Meaning in Work?
I have decided to reopen my inquiry into the meaning of life, spurred on by the comments of the mysterious neha.
For my third part of the inquiry I want to examine work as a possible meaning to life. Many people find meaning in their jobs, and some even find Meaning in their work. Artists seem to find a lot of Meaning in their work, and I guess writing is what keeps me chugging along as well. I've written six unpublished books, a ridiculous number, and if I didn't have an agent I think I'd start to feel like that idiot kid we had on our football team who liked to run as hard as he could into the concrete lockeroom wall, again and again and again. I've thought a lot about what a piece of work matters if it has no audience, or if your audience consists mostly of ex-girlfriends who no longer are willing to read your newest work. I'd like to think the work stands for itself, that I don't need any pats on the back, that the process of creation was rewarding enough. And to some extent it is. How days have I gone to bed happy, feeling like I actually did something with my life, because I had written five pages?
Yes, writing is how I justify everything else in my life. I keep going so I can write. But is justification the same thing as Meaning? And is creating something what gives a person meaning? (Like kids. or a new zoning ordinance). And what about people who don't create anything, who work at our gas stations and Targets and whatnot? Where do they find their meaning? Do they even need meaning? I've already looked at love and travel as possible answers; but what if you worked at Target, loved no one because of some horrific accident, and had no money to travel? Where would you find your meaning? In moving product? And if you did find your meaning in moving product, would that meaning be on the same meaning level with someone who found meaning in tending to the poor, or in writing fantastic requiems? And if you think all meaning levels are the same, as long as someone can find Meaning in something, wouldn't that itself somehow render Meaning meaningless, simply turn it into a relative value that has nothing to do with Quality (Robert Pirsig style) ?
People are the only beings who really seem to wrestle with this idea of meaning. If you think hard about a lazy cat's daily routine, minute-to-minute, the whole thing seems so meaningless you can only laugh, laugh, laugh. Maybe it would be easier if we were all non-sentient beings. I would like to be a flying squirrel, or a grizzly bear.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query meaning. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query meaning. Sort by date Show all posts
Beyond Meaning
Last fall we here at Blogagaard did a four part series on the meaning of life. Not surprisingly, nothing concrete was determined, and now in many ways we find that we exist in a world beyond meaning.
Yet, this is not as dark and depressing as it sounds. Actually, if viewed under a certain light, it's quite refreshing.
Everyone is either looking for or believes they've found meaning in their lives. Even people who claim to exist just because they're too lazy or frightened to kill themselves are in this category: their meaning can be found in the preference of living over making an effort to not live. In fact, if you want to look at the idea of meaning of life darkly, you could almost say people who have found meaning in their lives are people who've found at least one really good reason not to kill themselves, to keep on making a concerted effort to exist and even thrive in a world that can often be cruel and draining. Meaning is often perceived as the suicide antidote, and that is why so many people scramble about trying to find it every day and in so many different forms.
But what if, for whatever reason, you suddenly find yourself in a world that is not exactly meaning-less, but without meaning whatsoever? This is a terrifying prospect at first glance. Somebody call the nihilistic, the atheists. "We're nihilistic, Lebowski. We believe in nothing. Nothing!" Let's all smoke opium and stare bleakly into the abyss...
Except, it's not really like that. For me, anyway. People are always so worried about finding that meaning, they spend so much psychic and physical energy engaged in the pursuit of Meaning that they can never relax totally, they always have the buzzing voice in the back of their minds telling them their lives aren't quite good enough, that there's always something more...Meaningful than what they have in front of them. As a nation we Americans have not only become junkies for consuming goods such as clothes, food, and pop culture, but we've become Meaning junkies as well. In fact, the more goods we consume the more our hunger for meaning seems to grow as well, as if the process of consuming actually rips an increasingly larger hole deep within us we hope to plug via mega-churches, spiritual retreats, yoga, camping, therapy, global tourism, sex, and even political activists (which often blurs into sex. Ha ha). We're like that hungry snake that's swallowed its own tail and is now in the eternal process of devouring itself....
So what if we step from the entire meaning hunt and decide it doesn't matter if life Means anything or not? We're here right now, and that's all we can really go by. We do what we can. Why all this focus on an unattainable end product? People have epiphanies of all sorts, but anyone who claims to have found the Meaning of Life is totally wrong by definition, since as soon as you think you understand something as indefinable as that you're already way off (I know, how terribly Taoist of me, eh Troy?). Recently it was suggested to me that the tired old question, "What is the meaning of life?" is the wrong question altogether.
Or maybe it's not really the wrong question, but one question in a sea of questions, all of which are of equal import no matter how prosaic they may seem, since in the end we will all be left with only questions, and it is the questions, not the Answer, that feeds our souls, that keep us marching towards our individual "The End" with our heads held high. In many ways the idea of living in a world beyond meaning is quite calming, and suggests that we no longer have to keep running about our lives mad with insecurity, none of us any longer "late, late, for a very important date."
Last fall we here at Blogagaard did a four part series on the meaning of life. Not surprisingly, nothing concrete was determined, and now in many ways we find that we exist in a world beyond meaning.
Yet, this is not as dark and depressing as it sounds. Actually, if viewed under a certain light, it's quite refreshing.
Everyone is either looking for or believes they've found meaning in their lives. Even people who claim to exist just because they're too lazy or frightened to kill themselves are in this category: their meaning can be found in the preference of living over making an effort to not live. In fact, if you want to look at the idea of meaning of life darkly, you could almost say people who have found meaning in their lives are people who've found at least one really good reason not to kill themselves, to keep on making a concerted effort to exist and even thrive in a world that can often be cruel and draining. Meaning is often perceived as the suicide antidote, and that is why so many people scramble about trying to find it every day and in so many different forms.
But what if, for whatever reason, you suddenly find yourself in a world that is not exactly meaning-less, but without meaning whatsoever? This is a terrifying prospect at first glance. Somebody call the nihilistic, the atheists. "We're nihilistic, Lebowski. We believe in nothing. Nothing!" Let's all smoke opium and stare bleakly into the abyss...
Except, it's not really like that. For me, anyway. People are always so worried about finding that meaning, they spend so much psychic and physical energy engaged in the pursuit of Meaning that they can never relax totally, they always have the buzzing voice in the back of their minds telling them their lives aren't quite good enough, that there's always something more...Meaningful than what they have in front of them. As a nation we Americans have not only become junkies for consuming goods such as clothes, food, and pop culture, but we've become Meaning junkies as well. In fact, the more goods we consume the more our hunger for meaning seems to grow as well, as if the process of consuming actually rips an increasingly larger hole deep within us we hope to plug via mega-churches, spiritual retreats, yoga, camping, therapy, global tourism, sex, and even political activists (which often blurs into sex. Ha ha). We're like that hungry snake that's swallowed its own tail and is now in the eternal process of devouring itself....
So what if we step from the entire meaning hunt and decide it doesn't matter if life Means anything or not? We're here right now, and that's all we can really go by. We do what we can. Why all this focus on an unattainable end product? People have epiphanies of all sorts, but anyone who claims to have found the Meaning of Life is totally wrong by definition, since as soon as you think you understand something as indefinable as that you're already way off (I know, how terribly Taoist of me, eh Troy?). Recently it was suggested to me that the tired old question, "What is the meaning of life?" is the wrong question altogether.
Or maybe it's not really the wrong question, but one question in a sea of questions, all of which are of equal import no matter how prosaic they may seem, since in the end we will all be left with only questions, and it is the questions, not the Answer, that feeds our souls, that keep us marching towards our individual "The End" with our heads held high. In many ways the idea of living in a world beyond meaning is quite calming, and suggests that we no longer have to keep running about our lives mad with insecurity, none of us any longer "late, late, for a very important date."
Meaning in the Hunt for God
My Last Foray into the Jungle of Meaning
The big arguement this summer has apparently been centered around intelligent design (yet no one I met brought this up with me) and whether the world was created by said intelligent design. I personally don't think it even matters if this is true or not; the fact is we are apparently on our own now, and have been for at least two thousand years, if not since the begining of human history.
What does this Mean? It means we're really not going to please any higher being by being pious, donating money, or by praying. We're doing these things for ourselves, and that's fine. Really, it is. Tons of people claim to find Meaning in spirtuality, be it in a religous paradigm or not, and if that works for them, cool, at least until they get all up in my face about it and start using it like a sword and not the soul-balm it is intended to be. I have never felt the touch of God, or whatever, but I somehow think even if I did feel it I still wouldn't attempt to find my meaning in such a way. Getting your meaning from latching on to another being, real or imaginary, is what I call HARMFUL CO-DEPENDANCY.
I truly think there is no way we were put here on this earth just to worship some higher being. The idea is ludicrous, though it seems to be doing just fine in the Midwest and beyond. There is no Meaning in worship; think of Wayne and Garth power-bowing to Heather Locklear and saying "We're not worthy". It's funny, but it's also nonsense. There is nothing about her they need to be worthy of. They do not need to define themselves, and what their lives Mean, by some blond supermodel. If there is a God we don't need to define ourselves and our lives according to this God; God sure as shit doesn't seem to care what we think about God. Good and bad things happen all the time and if you try to get Meaning out of these things by tracing them to some unseen hand you'll just go crazy, like Joan of Arc or Tom Cruise.
Whatever you find your Meaning in, it should come from deep within yourself. Like a soul fingerprint !
Thus Ends the Inquiry
My Last Foray into the Jungle of Meaning
The big arguement this summer has apparently been centered around intelligent design (yet no one I met brought this up with me) and whether the world was created by said intelligent design. I personally don't think it even matters if this is true or not; the fact is we are apparently on our own now, and have been for at least two thousand years, if not since the begining of human history.
What does this Mean? It means we're really not going to please any higher being by being pious, donating money, or by praying. We're doing these things for ourselves, and that's fine. Really, it is. Tons of people claim to find Meaning in spirtuality, be it in a religous paradigm or not, and if that works for them, cool, at least until they get all up in my face about it and start using it like a sword and not the soul-balm it is intended to be. I have never felt the touch of God, or whatever, but I somehow think even if I did feel it I still wouldn't attempt to find my meaning in such a way. Getting your meaning from latching on to another being, real or imaginary, is what I call HARMFUL CO-DEPENDANCY.
I truly think there is no way we were put here on this earth just to worship some higher being. The idea is ludicrous, though it seems to be doing just fine in the Midwest and beyond. There is no Meaning in worship; think of Wayne and Garth power-bowing to Heather Locklear and saying "We're not worthy". It's funny, but it's also nonsense. There is nothing about her they need to be worthy of. They do not need to define themselves, and what their lives Mean, by some blond supermodel. If there is a God we don't need to define ourselves and our lives according to this God; God sure as shit doesn't seem to care what we think about God. Good and bad things happen all the time and if you try to get Meaning out of these things by tracing them to some unseen hand you'll just go crazy, like Joan of Arc or Tom Cruise.
Whatever you find your Meaning in, it should come from deep within yourself. Like a soul fingerprint !
Thus Ends the Inquiry
What Is the Point of Life?
An Inquiry in Four Parts
I haven’t worked in an actual workplace for almost four months, and let’s just say I’ve had plenty of time to ponder the meaning of life. When I was in college I thought travel, mostly worldwide travel, would answer this question. Oh, how wrong I was.
You are the same person no matter where you travel. A place can affect you, but unless you travel hardcore, Peace Corps style it’s pretty hard to find your Meaning there, and even then chances are your meaning will be something stupid, like "conserve water" or "eat only vines". Usually when you travel you have good luck and bad luck, some random stuff happens, and then you’re home again with a few pictures and maybe some souvenir knick-knackery. Anyway, how could Paris reveal the Meaning of Life when you can’t even find it in your own hometown?
I think if there is a meaning to life, you do not need an oversized backpack to find it.
Does Love Mean Anything?
Some say love is the meaning of life. These people haven't had enough bad things happen to them, I think, or maybe they've had so many bad things happen to them they are grasping at straws.
If love is the meaning of life, the meaning of life must be a very inconsistent thing. A person's feelings can change very fast, in the space of one look or word. Now I love you, now I hate you, now I'm totally indifferent to you. Boo. Wouldn't something that formed the utter backbone of existence be a little more constant?
Maybe if I was head over heels in love with someone at this moment I'd feel different about this, but then things could change and I'd have to change my mind again.
Some say love is the meaning of life. These people haven't had enough bad things happen to them, I think, or maybe they've had so many bad things happen to them they are grasping at straws.
If love is the meaning of life, the meaning of life must be a very inconsistent thing. A person's feelings can change very fast, in the space of one look or word. Now I love you, now I hate you, now I'm totally indifferent to you. Boo. Wouldn't something that formed the utter backbone of existence be a little more constant?
Maybe if I was head over heels in love with someone at this moment I'd feel different about this, but then things could change and I'd have to change my mind again.
Blogagaard Reads Aloud to Despondent David Sedaris
I remember two case of would-be suicide, which bore a striking similarity to each other. Both men had talked of their intentions to commit suicide. Both used the typical argument—they had nothing more to expect from life. In both cases it was a question of getting them to realize that life was still expecting something from them; something in the future was expected of them. We found, in fact, that for the one it was his child whom he adored and was waiting for him in another country. For the other it was a thing, not a person. This man was a scientist and had written a series of books that needed to be finished. His work could not be done by anyone else, any more than another person could ever take the place of the father in this child’s affections.
This uniqueness and singleness which distinguishes each individual and gives meaning to his existence has a bearing on creative work as much as it does on human love. When the impossibility of replacing a person is realized, it allows the responsibility which a man has for his existence and its continuance to appear in all its magnitude. A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the “why” for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any “how”.
-Victor Frankl, “Man’s Search for Meaning”
This uniqueness and singleness which distinguishes each individual and gives meaning to his existence has a bearing on creative work as much as it does on human love. When the impossibility of replacing a person is realized, it allows the responsibility which a man has for his existence and its continuance to appear in all its magnitude. A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the “why” for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any “how”.
-Victor Frankl, “Man’s Search for Meaning”
Meaning Deferred
There may be no meaning in life. This inquiry is closed pending further evidence.
There may be no meaning in life. This inquiry is closed pending further evidence.
Everything is Dope
Today was a quiet, gray little day in St. Paul. On my chilled yet undramatic walk across campus to my car at the end of a muffled, uninteresting day at work, I started to get the feeling I was a ghost or something, just passing through this world, and this got me to thinking about how we're all just self-medicating ourselves before we die.
If you stop and think about it (a sentence which always leads to a fresh dose of despair in my world), almost every action we preform in our daily lives is some kind of attempt to dope ourselves into forgetting our own oblivion, both now and in the future, when we kick that old bucket. I'm not just talking about booze, drugs, sex, sports, TV, porn, the Internet, shopping, religion, work, or well-planned vacations. I'm talking about basically everything-even writing fiction, dangnabbit. We, as humans, claim superiority over the animal kingdom, yet when you come down to it there's not much difference between my cat staring at the wall all day and my downstairs neighbor ceaselessly watching TV every waking hour of his life (seriously, what the hell? Is he some kind of rich oil baron heir content to live in Midway shabbiness with a yappy moppet of a dog, so long as sweet, sweet TV constantly streams into his mind?).
Writing a slamming choral piece is doping yourself, running ten miles is doping yourself, building a vast city is doping yourself. Having a baby and raising a family is really, really doping yourself, as you will most likely have little chance to come up for air for about eighteen years. I suppose one could exchange the word doping for occupying, but they're pretty much the same thing when you take a god's-eye view of this world. Even someone in emotional pain, for whatever reason, is doping themselves as they sink deeper and deeper into the hurt-they're just getting off in a different way.
I'm not saying all this dope is necessarily a bad thing-what else would we do with ourselves? Stare at the wall like my cat? I simply suggest that, as we venture into 2012, we leave our arrogant, self-absorbed illusions of meaning behind and accept the simple fact that every physical act we engage in IS dope and we're all addicts. Perhaps it wouldn't hurt to remember to rise above our various addictions now and again to look around the world with freshly peeled eyes, Zen-style, and truly witness the ghost world we're passing through.
Happy New Year.
If you stop and think about it (a sentence which always leads to a fresh dose of despair in my world), almost every action we preform in our daily lives is some kind of attempt to dope ourselves into forgetting our own oblivion, both now and in the future, when we kick that old bucket. I'm not just talking about booze, drugs, sex, sports, TV, porn, the Internet, shopping, religion, work, or well-planned vacations. I'm talking about basically everything-even writing fiction, dangnabbit. We, as humans, claim superiority over the animal kingdom, yet when you come down to it there's not much difference between my cat staring at the wall all day and my downstairs neighbor ceaselessly watching TV every waking hour of his life (seriously, what the hell? Is he some kind of rich oil baron heir content to live in Midway shabbiness with a yappy moppet of a dog, so long as sweet, sweet TV constantly streams into his mind?).
Writing a slamming choral piece is doping yourself, running ten miles is doping yourself, building a vast city is doping yourself. Having a baby and raising a family is really, really doping yourself, as you will most likely have little chance to come up for air for about eighteen years. I suppose one could exchange the word doping for occupying, but they're pretty much the same thing when you take a god's-eye view of this world. Even someone in emotional pain, for whatever reason, is doping themselves as they sink deeper and deeper into the hurt-they're just getting off in a different way.
I'm not saying all this dope is necessarily a bad thing-what else would we do with ourselves? Stare at the wall like my cat? I simply suggest that, as we venture into 2012, we leave our arrogant, self-absorbed illusions of meaning behind and accept the simple fact that every physical act we engage in IS dope and we're all addicts. Perhaps it wouldn't hurt to remember to rise above our various addictions now and again to look around the world with freshly peeled eyes, Zen-style, and truly witness the ghost world we're passing through.
Happy New Year.
Meet the New Temp-Same as the Old Temp
I'm returning to the U of MN St. Paul campus bookstore for a four-week temp gig, starting tomorrow, and I had to go to the Coffman Union bookstore on the Mpls campus today for training. Getting to the heart of Minneapolis East Bank campus right now is about as fun as traveling into the heart of Mordor (but with way less meaning than destroying a powerful ring and way more tan girls in maroon sweaters), what with the construction and the construction and the construction, and I had the added joy of riding the bus down the light rail construction of University Ave. to get there.
I'll spare you the expected crazy people, sudden rain, and crotch chaffing the whole affair entailed and skip right ahead to the training-which I'd had before, with the same exact trainer. That's right, they made me train all over again and waste a day of my life because...wait for it...there's a new book rental process, which involves a new form, which was covered in about three minutes of the four hr. training session. And, even more fun, I found myself having to keep explaining that I'd worked there before, which isn't so cool when you're 32 and you're talking to a recent college grad who's working the same gig as you. Yes, it's now reached a point where I'm cycling through previous temp gigs (though this one is pretty fun) like some sort of Rhyme of the Ancient Temp figure, that strange dude who draws you in at parties with a TRANSFIXING GAZE.
And, as our bus crawled back down Uni and these off-the-hook mutherfuckers started making out, crying, then making out some more, I got an email on my phone with the latest editorial pass on my latest book, thus securing my place in temp lore for some time to come.
Do you want that on your student account?
I'll spare you the expected crazy people, sudden rain, and crotch chaffing the whole affair entailed and skip right ahead to the training-which I'd had before, with the same exact trainer. That's right, they made me train all over again and waste a day of my life because...wait for it...there's a new book rental process, which involves a new form, which was covered in about three minutes of the four hr. training session. And, even more fun, I found myself having to keep explaining that I'd worked there before, which isn't so cool when you're 32 and you're talking to a recent college grad who's working the same gig as you. Yes, it's now reached a point where I'm cycling through previous temp gigs (though this one is pretty fun) like some sort of Rhyme of the Ancient Temp figure, that strange dude who draws you in at parties with a TRANSFIXING GAZE.
And, as our bus crawled back down Uni and these off-the-hook mutherfuckers started making out, crying, then making out some more, I got an email on my phone with the latest editorial pass on my latest book, thus securing my place in temp lore for some time to come.
Do you want that on your student account?
Your Eyes Have Shot Their Arrows into My Heart, Billy Pilgrim
Kurt Vonnegut passed away this week. What a bummer. He was eighty-four, and after all those years he claimed to be attempting death by smoking he ended up falling down the stairs, injuring his brain, and dying a few weeks later. I am sure he is amused by all this up in Kick Ass Writer Heaven.
My own Kurt Vonnegut story would also most likely amuse Mr. Vonnegut. Back in college I purchased a $20 ticket to see Kurt speak at a church somewhere in the Cities, possibly St. Paul. I drove up to the cities with my friend Ned and a bunch of Ned's hippy friends (well, as close as you could get to hippies at St. Olaf in 1999)from Northfield. For some we reason we arrived in the cities about six hours too early and had to kill some time. So we did hippy things, like browse Cheapos and eat at the slowest, SLOWEST goddamn vegetarian restaurant on the planet. The group took its slow, leisurely ass time and before we knew it we were late for Kurt's appearance. After an agonizing high speed van ride to the church Kurt was speaking at we arrived to find it packed to the gills and even though we had tickets we could not get in. I stood outside and listened as the crowd went wild and an old man started talking in a firm voice, though I couldn't hear anything he was saying. Ned and I, despondent and mad after an entire day waiting for our viewing of literary icon, went behind the church and peed in the parking lot. Okay, fine, we peed on the church while standing in the parking lot. I'm not proud of it now, but we were beyond exasperated. I guess you could say, that moment we learned the true meaning of being pissed off.
So we went back to St. Olaf sad and thwarted, and the next day we learned that the others we'd been with had found a way to sneak up to a balcony after we left and they got to see Mr. Vonnegut speak after all.
Oh, sweet Billy Pilgrim. Kurt, this one's for you.
My own Kurt Vonnegut story would also most likely amuse Mr. Vonnegut. Back in college I purchased a $20 ticket to see Kurt speak at a church somewhere in the Cities, possibly St. Paul. I drove up to the cities with my friend Ned and a bunch of Ned's hippy friends (well, as close as you could get to hippies at St. Olaf in 1999)from Northfield. For some we reason we arrived in the cities about six hours too early and had to kill some time. So we did hippy things, like browse Cheapos and eat at the slowest, SLOWEST goddamn vegetarian restaurant on the planet. The group took its slow, leisurely ass time and before we knew it we were late for Kurt's appearance. After an agonizing high speed van ride to the church Kurt was speaking at we arrived to find it packed to the gills and even though we had tickets we could not get in. I stood outside and listened as the crowd went wild and an old man started talking in a firm voice, though I couldn't hear anything he was saying. Ned and I, despondent and mad after an entire day waiting for our viewing of literary icon, went behind the church and peed in the parking lot. Okay, fine, we peed on the church while standing in the parking lot. I'm not proud of it now, but we were beyond exasperated. I guess you could say, that moment we learned the true meaning of being pissed off.
So we went back to St. Olaf sad and thwarted, and the next day we learned that the others we'd been with had found a way to sneak up to a balcony after we left and they got to see Mr. Vonnegut speak after all.
Oh, sweet Billy Pilgrim. Kurt, this one's for you.
Pu-239
I watched the movie PU-239 tonight, a good movie based on a exceptionally brilliant short story by author Ken Kalfus. Especially interesting in light of the recent radiation scare/disaster in Japan.
What would you do if you were exposed to so much radiation you would die within 2-3 days so your company could cut costs? How hard would you try to provide for your family? To get revenge?
Honestly, I would burn the whole motherfucking house down, if I could just figure the angle.
PS. This movie gives a whole new meaning to the term "nuclear family".
Iowa Writer's Workshop
So, the Iowa Writer's Workshop is considered by many to be the gold standard of creative writing programs. It's been around since the 1930's, and handed out the first Master of Fine Arts in Writing degree in 1941. Writers such as Flannery O'Connor, Raymond Carver, Stuart Dybek, Denis Johnson, Richard Bausch, Jane Smiley, Charles D'Ambrosio, and ZZ Packer have gone through Iowa. I've heard stories of literary agents visiting the Iowa program and handing out business cards to the students, which is otherwise pretty much unheard of in the tooth and nail world of getting a good agent. I myself was rejected by the Iowa graduate writing program, as well as the Syracuse, Missoula, and Washington State programs (I stupidly applied only to four programs my senior year). I got the rejection letters all on the same day, at my home, during spring break my senior year of college. The letters which I'd been impatiently waiting for had been piling up at home without me even knowing it. I also found out that day that my step dad was selling our beloved home of twelve years, so it wasn't exactly the easiest day in Blogagaard history, though looking back now it all turned out all right. A year later I was accepted to Hamline, a smaller program in St. Paul that was able to give me the time and personal attention I needed to suck less as a writer.
With all that said, I still wonder what could have been at Iowa and yesterday I picked up a thick fiction anthology called The Workshop: Seven Decades of the Iowa Writer's Workshop. Here's an excerpt from the introduction:
Unsurprisingly, a psychological survey of the Iowa Workshop showed that 80 percent of writers in the program reported evidence of manic-depression, alcoholism, or other lovely addictions in themselves or their immediate families. We're writers. Who ever claimed we're a tightly wrapped bunch?
What's going on actually, what we're still learning and struggling with, is the emotional rather than the intellectual meaning of not-doing, the impact of finally and fully knowing that we know nothing. This is more difficult than rationally accepting all the arguments about what constitutes literature. Because until the Workshop's resistance to our desire to "write literature" and to "become writers" touches the quivering, naked, three-o-clock-in-the-morning doubt-filled creatures we all are, understanding cannot begin.
Sounds fun, huh? Sign me up!
With all that said, I still wonder what could have been at Iowa and yesterday I picked up a thick fiction anthology called The Workshop: Seven Decades of the Iowa Writer's Workshop. Here's an excerpt from the introduction:
Unsurprisingly, a psychological survey of the Iowa Workshop showed that 80 percent of writers in the program reported evidence of manic-depression, alcoholism, or other lovely addictions in themselves or their immediate families. We're writers. Who ever claimed we're a tightly wrapped bunch?
What's going on actually, what we're still learning and struggling with, is the emotional rather than the intellectual meaning of not-doing, the impact of finally and fully knowing that we know nothing. This is more difficult than rationally accepting all the arguments about what constitutes literature. Because until the Workshop's resistance to our desire to "write literature" and to "become writers" touches the quivering, naked, three-o-clock-in-the-morning doubt-filled creatures we all are, understanding cannot begin.
Sounds fun, huh? Sign me up!
What Comes At the End?
An epilogue, baby! Well, sometimes, at the end of a book, a book full of words and meaning and themes and plot and characters and crazy imaginative shit like that. I don't know how you feel about epilogues (or if you've ever thought about them once, alone and of themselves, which is the sort of fiction-related crap we here at Blogagaard sit around and ponder each and every day) but I've come around to them as of late. I used to to be of the opinion that they were kind of a cheap tack-on at the end of an otherwise compact novel, a sort of unneeded footnote, but I've realized lately that in today's borderline illiterate world a novelist needs all the help he or she can possibly get and that an epilogue is just one more tool in the ol' writer's toolbox.
That said, I think we need certain rules for epilogues. The first and biggest rule, I'd say, is simply THEY SHOULD NOT BE LONGER THAN AN ACTUAL CHAPTER. Otherwise, why not just add them as one more chapter? In my mind, an epilogue should be a relatively swift yet punchy exit from the fictional dream, weighing in between one and seven pages, max. Don't go all Return of the King (film) on your poor, antsy reader.
Second: I used an epilogue in The Suicide Collectors because, above all else, the book had at that point shifted from the point of view of one character (the one and only POV for the entire novel) to a second character. Still, I kept it short as possible, because it was AN EPILOGUE.
Third: Feel free to disregard the two rules above and play with an epilogue when you're punching out those early drafts, but when final editing time comes around, only keep it if you feel the material within will leave a HUGE gap, an EXORBITANT gap, if not included. An epilogue should not be a cheap and easy way to tack on a few more tidbits of information or reveal some crucial final plot twist. An epilogue should be elegant, with more awe than shock.
Next up on Blogagaard: Prologues!
That said, I think we need certain rules for epilogues. The first and biggest rule, I'd say, is simply THEY SHOULD NOT BE LONGER THAN AN ACTUAL CHAPTER. Otherwise, why not just add them as one more chapter? In my mind, an epilogue should be a relatively swift yet punchy exit from the fictional dream, weighing in between one and seven pages, max. Don't go all Return of the King (film) on your poor, antsy reader.
Second: I used an epilogue in The Suicide Collectors because, above all else, the book had at that point shifted from the point of view of one character (the one and only POV for the entire novel) to a second character. Still, I kept it short as possible, because it was AN EPILOGUE.
Third: Feel free to disregard the two rules above and play with an epilogue when you're punching out those early drafts, but when final editing time comes around, only keep it if you feel the material within will leave a HUGE gap, an EXORBITANT gap, if not included. An epilogue should not be a cheap and easy way to tack on a few more tidbits of information or reveal some crucial final plot twist. An epilogue should be elegant, with more awe than shock.
Next up on Blogagaard: Prologues!
Hans Christian Anderson & Drinking Your Face Off
Hans Christian Anderson knew his drinking! This is from a longer piece called "Ole the Tower-Keeper" which I learned about after drinking a tasty beer called The Sixth Glass.
"It was New Year’s day, and I went up on the tower. Ole spoke of the toasts that were drunk on the transition from the Old Year into the New—from one grave into the other, as he said. And he told me a story about the glasses, and this story had a very deep meaning. It was this:
“When on the New Year’s night the clock strikes twelve, the people at the table rise up with full glasses in their hands, and drain these glasses, and drink success to the New Year. They begin the year with the glass in their hands; that is a good beginning for drunkards. They begin the New Year by going to bed, and that’s a good beginning for drones. Sleep is sure to play a great part in the New Year, and the glass likewise. Do you know what dwells in the glass?” asked Ole. “I will tell you. There dwell in the glass, first, health, and then pleasure, then the most complete sensual delight; and misfortune and the bitterest woe dwell in the glass also. Now, suppose we count the glasses—of course I count the different degrees in the glasses for different people.
“You see, the first glass, that’s the glass of health, and in that the herb of health is found growing. Put it up on the beam in the ceiling, and at the end of the year you may be sitting in the arbor of health.
“If you take the second glass—from this a little bird soars upward, twittering in guileless cheerfulness, so that a man may listen to his song, and perhaps join in ‘Fair is life! no downcast looks! Take courage, and march onward!’
“Out of the third glass rises a little winged urchin, who cannot certainly be called an angel child, for there is goblin blood in his veins, and he has the spirit of a goblin—not wishing to hurt or harm you, indeed, but very ready to play off tricks upon you. He’ll sit at your ear and whisper merry thoughts to you; he’ll creep into your heart and warm you, so that you grow very merry, and become a wit, so far as the wits of the others can judge.
“In the fourth glass is neither herb, bird, nor urchin. In that glass is the pause drawn by reason, and one may never go beyond that sign.
“Take the fifth glass, and you will weep at yourself, you will feel such a deep emotion; or it will affect you in a different way. Out of the glass there will spring with a bang Prince Carnival, nine times and extravagantly merry. He’ll draw you away with him; you’ll forget your dignity, if you have any, and you’ll forget more than you should or ought to forget. All is dance, song and sound: the masks will carry you away with them, and the daughters of vanity, clad in silk and satin, will come with loose hair and alluring charms; but tear yourself away if you can!
“The sixth glass! Yes, in that glass sits a demon, in the form of a little, well dressed, attractive and very fascinating man, who thoroughly understands you, agrees with you in everything, and becomes quite a second self to you. He has a lantern with him, to give you light as he accompanies you home. There is an old legend about a saint who was allowed to choose one of the seven deadly sins, and who accordingly chose drunkenness, which appeared to him the least, but which led him to commit all the other six. The man’s blood is mingled with that of the demon. It is the sixth glass, and with that the germ of all evil shoots up within us; and each one grows up with a strength like that of the grains of mustard-seed, and shoots up into a tree, and spreads over the whole world: and most people have no choice but to go into the oven, to be re-cast in a new form.
“That’s the history of the glasses,” said the tower-keeper Ole, “and it can be told with lacquer or only with grease; but I give it to you with both!” "
"It was New Year’s day, and I went up on the tower. Ole spoke of the toasts that were drunk on the transition from the Old Year into the New—from one grave into the other, as he said. And he told me a story about the glasses, and this story had a very deep meaning. It was this:
“When on the New Year’s night the clock strikes twelve, the people at the table rise up with full glasses in their hands, and drain these glasses, and drink success to the New Year. They begin the year with the glass in their hands; that is a good beginning for drunkards. They begin the New Year by going to bed, and that’s a good beginning for drones. Sleep is sure to play a great part in the New Year, and the glass likewise. Do you know what dwells in the glass?” asked Ole. “I will tell you. There dwell in the glass, first, health, and then pleasure, then the most complete sensual delight; and misfortune and the bitterest woe dwell in the glass also. Now, suppose we count the glasses—of course I count the different degrees in the glasses for different people.
“You see, the first glass, that’s the glass of health, and in that the herb of health is found growing. Put it up on the beam in the ceiling, and at the end of the year you may be sitting in the arbor of health.
“If you take the second glass—from this a little bird soars upward, twittering in guileless cheerfulness, so that a man may listen to his song, and perhaps join in ‘Fair is life! no downcast looks! Take courage, and march onward!’
“Out of the third glass rises a little winged urchin, who cannot certainly be called an angel child, for there is goblin blood in his veins, and he has the spirit of a goblin—not wishing to hurt or harm you, indeed, but very ready to play off tricks upon you. He’ll sit at your ear and whisper merry thoughts to you; he’ll creep into your heart and warm you, so that you grow very merry, and become a wit, so far as the wits of the others can judge.
“In the fourth glass is neither herb, bird, nor urchin. In that glass is the pause drawn by reason, and one may never go beyond that sign.
“Take the fifth glass, and you will weep at yourself, you will feel such a deep emotion; or it will affect you in a different way. Out of the glass there will spring with a bang Prince Carnival, nine times and extravagantly merry. He’ll draw you away with him; you’ll forget your dignity, if you have any, and you’ll forget more than you should or ought to forget. All is dance, song and sound: the masks will carry you away with them, and the daughters of vanity, clad in silk and satin, will come with loose hair and alluring charms; but tear yourself away if you can!
“The sixth glass! Yes, in that glass sits a demon, in the form of a little, well dressed, attractive and very fascinating man, who thoroughly understands you, agrees with you in everything, and becomes quite a second self to you. He has a lantern with him, to give you light as he accompanies you home. There is an old legend about a saint who was allowed to choose one of the seven deadly sins, and who accordingly chose drunkenness, which appeared to him the least, but which led him to commit all the other six. The man’s blood is mingled with that of the demon. It is the sixth glass, and with that the germ of all evil shoots up within us; and each one grows up with a strength like that of the grains of mustard-seed, and shoots up into a tree, and spreads over the whole world: and most people have no choice but to go into the oven, to be re-cast in a new form.
“That’s the history of the glasses,” said the tower-keeper Ole, “and it can be told with lacquer or only with grease; but I give it to you with both!” "
A Day of Rest
I've been rewriting a novel after getting feedback from my agent, in the hopes of getting it ready and sending it on the publishing rounds. I wrote this novel last fall/early winter and hope to have it making the rounds while the YA fantasy novel I wrote last spring also makes the rounds to a different set of editors, my thought being that casting two fishing lines doubles your chances of getting a bite.
This edit involved deleting two full chapters, writing three new chapters, and flushing out all three main characters. The rewrite process, for me, seems to take on a pretty standard pattern-I get my feedback from Jonathan, I agonize and mull it around in my mind for a few days, and then I start cutting like there's no tomorrow, slashing and burning every passage, sentence, and word that seems not good enough, not anymore! Then I start rebuilding, adding some new passages and tying them into what already stands, and then I slash through those passages as well. It's an exhausting and time consuming process and, after a while, you have to let it go and just pray the new draft is significantly improved.
So I sent the new draft to my agent last evening and now I have decreed today (and tomorrow) as a DAY OF REST, meaning I'm allowed not to think too hard about anything and I can sail as far away from my keyboard as possible (though I'll always return, ready for more insanity).
This edit involved deleting two full chapters, writing three new chapters, and flushing out all three main characters. The rewrite process, for me, seems to take on a pretty standard pattern-I get my feedback from Jonathan, I agonize and mull it around in my mind for a few days, and then I start cutting like there's no tomorrow, slashing and burning every passage, sentence, and word that seems not good enough, not anymore! Then I start rebuilding, adding some new passages and tying them into what already stands, and then I slash through those passages as well. It's an exhausting and time consuming process and, after a while, you have to let it go and just pray the new draft is significantly improved.
So I sent the new draft to my agent last evening and now I have decreed today (and tomorrow) as a DAY OF REST, meaning I'm allowed not to think too hard about anything and I can sail as far away from my keyboard as possible (though I'll always return, ready for more insanity).
Release Date Vs. Publication Date
The official publication date for my book is December 9th, but today I found out the book's release date is November 19th, meaning the novel will ship out on Nov. 19th to bookstores and libraries across the realm. I didn't even know there was a difference in dates, assuming that the publication date was the date the book would be in bookstores. I skimmed the Internet and gathered that a publication date is actually a more legal-type thing, used in book contracts and such to define a time when a book should be published by the publisher. Although, many publishers get around this official date by providing loopholes in the contract and thus give themselves leeway on when (the actual calender date) they publish a book.
I know. Not exactly clear, is it? Let's just say, I'm very happy the book will be "released" in time for the full holiday shopping season, and I will have a "publication" party/reading on or around Dec. 9th.
I know. Not exactly clear, is it? Let's just say, I'm very happy the book will be "released" in time for the full holiday shopping season, and I will have a "publication" party/reading on or around Dec. 9th.
Ray Bradbury & The October Country
Ray Bradbury died earlier this year. He wasn't exactly the greatest prose stylist in fiction history, but he created some of the most magical books in the history of science fiction and, ah, I guess you'd call it magical realism. His novels Something Wicked This Way Comes and Fahrenheit 451 both had a profound, profound influence both on the world of fiction and myself and he is credited for being one of the earliest "crossover" writers, meaning he could write genre fiction and still get some literary cred. He also wrote a collection of intertwined stories set on Mars called The Martian Chronicles which is simply wild and beautiful, like finding an arctic wolf taking a nap in your backyard.
But at this time of year, I can't help thinking about his The October Country, "a collection of 19 macabre short stories". Published in 1955, the stories involve surreal mayhem and cool Edgar Allen Poe stuff like that but what stands out to me, personally, is how they somehow manage to get at the true essence of autumn, and October specifically, in a way few other works have. In The October Country Bradbury built a world that crackles like walking through dry leaves and smells like woodsmoke on the page, making the reader nostalgic for a place that never really existed at all.
And that ability to world build, and imagine, is truly the big beating heart of Ray Bradbury's legacy, even as he now spends his first autumn beneath the earth.
But at this time of year, I can't help thinking about his The October Country, "a collection of 19 macabre short stories". Published in 1955, the stories involve surreal mayhem and cool Edgar Allen Poe stuff like that but what stands out to me, personally, is how they somehow manage to get at the true essence of autumn, and October specifically, in a way few other works have. In The October Country Bradbury built a world that crackles like walking through dry leaves and smells like woodsmoke on the page, making the reader nostalgic for a place that never really existed at all.
And that ability to world build, and imagine, is truly the big beating heart of Ray Bradbury's legacy, even as he now spends his first autumn beneath the earth.
Blog Post Title
So, I just got back from seeing The Hurt Locker at the Riverview. A good movie, though it ran a bit longer than it should have, I think. A movie about bombs and a tightly wound guy who disarms bombs should be wound tight, like a...bomb. That said, it totally beat out Speed for artistic merit.
I don't know if this happens to you, but whenever I see a war movie set after 2001, one thought keeps running through the back of my mind: WE SHOULDN'T HAVE FUCKING BEEN THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE. The oughts Iraq war had nothing whatsoever to do with keeping the United States safe-one could argue it only made us weaker by draining pretty much every resource imaginable (except oil?) and eventually dragging us into a recession (and by the way, there is absolutely no budget for new domestic programs in the next decade. Domestic, meaning, the actual United States, where we live, where my local library just had to cut its hours drastically). And now we're focused of Afghanistan. Now, I don't have all the intel. in front of me, but there do seem to be some actual Taliban fighters in Afghanistan at the moment (though time will only tell if this is just another useless extension of our resources).
Anyhow, politics aside, The Hurt Locker was a good movie about a guy in a hot, armored suit.
I'll be driving down to St. Olaf tomorrow for a 7 PM reading in the Viking Theater.
Salut!
I don't know if this happens to you, but whenever I see a war movie set after 2001, one thought keeps running through the back of my mind: WE SHOULDN'T HAVE FUCKING BEEN THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE. The oughts Iraq war had nothing whatsoever to do with keeping the United States safe-one could argue it only made us weaker by draining pretty much every resource imaginable (except oil?) and eventually dragging us into a recession (and by the way, there is absolutely no budget for new domestic programs in the next decade. Domestic, meaning, the actual United States, where we live, where my local library just had to cut its hours drastically). And now we're focused of Afghanistan. Now, I don't have all the intel. in front of me, but there do seem to be some actual Taliban fighters in Afghanistan at the moment (though time will only tell if this is just another useless extension of our resources).
Anyhow, politics aside, The Hurt Locker was a good movie about a guy in a hot, armored suit.
I'll be driving down to St. Olaf tomorrow for a 7 PM reading in the Viking Theater.
Salut!
Born on the 4th of July
I've been obsessed lately with the Springsteen song "Shut Out the Light". It's about a Vietnam vet coming home and the unsettling reentry process. I didn't know it was inspired by the novel Born on the 4th of July until tonight when I was watching this live 1985 Springsteen performance on YouTube (in which you can tell Springsteen wants all his jubilant 1985 big hair cocaine monkey fans to shut the fuck up and just listen for once).
Here's some Wiki on the novel: "Born on the Fourth of July was written (by Ron Kovic) in Santa Monica, California during the fall of 1974 in exactly one month, three weeks and two days. It tells the story of Kovic's life growing up in Massapequa, New York, joining the United States Marine Corps right out of high school, going to Vietnam for two tours of duty, getting shot, finding himself paralyzed and in need of a wheelchair, and eventually starting a new life as a peace activist.
'I wrote all night long, seven days a week, single space, no paragraphs, front and back of the pages, pounding the keys so hard the tips of my fingers would hurt. I couldn't stop writing, and I remember feeling more alive than I had ever felt. Convinced that I was destined to die young, I struggled to leave something of meaning behind, to rise above the darkness and despair. I wanted people to understand. I wanted to share with them as nakedly and openly and intimately as possible what I had gone through, what I had endured. I wanted them to know what it really meant to be in a war — to be shot and wounded, to be fighting for my life on the intensive care ward — not the myth we had grown up believing. I wanted people to know about the hospitals and the enema room, about why I had become opposed to the war, why I had grown more and more committed to peace and nonviolence.' — Ron Kovic"
I can listen to the studio version of "Shut Out the Light" over and over again. I just put it on repeat when I'm writing and suddenly an hour has passed. Just another example of Springsteen's lifelong mastery of rock lyrics and the dark chill he can occasionally tap.
Here's some Wiki on the novel: "Born on the Fourth of July was written (by Ron Kovic) in Santa Monica, California during the fall of 1974 in exactly one month, three weeks and two days. It tells the story of Kovic's life growing up in Massapequa, New York, joining the United States Marine Corps right out of high school, going to Vietnam for two tours of duty, getting shot, finding himself paralyzed and in need of a wheelchair, and eventually starting a new life as a peace activist.
'I wrote all night long, seven days a week, single space, no paragraphs, front and back of the pages, pounding the keys so hard the tips of my fingers would hurt. I couldn't stop writing, and I remember feeling more alive than I had ever felt. Convinced that I was destined to die young, I struggled to leave something of meaning behind, to rise above the darkness and despair. I wanted people to understand. I wanted to share with them as nakedly and openly and intimately as possible what I had gone through, what I had endured. I wanted them to know what it really meant to be in a war — to be shot and wounded, to be fighting for my life on the intensive care ward — not the myth we had grown up believing. I wanted people to know about the hospitals and the enema room, about why I had become opposed to the war, why I had grown more and more committed to peace and nonviolence.' — Ron Kovic"
I can listen to the studio version of "Shut Out the Light" over and over again. I just put it on repeat when I'm writing and suddenly an hour has passed. Just another example of Springsteen's lifelong mastery of rock lyrics and the dark chill he can occasionally tap.
A Good Death
My adopted and much beloved cat Opie died this past 4th of July at the grand old age of 22. For years I feared his death-almost since I started to fall in love with him back in 2007, when we moved to Boise together-and I hoped fervently that his legs would keep working, along with everything else, up until the day he died. Just imagining having to take him into that fucking vet office and have him put down was enough to make me feel a little off-kilter, a little insane, and I could all too easily picture myself breaking down in front of those kind and well-meaning strangers, especially when I handed over my credit card to PAY FOR HIS DEATH.
But that didn't happen. Opie died as he lived-making very little fuss and doing things his own way. He simply started eating less and less, so gradually I didn't even notice, until even raw hamburger held no appeal to him and it was like cradling a kitty skeleton in your arms. And then, one morning, he died on the cool tile of the bathroom floor, his favorite place in the world.
And, like that, he was gone. As good and natural a death as you could ask for.
-------------------------------
Along the lines of the idea of a good death is The Shootist, a novel by Glendon Swarthout and the 1976 John Wayne film by the same name. An aging and famous gunfighter comes to Carson City and confirms with the local doc (Jimmy Stewart) that he has advanced cancer and not much longer to live. He spends his remaining days sipping his last at life's great pleasures (such as flirting with Lauren Becall), stirring up a little trouble, and finally decides to go out in a shootout with the town's three best gunmen, all who seek the glory of killing a famous man. I've never been a huge John Wayne fan, personally, but he is perfect and understated in this, which would turn out to be his final role as well.
I've jokingly suggested that this was how Opie should have gone out, in a blaze of violent glory, and even went as far as to imagine the two of us driving in the Grand Canyon together, like Thelma and Louise. Of course, real life isn't as simple and clean cut as the movies, and each of us can only hope to go out as well as we possibly can.
In the end, this whole episode has left me feeling as if I've been touched (again) by some brand of terrible and powerful magic that hasn't left me yet-is that what death really is? Magic? Now you're here, now you're not?
But that didn't happen. Opie died as he lived-making very little fuss and doing things his own way. He simply started eating less and less, so gradually I didn't even notice, until even raw hamburger held no appeal to him and it was like cradling a kitty skeleton in your arms. And then, one morning, he died on the cool tile of the bathroom floor, his favorite place in the world.
And, like that, he was gone. As good and natural a death as you could ask for.
-------------------------------
Along the lines of the idea of a good death is The Shootist, a novel by Glendon Swarthout and the 1976 John Wayne film by the same name. An aging and famous gunfighter comes to Carson City and confirms with the local doc (Jimmy Stewart) that he has advanced cancer and not much longer to live. He spends his remaining days sipping his last at life's great pleasures (such as flirting with Lauren Becall), stirring up a little trouble, and finally decides to go out in a shootout with the town's three best gunmen, all who seek the glory of killing a famous man. I've never been a huge John Wayne fan, personally, but he is perfect and understated in this, which would turn out to be his final role as well.
I've jokingly suggested that this was how Opie should have gone out, in a blaze of violent glory, and even went as far as to imagine the two of us driving in the Grand Canyon together, like Thelma and Louise. Of course, real life isn't as simple and clean cut as the movies, and each of us can only hope to go out as well as we possibly can.
In the end, this whole episode has left me feeling as if I've been touched (again) by some brand of terrible and powerful magic that hasn't left me yet-is that what death really is? Magic? Now you're here, now you're not?
