Some of the times our world is random, but the random is impossible to grasp. There are patterns out there, everywhere, just waiting to be discovered. The universe is built on mathematical equations. Our political systems can all make sense if we take away the random and begin to categorize and organize the thoughts of each [...]
Archive for the ‘The Thoughts of Neighbors’ Category
How to Succeed in Writing III: Are you Intelligent Enough to Write a Novel?
May 11, 2012This desire to be perceived as smart is a strong driving force in all of us. How many stupid and overly analytical things do we say in one day to try to get one person to think that we’re not a total idiot? This desire to prove intelligence is right up there with the drive to be perceived as beautiful and likeable. It’s right up there with the desire to be seen as strong, athletic, independent, and mechanically inclined. We spend our whole lives trying to impress people. Even those who tell us that they don’t care what others think are trying to impress us with the fact that they don’t care.
In my first era of writing, I wrote a lot of these self-indulgent asides that contributed little to the story. I was a new student to the world of politics, and I was anxious to show the world what I learned. I also wanted to show that half of the world that disagreed with me how wrong they were. So, I put my character through an incident, and I had him come out of the incident enlightened by my political philosophy. In various other pieces, I wanted to inform the world of all of this great underground music I was experiencing. My thought process at the time was: “Hey, Stephen King can get away with it. Why can’t I?” I wanted people to see both sides of my brain in the same venue. After taking a step back, and rereading these novels, I achieved enough objectivity to realize that it was all a big ball of mess.
If I was going to clean this mess up and start writing good stories, I was going to have to divide my desires up. I would have to discipline myself to the creed of all storytellers: Story is sacred. I learned to channel my desire to be perceived as smart in political and philosophical blogs. My desires to have people listen to my underground music were channeled away into Amazon.com reviews, and my desire to tell a story was devoted to the files that contained my novels and short stories. In this way, I was able to proselytize on the role of the Puggle in our society today, and the absolute beauty of Mr. Bungle’s music, without damaging my stories or boring the readers of my stories. I learned the principle the esteemed rock band Offspring was trying to teach the world when they sang: “You gotta keep ‘em separated.”
Nobody Cares About You
May 8, 2012Every day, at eleven A.M., a crotchety, old professor walked through our school’s cafeteria. He had a bag lunch with him, but he insisted on grabbing a tray to lay his lunch on. I don’t know if the man was as wise as the typical old man, or if he was any wiser. I do know that the man had no allegiances. His lectures did not favor Democrats or Republicans, women or men, or majorities or minorities. He also didn’t favored me in anyway, even when I was the one talking to him.
When we tell people about a crucial, crisis moment of our lives, most listeners will openly side with us, regardless how they feel about it privately. Not this old man. It was annoying. I wanted him to tell me I was right just once. He did tell me I was right in circumstances, as long as all of the variables I produced for him were true, but he would always add that those variables were probably based on other variables that I hadn’t accounted for. I never left his class, or subsequently his lunch table, feeling that that I was unequivocally correct about anything I did. As a result, I sought his counsel on a number of issues that plagued me.
He never seemed pleased by my constant need to scurry over to his table with a question, but he never seemed annoyed by it either. He never greeted me in a pleasant fashion, but he was never rude. He was the type of guy that I’ve always tried to please, and I continually tried to gain his acceptance. A dog acts this way, I realize before I started my question. A dog finds that one person in the room that is ambivalent to their existence and attempts to befriend them. This could be a result of that dog knowing how cute it is. It could be a result of the fact that every human it runs across acknowledges its cuteness, until it runs across that one person that doesn’t overwhelmingly acknowledge it. The dog then has an identity crisis, until it can flip that one ambivalent character. Many people have commented on the objectivity I have about my life, and they’ve said that my powers of observation are beyond those that they’ve encountered, so why do I continually seek the counsel of the one person who never will? Am I as inscure as this attention loving, identity crisis dog that wants the one ambivalent person in the room to pet them and tell them,“You’re the one living life the way it should be lived?” The professor would answer this question and many others in one short, ambivalent sentence.
“My friend and I have been having a debate,” I say to this man I deemed wise. “I believe people are inherently good, until they prove otherwise.” I went on to tell him that I thought living with an optimistic mindset, in this manner, was the best way to live. I told him that optimistic people should be prepared to be wrong on humanity occasionally, but that those few occasions should not cause them to waver in their belief that most of humanity is good. “My friend thinks this is a naïve way of approaching humanity,” I told him. “He thinks it’s best to live by the idea that everyone you run across is corrupt, until they prove otherwise. So you’re prepared, he says, for that slimeball that you will eventually run across that attempts to dupe you out of all of your money. Not everyone you run across is evil, he acknowledges, but it’s best to live with this mindset in preparation for those who are.”
“Have you ever considered a third possibility,” my professor asked chewing on some awful smelling sandwich, “that the world doesn’t give a crap about you.” It may have been twenty years since that professor dropped that line on me, but it’s had such a profound impression on me that I can’t shake it. It’s as if he said it to me yesterday.
The Weird, the Whacked, and the Insane
April 24, 2012I get a perverse joy dancing in the wicked fires of the weird, but it has never been a calculated maneuver to draw people out from behind the barriers they erect for others. I just like being weird. I like saying weird things. I like the effect being weird has on people. I like to see them think less of me. I like to see that crinkled face that tells me that they don’t get what I’m doing. I like the confusion that asks the question, “Are you serious?” I also like to get booed. These boos result from the fact that they don’t get the mental dance. They’re never audible boos, but everything in their body language suggests that I just got booed. People get uncomfortable when a joke you tell isn’t funny to them. They want to laugh to be polite, but they just don’t get it. It’s a perverse joy I derive from this dance, but it’s still a joy.
A funny thing happens to people when you start really grooving in this fire of the weird though. If you do it right, and you do it often enough, you’ll eventually run into the genuinely weird, the wacked, and the insane. You’ll find out a lot about your fellow humans by the way they react to this dance. Most of the truly weird ones can’t hide their reactions. Like a dog that has its instinct to chase triggered when you start to run, when you start to act weird, the weird, wacked and insane characteristics come out in your weird, wacked and insane listeners. They start telling you where they stand on the various demarcation lines that separate the normal from the abnormal, the weird, and the insane when they react to the things you say. They can’t help it. It’s a biological function as indigenous to their makeup as sleeping and eating.
Most people have a view of where they stand that lacks true objectivity. Their parents teach them where to stand in the world to avoid being perceived as weird, their friends and family ridicule and bully them into the knowledge of how to stand, and everyone else tells them where they stand when it’s all said and done. The question that must be asked is what happens when everyone in their immediate world is weird. Parents are the single, most prominent influence on our lives and our mental state, but what if they’re weird? What happens to that kid who has parents that have weird built into their DNA? It’s normal to their insular world but weird to everyone else. What if all their friends and family members have lied to them, to be nice, for most of their lives? The occasional potshot will come out, in reaction to a weird statement that a person makes, but for the most part most people are too polite to tell someone they are fundamentally weird. Some may recognize this and seek the definition that they can get nowhere else and turn to TV, the movies, and other mediums, but most of these mediums exaggerate the true definitions of weird for entertainment purposes. Regardless where they think they stand, or where they’ve found solace for their definitions of what is weird and normal, one dance in the wicked fires of the weird will reveal them.
