldn’t they aid our thoughts?

Whatever the reason, it becomes more important that we can remember how to dream. It becomes more important that we can create and dream of better things, imagine things beyond. Because as far as we seem to advance, if we lose the truths that we bear it is doom that we go to. If we lose our thoughts of freedom and of peace, then we will only sink deeper. For it is this that give us our edge; our ability to remember what we fought for and our ability to dream of even better things. If you can only imagine…and believe.

Because there’s more out there than we think of nowadays. It tears my heart to see the interest of people who just want to “get rich quick”, as they say, going into the stocks and I-banking and all of that just for the money and not because they care. It pains to see scandal and such grace the headlines, because people don’t really care anymore. Most of the young people I know are idealists, but it’s lost as time gets on. Some remove it in tasting the bitterness of their pains. There are some, though, who just dismiss it as a fancy of childhood. Is that what it is? Is that what dreamers are, people who are lost in their youth, wandering and witless among their fantasies? Say not so! For there is the hope and wish of mankind. Remember, as you draw your path through the world, to dream again…

Twelve Hours (Part One, missing the point. Wait patiently...)

2009-11-22T19:38:00.001-08:00

I couldn’t seem to elaborate on any of the subjects I wanted to address this week, so I will simply write today…
Dong. The bell rolled out one note, a deep, resounding sound, and a cloud of mist rose up and obscured everything. When it cleared, the golden sun looked down from within an azure sky…

A young girl sat in the clean green grass, smelling the wildflowers in the clearing. Her short golden hair was bright as the summer around her, bright as her white smock, bright as the light in her deep blue eyes. Birds sang in the trees, beautiful melodies, and light suffused the clearing. From behind the trees, someone watched her, tenderly and longingly. She stood up and stretched her arms to the sky. Life was beautiful, as new as the reborn world in the spring…

The bells pealed twice.

An older girl stood underneath the gently falling snow. Her eyes held gentleness, borne from her experiences. Her hands folded softly in front of her as she looked down upon the last flower of the autumn, frosted now. Its golden bloom had paled to a wan sort of yellow, but still beautiful in a sad sort of way. It was a reflection of the one who stood looking at it, with her heart full of kindness in sorrow…

Three tones rolled out like a call to remember.

A 16-year-old with long golden hair sat underneath the golden leaves of the silver-barked tree. Her blue eyes watched everything, but where once they could have been lively, they were now dulled in simple acceptance. A watching presence filled the air, but whether with evil designs or with only kindness in mind, one could not have said. She held an ornate silver locket in her hand, looking at the hand-painted portrait inside. A single tear rolled from the corner of her eye…

Bronze bells tolled four times.

A young woman, gold hair cut short, stepped out of a train with her head put down. The bright colors of her scarf and sweater failed to offset the air of sadness she bore at all times. She held a small blue notebook in her hand, with black and gold pen, filled with memories of other times. The eyes that watched her marveled at how fair a beauty seemed to be paled, most with sadness and regret that such should be. They wondered how one who seemed so fair, prepared, and well-off could have the look of long years of pain in her eyes. She did not see any of them, nor notice the whispers that followed her…

Five notes rang out.

A woman stood in a tower looking silently across the pale blue lake, reflecting the light of the argent moon. Her hair fell down and obscured much of her face, but she could see through it all. The notes of a haunting harp melody filtered up through the floor, and the cold starlight seemed to glitter ever more brightly, reflecting off her pale face. Slowly she turned and began to take the long steps down…

Dandelion Wine

2009-11-14T15:48:00.001-08:00

I’m almost overflowing with things to write about, after having slowly accumulated them as I write them down. There is a list for my subsequent posts, including such things as belief, willpower, imagination, the end of imagination, and more. Today, however, I am going to talk about the things I got out of the book Dandelion Wine. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a Ray Bradbury book. The basic story is a collection of events, like snapshots of life, detailing the summer of 1928 for a boy and his family and his town. And every day has a bottle of dandelion wine for it, and as the summer dies they can go back and point out the days when things happened.

It is an eventful summer and a beautiful tale, but for me it was also a series of thoughts and realizations. The first of these was about happiness. In the story, one of the characters attempts to make a “Happiness Machine”. After he’s done it, though, he comes to terms with the fact that it’s not really happiness he’s created, because it takes away from the happiness you already have in your own place and time. Happiness—it’s how we make it, and we’ve got to find it where we are, where we make it. It’s all relative, and we’re losing some of it in our apparent quest for happiness that’s right there in front of our faces the entire time.

Next is the thought about what’s past. Reading this kind of a book kind of makes me wish for the days when you knew all of your neighbors, when you could walk anywhere you needed to go, when people had time to relax and be with each other and the world. Sometimes I think we’re going too fast, and our technologies that are supposed to be making things easier are instead making our lives more hectic and crazy. It feels like we’ve gotten too busy to take a day off and sit on the porch watching the grass grow and the clouds move and the bees buzz, totally content. And then it feels like even when we try to take a break, to relax, that we’re so wound up worrying about all the things we’ll have to do the next day that we can’t see it for the goodness it really is. Back when we felt like we knew the world, that it was small, that it was just this town and this sky and these trees and these people, we were more in harmony with everything. Communication, transportation, and machines have somehow disconnected us, in a way, from what’s really out there, even as we feel we uncover more of it every day. Our harmony with the world is dwindling, in a sense, foundering in the waves. It needs to be rescued, I think, or else we’ll lose something important, and maybe a little more.

Last of all is a thought on memory. At the end of the summer, the Spaulding boys are looking at the bottles of Dandelion Wine, reviewing the days of the summer. They sit there and remember different incidents from the entire summer, while Grandpa says he only remembers the new kind of grass that didn’t need cutting. The boys stare at him, thinking they’ll remember it forever, but I’ve come to see that we lose a lot. Sometimes something will happen to jog my memory, and I’ll remember something; maybe hearing Nutcracker music will bring everything we did crashing back, maybe a word about an old occasion will bring it back, but through the whole scheme of things it feels like everything runs together, and it makes me sad. I want to be able to remember things, to remember the golden days of my life when I’m old. I guess that’s what diaries and journals are for, but what if you can’t remember them at all? I’m afraid of the days of my life running away like water, without me being able to remember what made me happy, what I learned, forgetting the things that I once prized as the best memories of all.

So there are my musings upon this book. It touched me because recently I never feel like there’s enough time in the world, but I’m yet so tired that I couldn’t possibly cut any sleep. I think we’re doing too much here; one of these days it’ll all crash down on us, the entire system, unless we can find some balance again. Does anyone else feel the same way? Is it just me that wants to find a slow place again?

Comment please…I’m missing comments and I wonder what you think about this and the last two posts. Until next time…

Who We Are

2009-11-07T15:30:00.000-08:00

“If we die, we die as who we are.” This is a quote from Tuon in Knife of Dreams, I think, the 11th book of the Wheel of Time. When I read it, it felt…striking to me, I guess you could say. It’s a powerful thought. In the book, it’s because Tuon was “under the veil”, meaning instead of being recognized as the Daughter of the Nine Moons she was hiding herself and being just the High Lady Tuon, and when they prepared to leave into danger, she decided to remove the veil. But the words itself are rather more than that.

The first thing that comes to my mind, probably the most important, is the part about “who we are”. It implies the words of someone who knows who they are, what their place is, and where they’re going. They have a set course in life. But so often as we grow up, we find ourselves not knowing who we really are. We don’t have children, or a job, or anything like that. We’re simply one of so many attending schools all over. I probably couldn’t tell you who I was if you asked me. Oh, I could tell you my name, who my parents are, where I go to school, what I do for fun. But what about my purpose? It’s so hard to know, isn’t it? Only it feels like everyone should know why they’re here and what they’re going to do. So many people, however, don’t really know, I think. There are far too many of us, even adults, who are still searching because they’re still not sure what they want to do and how they’re going to achieve it. I’d tell you I want to do something worthwhile, want to leave something behind, like a work of mine, writing, something that exhibits some of the truths I’ve known, some of which are chronicled in this blog. And maybe that’s a small piece of who I am, the dreamer, searching for something…different, and wanting to leave something behind. But there are always more facets.

Maybe it’s a gift, as well. If we knew what we were meant for, there would be different problems, like all the ones there are with prophecy; the hero is told what’s going to happen, and nothing’s going to change that, and then there are wrong interpretations, and bad things happen. It’s good not to know everything, but sometimes I wish we could know a little more. Just a little more of what we are, of who we are.

And then if we know, the second thing about those words is dying as who you really are. Not as the person you’ve built up through the years, not as the face and manner you show to others, but the person you are in deepest night when your thoughts blend with dreams and wishes. The person you always wanted to be and the person you never thought you could. At the very last, at least once, you can and must shed off the things you’ve done to fit in, to handle this world, and show, for one moment, the truth inside of you; to show to the world who you were, who you are, and who you always will be. For only then everything can come to be in full.

Philosophy, Math, Writing, and Knowledge

2009-10-31T15:17:00.001-07:00

Philosophy. Math. Writing. Believe it or not, these things are very similar. They all deal with, and transcend, our reality. And true reality. In ancient times, all the mathematicians were philosophers, and vice versa. Math and philosophy are closely related (well, the interesting kind of math. Not the toilsome in-class repetitiveness. I mean the theoretical kind…) and it makes for some very interesting thoughts.
What, you may ask, led me to this intriguing post? Actually, it was Math Circle last Wednesday, combined with a few of my own thoughts and some correlating thoughts from Ancient Greek philosophers presented by the Warnock Chair of Mathematics at the U who has the cool accent. What is math, anyway? It’s actually very hard to define, if you think about it. Physics is the study of why things happen, geography the study of the countries and cultures of the world, but what is math? The dictionary says that math is the study of the relationships among numbers, shapes, and quantities that uses signs, symbols, and proofs and includes arithmetic, algebra, calculus, geometry, and trigonometry. I think math is more than that. Here’s my definition of math: The study of the elements of the world that goes through and around ours, which are represented by numbers, and which we cannot touch save with our minds as an idea, yet which help to shape our reality. Because you see, people only got interested in numbers because they needed something to help them figure out the whys and hows of the world. And that’s where math comes from. But it really was…there, if you know what I mean. People just put…body to it, in our own minds, gave it shape and form. The theories we came up with for it are all part of our quest to understand reality and all that.
Which is why, you know, writing is closely tied to them as well. Every writer is a philosopher, for a writer must, for the time he’s writing, believe in things that mankind has yet to fathom. So they must create (or discover) the truth of the laws of reality, at least for the world they write, and we have only touched at that. Perhaps it’s because we’re not meant to know. Maybe we’re just not ready. And maybe we already do, and we just don’t recognize them for what they are. Because really, what do we know? Perhaps what we think we know is not really what is there. It’s been said that what we see with our eyes is not what is really there, and we are not capable of visualizing what really is. Isn’t that a thought to consider? I think it’s intriguing. Some other important person also said that man is facing a wall, and things happen behind him toward the mouth of the cave. We see shadows and think it’s reality, but reality is actually what’s behind us, making the shadows. We may know far less than we think we do, and there may be more things we have yet to know than we can ever imagine. We will learn what we can, and strive on harder, and brush against what we may. Such is the way of life.

Festive Occasions

2009-10-25T12:18:00.000-07:00

Today is October 25, meaning I have two soon-to-arrive occasions to mention. First of all, as many of you may know due to me spouting it worriedly for about two weeks, my older brother is going to be of-age in 5 days. The second of-age. Or the third, counting driving age. (Forgive this mode of talking about reaching age limits; I made up a full system of turning of-ages this morning for my story.) Don’t you think it’s interesting how age matters so much to us? I do. We allow young people to subsequently drive, vote, and have the choice to smoke and drink by age, even though some mature earlier and some much, much later. But what can we do about it? There has to be some way of judging adequacy, correct?

And then there’s the little bit about how adults generally think their intellect is superior to that of young people. No matter that I’ve heard some really ridiculous things out of adults and some very sound things out of kids/teenagers. I happen to think it’s nice that we can be idealist and dream about things that adults dismiss as impossible because they’re too weighed down with all the responsibilities of being adults. Now if the knowledge/experience of the adults could be combined with the idealism of youth…that might produce something productive, wouldn’t you say?

So that’s my small bit of age-talk for today, disregarding the fact that when your only sibling starts to pass milestones you should be very, very worried.

Now, the next occasion is Halloween. I once heard a Brit say that they thought it was strange that kids would go to strangers’ houses and ask for candy and that it sounded like an Americanized form of begging. Did you ever think about how people from far off might think our traditions were totally crazy? I mean, I take Halloween as a fact of October, but apparently that’s not so.

Well, personally I enjoy Halloween, because the candy aspect makes it much easier to forget Halloween is like…a…death…holiday…thing. And it’s nice when you’re little to go around for a night pretending you’re a princess or a Jedi or a ninja dude or a cat. Rudiments of acting, eh? And it feels good to give candy out and make some small child happy. Plus if you know your neighbors it isn’t really to strangers.

On the other hand, when you’re older and you don’t go trick-or-treating and you don’t stay at home handing out candy, what are you to do? It becomes less of a holiday and more of a sit-around-and-be-bored-and-scare-small-children sort of a day. This totally removes the point of it, for the small children at least.

Be as that may, back to the traditions topic. I for one may be going over to the other side of the world over Winter Break. They don’t celebrate Christmas over there! I don’t even know if there’ll be snow! And certainly no Christmas tree, and no fancy-wrapped presents, and no music on the radio. It makes you think about other traditions we don’t know about and how people over the world think our celebrations are weird and us not having some of their holidays is sad. We don’t even know a lot about other people, even in our own countries (I’ve heard some strange things about a certain universal topic for people from our state from people out-of-state). We need to raise cultural awareness so we can be more easily accepting and understand why people have these traditions. I’m opting for a culture class, not just one language with culture (for instance, I take French). I think it would help us all a lot, worldwide. Isn’t that what we want, peace and understanding?

A note to my poor readers…My blog seems to be for thought-producing-exploring purposes. As such, only a few have been really well organized. I apologize for that…I will try to do better in the future.

Positivity

2009-10-18T13:13:00.000-07:00

When faced with much pressure and much to worry about, one wonders how one can hold on to some measure of positivity. And one must also reconcile oneself to the fact that positivity is rather necessary. Without it, how could we ever get things done? It would be a world of grim staring at all the things we have to confront in daily life. I’m sure you’ll agree with me when I say they’re quite a bit to handle, if you really truly think about it all as a great clump. And sometimes it’s hard to pry oneself away from thinking of it as a great big suffocating clump about to descend on you.

Goodness, that’s very optimistic of me, isn’t it? Breathe deeply…think of it one at a time. And even then sometimes you can’t get it all done. I both dislike and enjoy procrastinating, but as it piles up it’s hard not to just sit there staring at it, like Psyche with the multitude of grains that Venus told her to sort.

All right, enough of being miserable. I will try to be positive. I’ve heard it works nicely, actually. A friend of mine and I have been practicing it abundantly, and I suspect we will be doing so through May, with extra intensity at the end of March. Positivity can make for determination, as well. We’re convinced we’re going to do well, so we are determined to do well (and to ensure the rest of the team does as well so we can achieve our goal). I suspect it’s part of the reason why being positive works so well.

Oh, and what about positive vibes being catching? I wonder if it works if you just think it, or if you have to say and act positively. That would be an interesting experiment, I think. It’s quite obvious it would work if you went around smiling brightly and convincing everyone it would be great, I think. People start to catch it; if you smile enough at someone they’ll smile back, unless they’re really horrible or you’re playing that one game involving not smiling. But you know, just the brain? There are so many, many things we have yet to learn about involving the human brain. So much intriguing mystery. There’s another question for you; how many long years until we know even twice as much as we do now? I notice that every time we seem to solve something, it simply raises more questions. Including now, when I’m just thinking a little. Already there are 5 question marks in this one post.

And there, yet again, let’s be positive. Maybe it won’t be so long. Maybe we will find out things much quicker. Yes…that’s right…be positive……………………………………….

Okay, so pardon for that totally ridiculous and not-making-much-sense post. My brain seems to run in circles around me; I think it can feel the anticipation for the SO year building. Though I sound quite ridiculous, I do indeed mean to be positive. This year will be our year. I promise it.

A Hodgepodge of Something More Mundane

2009-10-09T18:22:00.000-07:00

After a few weeks of high and lofty topics, I decided to tone it down a bit this week (actually it was because I didn’t have any amazing revelations this week, but…) and talk about more mundane things. A summary of important things, I guess.
First of all, for instance, I finally overcame my writer’s block for real. I wrote 3 pages today at various times in school, which is rather impressive for me I think. I’m bursting with ideas and I think they’ll last another few chapters. I hope. I’ll probably get bogged down again around the time they reach a city, but oh well. Maybe my luck will hold! Dovie’andi se tovya sagain—It’s time to Roll the Dice. That’s the motto of Shen an Calhar, or the Band of the Red Hand, led by Matrim Cauthon, in the Wheel of Time. I just think it’s snazzy.
Secondly, I’m in rather a bit of a dilemma at the moment. I’m sure all of you know how many things I’m involved in. Well, there’s a certain organization that wants me on their team, and I was considering it earlier in the year until a certain other that takes higher priority said I couldn’t be on both. Well, recently, I was informed by an important person that if I did want to be on the first-mentioned organization, something could be worked out with the second-mentioned one. The thing is, because I was told I couldn’t be on it, I decided to do a certain other thing, which conflicts with this team. And I’m sort of worried about exploding from stress. Most of all I hate having to decide like this, because I was on the team last year and so I do feel loyalty toward it. Lastly, I’m kind of worried about the voices asking why I get an exception. I guess, looking at it, there are more arguments against it than for it. Ah well, I’ll decide this weekend and hope for the best.
Hmmm….what else of interest? I’m rereading a large series of books right now, in preparation for the release of the next one on October 27. As you may know, I make a rather big deal of them. I think they’re helping me with my writer’s block as well. When you can look at a book, see how a master can begin the series, each book, have climaxes for each book, manage characters, change the characters (even if the changes make me sad…I don’t like Rand being so hard), end books and chapters, switch between characters, places, and points of view, and end the series (though this one of course is not there yet), it helps very much indeed. I’d advise anyone trying to write to read thoroughly and then try and get things from it. Not just themes and truths of life and all, but about writing and little tricks and tips. There are quite a lot of them once you start looking.
I guess that about sums up my thoughts at the current moment, disregarding the bit about me being ecstatic at not having a boatload of math homework over the weekend and glad I don’t have much from other classes as well. I’m in a conflicting state of mind right now, I guess. Happy and sad and confused and thoughtful. And with some very interesting dreams to go along with it. That’s life, I guess. Fraught with so many things.

Musings on Writing and Reality

2009-10-02T14:57:00.000-07:00

As enigmatic as the title seems, it’s really not so bad. What I mean is that this post will be one of perhaps several collections of thoughts, probably slightly disjointed, and maybe not getting anywhere much. As the title suggests, this one will be some thoughts I had about writing and reality. Warning to readers: It’s going to be rather hypothetical. You’ll see what I mean by that. Well, if you’re ready (or have quit reading already, whichever it might be), here goes…

First of all, a bit of thought on writing. I myself am writing a novel, I guess, and was recently in a bit of a block on about page 32 over a battle scene. I’d been thinking about what I wanted to happen and I realized something about the style of writing, or what was being told, wasn’t quite right, or didn’t give the right feeling away. I thought about it for a while, and then just as I was reading my book (I’m on the Wheel of Time series right now, excellent series everyone, you should read it), I think I figured out what was wrong. They always tell you, “Show, don’t tell.” Oh, I’d been having a lot of detail and all, but as I was reading I realized the more effective method that Jordan uses. He tells everything from the character’s point of view, even though it’s written in 3rd person. Something about showing emotions and reactions the way that character sees it and feels it gives some more life to the thing, and more reality to the people. That’s what I’d been doing wrong—I’d been writing more from an outside perspective, as a bystander would see it, and trying to communicate emotion by expression and how the people said things. While that is effective at times, somehow just showing how one person sees, and feels, and the reasons for their actions, gives a depth and reality to it that can’t be paralleled by simply telling how it looks.

And, of course, fiction needs to seem so much like reality that you can’t tell it much apart, or it should in my perspective. I say this for two reasons. The first is that I read fiction pretty much just to get away from RL. To read about a different place, a different time, a different world, to lose myself in it, is the purpose of this pastime. Maybe I’m a bit too daydreamy, but that’s the way it goes. The day I stop would be the day I find answers, or finally settle down in life, I guess. Maybe.

The second reason is something a little harder to understand, even for me. (It’s where the “hypothetical” comes in.) I always like to think of the worlds in books as real, in a way. Untouchable except through books, and authors and their writings the link between, and the authors historians rather than imaginers. Only perhaps these worlds don’t exist until they think of them, but once they do they are fully fleshed, and the people, and then suddenly it’s real and the author can only gaze down and wait for things to unfold. That would be an interesting explanation for all those times when authors say they didn’t know who was going to die only then when it happened they knew that was how it had to be. And then how long the world lives depends on how many people believe in it, or at least are drawn to it. The thing is, we never really have any way to prove anything. Apart from our senses and what we communicate with each other, and who’s to say our senses aren’t lying? And what does it mean to be real—and how can we even know the world we live in is real the way we think it is?

I guess I shouldn’t branch out so much to create strange paradoxes. It’s just entrancing to think that there’s something more out there than what we see. Likely all of this is just fancy, but it’s nice to think, what if? At times. And indeed, what if? There is so much we still do not know about, well, everything, and so it will be for a long time, I think. When the world still holds so many secrets, why not let your daydreaming run wild? It is part of what makes us human, after all. We have done it for thousands of years. Remember not to fall so far from our beginnings that you lose your wonder. As was once said, “I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean.” Let your dreams run.

A Long-Expected Party (Slightly Belated)

2009-09-27T15:27:00.000-07:00

As those of you who know me well know, I have a fond liking for The Lord of the Rings (hereafter known as LotR) and everything to do with it. It’s one of my only serious obsessions. Its meaning, its characters, its story, its writing…I could go on for days, but that really isn’t the point. Today I mean to exonerate just a few of the characters and a bit of the story (though knowing how I ramble, it may…branch out, if you take my meaning).

The reason for this is that Tuesday, September 22, was, as we Ringers call it, Tolkien day, the birthday of the two most adored Bagginses, Frodo and Bilbo. The Bagginses’ birthday is a milestone event every year, and I’ve heard that many really obsessive people (that’s right, I’m only the tip of the iceberg) hold parties on it. So, I guess it’s all right for me to write this blog post to celebrate it.

I’ll start off with a bit of rambling on my thoughts about the two. Each has starred in his own story, Bilbo in his (relatively) small adventure and Frodo in his monumental one. Of course, both had a fair amount of help, Bilbo the dwarves (Thorin, Fili, Kili, Balin, Dwalin, Glòin, Òin, Bombur, Dori, Ori, Nori, Bifur, and Bofur, I believe) as well as Gandalf, and Frodo had the Fellowship (Gandalf, Sam, Merry, Pippin, Legolas, Gimli, Aragorn, and Boromir) but mostly and paramountly he had dear Sam. Oh, I’m not saying that Gandalf’s wisdom and Aragorn’s sword and Legolas’s bow and Gimli’s axe and all that didn’t help, at least for the first part, but it is Sam’s steadfastness and loyalty that sticks in our minds as the thing that helped Frodo most. It’s one of the books’ greatest themes, I think, that of a friend resolving to be true no matter what, even as he watches Frodo sink under the Ring’s influence. However, as has been said many times, no matter how much Sam could help the burden was still Frodo’s to bear, and it was still his courage that saved Middle-Earth (even though it wasn’t really him who managed to destroy the Ring in the end). I’m one of those of the mind that Sam probably couldn’t have carried the Ring all the way to Mordor if he’d been the one. Frodo is unique in the characteristics he possesses—a Halfling with other stuff than food and gaiety on his mind (which seem to be the hobbits’ happiest delights), but still after peace, not arrogant, only wanting to get the job done, hardy, courageous, and much more. Coupling this with his background and the way he came into his task, it becomes plain that this was fate, as far as that goes. And the chance that the Ring and the task of bearing it would fall into his hands was a miracle for that world.

Of course, it was indeed by means of his cousin Bilbo that Frodo had it. Bilbo’s courage in this matter was of a different sort. When he first had it, he did not know it was much more than a ring with the power to make one unseen, which he found very useful. But as the years went by, and Sauron stirred, and the Ring responded, it was him that was affected. “Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread,” he said. But he went on hardily as it took its toll, and when the time had come, he managed to give the Ring away, to break the bond. Such courage, both of theirs, is worth much more than many men’s swords.

And what courage they had is what made them so great. Though the victory of the forces of good over Sauron’s evil was not solely theirs, theirs was the main quest, to bring the Ring to Mount Doom, Orodruin, Amon Amarth. And they did it.

I’ve only mentioned a slight part of the epic, a slight part of the characters, and the tiniest bit of meaning contained in the trilogy in this post. I’ll probably write more about these books this year. Truly, though, if you want to know more, if it draws you, as it should, just get out there and read the books. You won’t regret it.

Good Fiction

2009-09-20T13:30:00.000-07:00

The list of books I’ve read in my life is extensive. The list of books I count as my favorites is smaller, yet still extensive. But a thought came to me yesterday (while speaking with a friend, actually). The list of books that made me cry is much shorter. And perhaps is a more accurate judge of the elusive title of “good fiction”. Closer, at least, I think.

Now, I don’t intend this to be confused with “well-written” or “with good plot” or anything like that. True, much of what comes under “good fiction” probably does have those characteristics. But then, many books do. The thought that struck me, though, is this… “Good fiction” is that which made an impact on you. Fiction is our way of communicating truth in a more creative way. A book I recently read mentioned the difference between being “truth” and being “truthful”. Nonfiction, historical accounts, those are “truth”. Fiction is, or at least should be, “truthful”—a message of truth in a body that may not be true. Good fiction is that which contains fundamental messages of truth—the ones that remind us of life, death, and what matters in between. Good fiction is that which contains such powerful examples of what’s important to everyone that it touches you deeply. In my case, anything that touches me deeply is very likely to make me cry. The books I’ve read that have small, wrinkled, circular deformations (in other words, tearmarks) on their pages bear some of what I think are the most important themes in human life, history, and mind. Isn’t that what good fiction is? It should teach us, remind us through our wonder and excitement that what holds in the world it describes also holds for us here. Good fiction is that which makes us better, more understanding, kinder people—closer to our own truths—through stories.

You know, stories have always held power. The title of this blog itself is “Truth, Myth, Legend”—commemorating how legend surrounds a seed of truth, and how that seed transforms into a legend. Every culture has its own stories. Since ages ago stories have been used to teach the young their principles. And they still teach older people, in different forms, a constant reminder; they use different images, but many of the messages are still the same. It reminds me of what I just read in Dan Brown’s new book The Lost Symbol, how the ancients knew what people are rediscovering today. The view through the eyes of children, what seems long ago, is often more pure and right than that is seen later in life; things happen, those views get twisted, doubts surface. Stories remain as guideposts from the people that rediscovered it themselves to bring you back on the path, to help you rediscover what you’ve known all along.

And that brings me back to the main subject of this entry. They’re still stories, yes, still fiction, still created by the imagination (or perhaps, as I may discuss in a later entry, recorded by an eye that sees farther than the mind can believe); but they have truth, and power. And good fiction is that which has both the right truth, and the right power. It’s that which reminds you of things forgotten so forcibly that it brings tears to your eyes—tears of pain, tears of remembrance, tears of memory, tears of joy. Good fiction holds at least some of the keys to our search for innate peace.

A Reflection

2009-09-12T18:47:00.000-07:00

As you all know, yesterday marked the 8th anniversary of Patriot’s day, more infamously known as 9/11. On September 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked and crashed airplanes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. They killed everyone on board, and many, many more died inside the buildings. Another plane hit the Pentagon and the last crashed in Pennsylvania.

The sole purpose in what terrorists do is, put simply, to cause terror. They do what they do to cause destruction, fear, terror, and pain, usually in complete knowledge of what they do. Oh, they may have other ideas of what they are doing, and may believe they are dispensing justice. Some do it for religious purposes, citing their holy works. But in the end does it make it any different? They killed almost three thousand people, including themselves. Families were ripped apart. Children orphaned, having to hear a stranger tell them mommy or daddy is never coming home. Thousands of innocent lives obliterated or damaged for far distant peoples’ ideals. It is impossible to justify.

We know this, but we also must learn a lesson. We were attacked by hate, but this reminds us that we cannot respond with hate, lest we be just as bad. We must show that their purpose has been deflected; where met with hate we must show compassion, and courage, and unity. United we stand, divided we fall; united we can repair the damage that was done physically, rebuild the towers, rebuild the damaged lives with love and hope and aid. We can never replace those who died, but we can go on, taking strength from their courage, their memory. We can face those who did it with justice, with right anger, but not with hate, which will burn and twist as many lives as it did ours. We are Americans and proud of it; of our progressiveness in being free and just and equal. Let us show the same progressiveness in NOT showing hate, in NOT seeking revenge of the same kind, and removing our prejudice against the innocents from THEIR countries who have as little part in what they do as we have in what they blamed us for. Though it has been 8 years since it happened, the memory lives on as burned in our minds, and problems still exist, and the possibility of something like it still exists.

This is what Patriot’s Day means to me—a reminder of what happened, a warning against the forces of terror, a reminder that there are still people out there who would oppose what we believe and that, truly, we pay prices for what we have here. We must still uphold the ideals of the American dream. And, perhaps one day, we’ll have a world where things like this don’t happen, where children can grow up safe and supported, where the whole world is at peace. And when that happens, every sacrifice that people have made over the years may finally be justified.

Blog Post #1

2009-09-09T14:27:00.001-07:00

Hello world!