2. Resist the temptation to define or be defined.

2.a. Be comfortable with ambiguity.

Continuing with the list of unsolicited advice I offered to a series of graduating high school kids (the children of friends) this past Summer, I present the above. They are an extension, I think, of the first one (all words have meanings) but expand the line of thinking.

Definition is by definition (ha ha) limiting. In Orwell's 1984 one of the ideas behind Newspeak was to restrict thinking by removing words from the language. You can't think it or articulate it if you don't have words for it was the notion.

I'm not worried about the government here. I'm talking about self-definition, and social definition and cultural definition.

Don't be too ready to ink yourself in. Let yourself develop as you may. Just be, and find out where that takes you. Find out. Discover. Explore. Existence is not black or white. There are endless shades of grey. Ambiguity abounds. Accept that this is the world that we live in.

Now let's be clear. I'm not suggesting you should not have morals or ethics. Far from it. In fact, in a morally and ethically ambiguous world one needs to be grounded. But one must also understand that the actual application of those morals and ethics will be tested on an ambiguous battlefield. We stop and ask ourselves "Did I apply this principle right?" Argh. Let's try again.

What I would suggest to you, young and old alike, is that we should be forgiving of ourselves as we trudge life's path that we will not perfectly pursue our lofty moral and ethical goals. We are not perfect beings, but if we keep our eyes open to our own thoughts and behaviors, steadily pursue our improvement, and commit to being a healthy and cooperative and collaborative member of society then we will have done some good in this life.

Last Spring as a quartet of young adults I know through their parents (a set of triplets and one other) graduated from High School I gave each of them some kernels of insight (along with a small donation to their future). These are ideas that have rattled around in my head for a bit. I offer them here with some commentary.

All words have meanings, but not all meanings have words.
https://twitter.com/Macmannic/status/807924232894218240

This one originated (in 1981) from talking in my sleep. I woke the woman (girl really we were only 19 and 20) from her sleep when I blurted out in my sleep "Hey! I already looked up that word." She groggily responded, "What word?" Still in my sleep I answered "I don't know, but all words have meanings."

I have thought about this exchange for decades, and over time have reframed it (and expanded it) to the form above.

I will leave it to you, dear reader, to glean what you may, but I will say that as vital as scientific understanding and appreciation is, one should not lose touch with the artist inside. Some things must be felt. Some things must be inarticulate but understood.

We live on this Earth. We inhabit an actual, real world. This world will be a dull, flat place without imagination, spirit and emotion. Embrace them all.

Admitted we were powerless...

powerless?

Yes, powerless.

Over what?

The universe.

Isn't that obvious?

It should be.

Stop

the world has to stop for me

because i can't stand the pain of another loss

but here it is

but each loss is more than just that loss

but is amplified through all of the previous losses

amplified through the ur loss

and it tears at you

so, yes, it should be

but it isn't.

because i'd rather pretend

and listen to the voices in my head that say

everything's fine.

Scott Macmann ‏@Macmannic  17m17 minutes ago

Scott Macmann Retweeted Dea (D.H.) Poirier

Now there's the spirit. Who wouldn't drag them along too? But #amwriting my problems in them? Or other way around?

Scott Macmann added,

Dea (D.H.) Poirier @PoirierPages

Together this character and I are going to go very dark places. #amwriting #writerproblems

https://twitter.com/Macmannic/status/773341999055462400


I zapped out my clever, instant response, but I'm pondering now. Perhaps some truth leaked out.

Am I writing my problems in my characters? Or am I bringing my characters to the problems? This is more than just clever wordplay.

I think what I should want to do, what I should hope to do, would be the latter.

The former is unimaginative. The former is mere camouflage. It is narrow and self-absorbed.

The latter assumes the characters are fully realized, and then forced to face the problems. The problems have been separated from me, and are now universal problems. Everyman problems.

The resolution of these problems is now a meaningful process that could help or enlighten readers for years to come.

Meaningfulness elevates fiction.

Cognitive Distortions

"Cognitive distortions ... cause individuals to perceive reality inaccurately. These thinking patterns ... reinforce negative thoughts or emotions. Cognitive distortions tend to interfere with the way a person perceives an event. Because the way a person feels intervenes with how they think, these distorted thoughts can feed negative emotions and lead ... towards an overall negative outlook on the world and consequently a depressive or anxious mental state."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_distortion

Was wandering around the internet looking for something that would interest me, and I stumbled upon a reference to cognitive distortions. I've seen these lists before, but it continues to amaze and trouble me that so many of the people one encounters every day have one or more of these traits. I see these in the media, especially television. Here are just a few:

• Always being right
• Blaming
• Disqualifying the positive
• Filtering
• Mind-reading (being God)
• Fortune-telling (more being God)
• Magnification
• Personalization
• Splitting

I see these, sadly, in myself of course. I am happy that I see fewer of these today than three years ago, but also it reinforces to me how toxic the environment we live in is. These traits are thrown at us so constantly in media and daily relationships that we accept them as normal. We adopt them for ourselves. We model them to our children.

Although, I suppose not solely so, cognitive distortions are often narcissistic defenses, and it occurs to me that if we live in an essentially narcissistic society, then it makes sense that that society's inhabitants adopt these unconsciously.

Armchair psychology. 

But as I think about writing real, flesh and blood characters, I feel that I should see more of these traits than fewer of them, and that these traits and the related acts should probably drive some of the relationships and plot points. 

All words have meanings, but not all meanings have words.

It's a fairly natural tendency, or perhaps common tendency, for one to go around defining things. Defining in fact everything. As an incurable writer I have this affliction. I want to find and understand the meaning of the words I encounter. I want to find new words to use. I want to find the precise words to precisely describe a precise set of circumstances.

But.... There's always the "but". 

But sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be better to throttle back and be more selective in what I choose to define, and let other things just be. 

Are there in fact some things which defy description? Meanings that have no words? Meanings that can only be felt or hinted at or sensed as nearby? 

define: hu·bris

ˈ(h)yo͞obrəs/

noun

1. excessive pride or self-confidence.

   synonyms:

   arrogance, conceit, haughtiness, hauteur, pride, self-importance, egotism, pomposity, superciliousness, superiority;

   • (in Greek tragedy) excessive pride toward or defiance of the gods, leading to nemesis.

     
     

     
     

     
     

     one might even say falsely based pride. egoistically based pride.

     
     

     There's a lot of hubris around sports. By sports I don't necessarily mean athleticism or athletics, although that's not necessarily not true. Athletics as a substitute for violence or abuse? Isn't that a kind of hubris-based behavior?

     
     

     But most often I see it in sports fans. Maybe it's the olympics that reminded me of this observation tonight. Maybe it's the coming college football season or NFL season. Maybe it's the election season.

     
     

     It is one thing to be humbly proud of one's efforts or accomplishments. It is one thing to be grateful. It is another thing to mask hate, bigotry, greed and dysfunction with "patriotism" and "fandom". 

     
     

     Sure, it's better to channel these ugly things into sports than to roll the tanks, but it would be even better to cleanse our souls of this darkness.

     
     

Cause and effect.

Things don't "just happen". Life, the universe, may seem like one damn thing after another without rhyme or reason, but actually there is cause and effect. Causation. Causality.

Stuff happens because other stuff happened to cause it.

This is important because it means that there are consequences to our actions.

I look at a monster of a person, and I wonder what happened to make that monster. George Lucas tried this, right? He failed, but he tried. And it's important that he tried, because I believe in our hubris and our self-satisfaction we look at terrible people, or terrible countries, and we say "Well, they're evil, you know." or "That would never happen here because...."

Or we say "They were insane." What is sanity? Do we really, really know?

It is not just foolish, but dangerously foolish to think ourselves immune.

Given the right (or wrong) circumstances it can happen anywhere to anyone. Rip apart support structures, abuse, torture and deprive someone, and you can create a monster.

And there are many monster-types, and degrees of monster. They are not all created alike. There is it seems no shortage of narcissistic, materialistic, pleasure-obsessed monsters. I encounter them every day. On the road. At the office. At the store.

What is their story? Who abandoned them? Who abused them? Who told them "you're not hurting"? Who denied them agency?

Millions of little monsters out there, and sometimes one of them grows up into a very big monster that threatens to kill us all if given the chance.

My current novel in progress is about some monsters who are trying to grow up.

Way back in 1995 or so (you know about a million years ago) we were attending (I was part of a we back then) Origins Game Fair in Columbus, Ohio. We were staying in one of the attached hotels and headed back to our room. It was late in the evening around 10 or 11. We noticed off to the side a darkened room with a pulsating light. "Oh cool. A movie."

We took a look inside, and the movie was Hayao Miyazaki's "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind". Anime. We had never seen it. I'm not sure we had even heard of it. We sat down and were amazed.

21 years later I sat down tonight to watch it one more time. I spent a few hours at GenCon today in Indianapolis, and thought it might be nice to put in Nausicaa for nostalgic purposes.

I'm still amazed by this movie. It morally compels us to rethink our lives and to cast away these evil  trappings of material possession, money, greed and power. What good are these things if we are destroyed? What on Earth shall it profit a man, right?

It is certainly not a new notion that "money is the root of all evil", but really it is not simply money, but things themselves. It is the love of things - the pursuit of things - rather than the pursuit of moral, ethical and spiritual completeness, that is the source of nearly all evils that we know. It sickens us. It corrupts us. It kills us.

The worldwide pollution, the universal toxicity, the ravenous consumption, and the deranged self-absorption are all by-products of a worship of things.

The things that we really, truly need do not need batteries. The things we truly need are not things at all.

So now we try the blogging thing.
So now we see if I can sing,
or will I stare into my soul
and see emptiness within that hole?