"I may not be crazy when I get old, but I'm will pretend to be."
Recently, KKL confessed to me that:
"I may not be crazy when I get old, but I'm will pretend to be." I’ve noticed that often after kids wake they sort of have this vacant stare. I’m talking about toddlers, mostly 2-5 years old. They don’t respond to you. They just rub their head and blink at you. Sure some adults are like that too, but I think kids are like that because they are trying to figure out where they are. When you’re a kid you wake up in a different place than where you went to sleep all the time. That almost never happens as an adult and if it does it’s not a good thing. If you wake up in a different place than you were when you went to sleep it probably means you’re in the hospital, jail, or you were so out of if they you have memory loss. Think how disorienting that would be. I don’t know a thing about cognitive development in children but I’m guessing they haven’t made the connection of traveling in a car with arriving at a new location, they can’t make that leap yet, so it must seem like magic to them. They were at home and now they are at the store, whoa. Just saying. I wrote this after watching Empire Strikes Back on my new DVD. Leave it alone, Lucas Why you mess with my Star Wars Get a new hobby Boba Fett's voice has been the same my whole life and he has to go and change it to the Australian guy. Not to mention changing the Emperor's hologram message while in the asteroid belt. HAN SHOT FIRST (Part 2 of 2)
Part one was important because I want it known that I value the whole but I don’t have it. I can’t truly know what Helen Keller meant when she wrote it. There wouldn’t be a whole book if she didn’t mean to say more so I have no way of knowing if my interpretation is what she meant when she said it. Moving on… “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” It’s easy to forget how hazardous the act of living actually is. Our planet was almost hit by a comet in January (sort of.) Oaky maybe not, but a catastrophic event of that kind could happen and statistically will happen - someday. It’s the “someday” that gets us. Not today. Not right now. When’s the next game? “Someday” lulls us into a false sense of security. It’s the “someday” that lets us think we can live our lives as we see fit without obstacles or consequences and both abound. Thomas Merton fully believed that the idea of control was an illusion. And I think that is what Helen Keller is talking about too. If I look both ways before crossing the street I can prevent (control) getting into an accident. I had a friend who used the cross walk when it was his turn and he had his leg shattered by a drunk driver. Most people don’t want to think about how little control they have in their daily lives. I can’t control how other people act or when the friggin’ bus will arrive, I am out of control the minute I leave my house. As I said before, the quote as it stands alone seems fatalistic to me. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we shall die. I don’t know anything about Helen Keller other than she was blind and deaf. I do know that if I was in her position I definitely would not be as upbeat about life as she was. Going on the tiny bit I know about her I would say that she is not a fatalist at all but more of an optimistic realist. It’s good to be reminded that I’m not in control but also to not let that stop me from living life to the fullest. She seems like a “life to the fullest” kind of person. The only thing I can truly control is my attitude about whatever happens to me and around me. Life is daring adventure and it takes guts to do it right. (Part 1 of 2) In my house we have a door that is a collage of quotes. My personal favorite is: “Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” By Helen Keller. Who doesn’t want their life to be a daring adventure? And the quote is so go for broke, all or nothing. Either it is or it isn’t. I’ve mentioned before, perspective is everything. Mondays suck because you’ve decided so. I strongly believe you choose the reality you live in. When I looked up the quote this is what I found: “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” This totally changes the quote for me. Before it was a bold statement akin to childlike wonder and trust, now I’m thinking it quite fatalistic. Without any context for the quote it is hard to know what the actual intended meaning is. And that really is my point. In our modern age people chop up content and make it what they want. I am just as guilty as the next person, but it does make me stop and think about what I read and what I say. I think in the case of this quote it is particularly interesting because no one wants to hear that life is uncertain and we have no control so we edit that part out and focus on the daring adventure bit. Having said that, the book is out of print so I can’t get any context. Even if I want to understand what the author meant in the fullest, I can’t. This is all I get. I can take into consideration the author herself and the life she lived as a guide to understanding but it would still be just conjecture. Does not having access to the context free me from the obligation of the author’s intent? As someone who tapes random quotes to a door in her house I say yes. As a writer and a student, I have to say no. I am all for taking meaning as you need it, but context is important for true understanding. All I want to advocate is more thoughtfulness in the way we use words, especially someone else's. Wednesday, March 20th, 2013 should have been like any other Wednesday preceding or following it except for one thing: that stupid fortune cookie I got on Dec. 20, 2012. Remember this? I wanted it to be true. Is that such a terrible thing? I rather live in a world of impossibility than plausibility. To hope for something fantastic or unexpected. Like Alice. “So many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.” I didn’t get the book deal I was hoping for nor was I swept in something so cool I couldn’t believe it was happening to me. But Wednesday March 20th, 2013 was not a total loss.
A co-worker of mine gave me a brand new pair of dress shoes that fit her in the store but not when she got home. I was in need of some new shoes for work. I’ve spent the last several weeks passing through stores, waiting to find the intersection of cuteness and price point. The shoes I have received I would not buy, but I like them all the same. They came when I needed them and they fit. Coincidence? Probably. But I chose to believe the shoes were because of the fortune cookie. It makes for a more interesting story. I’m wondering that if employers provided a workplace confessional that everyone would be a lot happier. In many TV reality shows (which I deplore) they have a “Confession Cam.” A soundproofed room where a contestant can go and just let it all out whether it be crying, ranting, homesickness, whatever. The confession cam exists for the sake of the audience and to create drama for the “narrative” of the show. But I’m sure it has a psychological benefit for the cast that would make anyone feel better. I strongly suspect that a lot of workplace tension and stress could be relieved by providing employees a place to rant and rail as needed. Even for people who feel like they can say something to their supervisor or boss still have to show some restraint in how they say things and what they say. Being able to do it in private would help the person be totally honest instead of covering up what they really want to say in PC platitudes. Not having to go to co-workers to vent would keep the peace. Instead of forming alliances and grudges against fellow employees; relationships in the workplace could remain civil and friendlier. This, I think, is very important because I have seen it happen (in more than one job) that things can quickly become an “Us vs. Them” situation. Sorry adults, you form cliques just as fast as any middle school student. I know the question you really want to ask me is: Am I advocating for such a thing because I could really use one at the moment? And the answer to that is YES. I really think that if I were able to air my thoughts and frustrations unbridled my overall outlook would improve as would my patience. I’m willing to bet you would too. Shakespeare says in one of his plays, "I am wealthy in my friends." I have been very fortunate to be surrounded by some of the most awesome people on the planet. When I was still a wide eyed optimist I had this idea to promote my book at San Diego ComicCon. A simple idea. The people that attend ComicCons are my demographic and my tribe. Based on no other information I maintain that it is still good idea. However, that cold, hard reality of SDCC is in opposition to something so simple and apparently naïve.
Plan A Get a vendor booth at the event and set up as an information table for the Department of Planetary Affairs. Recruit my friends to wander around as DPA officers and man the booth complete with an informational video and pamphlets about the organization and the aliens it regulate. I download the vendor application and fill it out but I have a few questions. So I give them a call. The man with whom I spoke to was very nice but ever so nonchalantly informed me that there is a four year wait list with 600 vendors on it waiting to get a booth at SDCC. I am surprised only because there is no mention of this on the website anywhere. Ultimately, I am not surprised because SDCC is the biggest convention of its kind and will make or break a book, TV show, movie, or video game. Fine. Saves me the $3,000+ it would cost to have a booth. Plan B The new strategy is to spend the four days with a squadron of those same friends wandering around the convention in some killer uniforms as DPA officers, enjoying it, and in theory creating buzz. Make people wonder what is the DPA? Where is that from? There are twelve of us. I give them a heads up of the dates and my intention so that they have one year to save money and make arrangements. I spend the next seven months gathering ideas for the uniforms, weapons, gadgets, and ways to promote. Then it was announced a few weeks ago that the badges for 2013 would be on sale Feb. 16th. Time to make a commitment. Half of the people I had asked to join me were already going to be in the area for other events. Which is great but also means they can’t attend all four days. A few people had to drop out because of work. Only three of us could do the four days. Three people versus 150,000 is not good odds. Time for…. Plan C Everyone commits to Saturday only. I rather make one day really count and put everything into it. Ten of us in killer uniforms, hit it hard, make a splash, drop the mic and go home. Still useful, still creating interest. By 8:58 on Saturday the 16th all of us are online and ready to hit the registration page and ready to buy now. To SDCC’s credit they do dedicate a lot of verbiage on the website warning you of the difficulty of getting tickets. They even say, “Good Luck!” at the bottom of instruction page. Little do I know that this is not some over inflated exaggeration on their part. Only two of us got into the mythic waiting room, numbers 617 and 34,031, the rest of us were stuck on a white screen waiting for the page to load. After some math and forty minutes I threw in the towel. Facebook and Twitter have streams of people talking about the white screen or what number they are, or begging strangers to purchase for them. It's total madness. Throughout the hour SDCC announces four day badges are sold out, then Saturday, then Friday, and after that I shut everything down. I am still in shock. I can't believe it. I feel like Wile E Coyote with my legs spinning and defying gravity until I look down. SDCC has 327,000 fans on Facebook and the convention only takes 150,000 people. That leaves 177,000 in the same position as me. Publishing my novel in 2013 has never been contingent on being at ComicCon so everything I am doing right now I will continue to do, but it is still a disappointment. I feel like I have gone through most of the seven stages of grief, or is it five. Whatever. In the anger stage I couldn’t help but wonder if SDCC is too big, too full of its own self-importance. Maybe that’s just the frustration talking. It’s certainly a cliché line of thought but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. I don’t want to judge it too harshly because if I ever make into those sacred halls I will be jubilant. Then again maybe I will find that I was deceived by all the hype and find being there doesn’t live up to the legend of what it has become. Whatever the case I have plenty to do ComicCon or no ComicCon. There are world’s to discover and stories to be edited. Let this be a warning to all you hopeful attendees of SDCC. Keep your expectation in check and definitely preregister in August for the next year, you can always return the tickets if it turns out you can’t go after all. In the movie The Fall there are two stories going on at once. In the real world, Roy and Alexandria are patients in a hospital. What happens there is story one. Roy begins to tell Alexandria a story of adventure and revenge, this is the second world of the story. We hear Roy’s voice narrating the story but what we see is in Alexandria’s imagination. SPOILER ALERT If you have not seen the movie and want to, do not go any further. I give away some important plot points and if that’s going to bug you, come back after you’ve seen it. In the real world, Roy has become paralyzed from the waist down due to an accident. Seeing his life as essentially over he is depressed and looking for a way to commit suicide. In the adventure story he is confident and fearless.
Remember what we see in the story world is what Alexandria imagines. Children have a talent for truth and because of that I believe what she is imagining is Roy’s true self. The person he is capable of being if he would face his pain and deal with it. Real Roy being suicidal is fact. Red Bandit Roy is his true self buried under the disappointment and pain. Pretty quickly what is happening in the real world seeps into the fabric of the story world but by the end they are so tightly intertwined with each other there is a reverse flow. What is happening to Red Bandit Roy starts to affect the real world, specifically what is happening with Real Roy emotionally. And it is in that finally moment, as with all pivotal moments, he has to make a choice and that choice is critical to the survival of Red Bandit Roy and thereby his truest self. Its choice we all have. I can let the stupid things that happen in this life wear me down. If I wanted to, I could be filled with anger, bitterness, and venomous criticism, but I have worked really hard to not become that. Even now, I have to make decisions on at least weekly to not let other peoples crap change the person I want to be. It’s too easy to take part of other people’s anger and bad attitudes. And sure, I’m not immune to a bad attitude. I curse under my breath and I think things I would never say out loud but then I move on. I choose the higher road and I try to do the mature thing, the adult thing. The two Roys is really a struggle we all have to deal with. I choose to believe Red Bandit Roy triumphs over the Real Roy outside the scope of the movie because Red Bandit Roy is his true self. I have to believe for myself as well as the people I love that change on the deepest levels is possible and permanent. |
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