Here’s an interesting talk from author Orson Scott Card on creativity and education!
Philosophy Stories
Individuation and the meaning of stories
From The Portable Jung
Self-alienation in favour of the collective corresponds to a social-ideal; it even passes for social duty and virtue, although it can be misused for egotistical purposes. Egoists are called “selfish,” but this, naturally, has nothing to do with the concept of “self” as I am using it here. On the other hand, self-realization seems to stand in opposition to self-alienation. This misunderstanding is quite general, because we do not sufficiently distinguish between individualism and individuation. Individualism means deliberately stressing and giving prominence to some supposed peculiarity rather than to collective considerations and obligations. But individuation means precisely the better and more complete fulfilment of the collective qualities of the human being, since adequate consideration of the peculiarity of the individual is more conducive to a better social performance than when the peculiarity is neglected or suppressed. The idiosyncrasy of an individual is not to be understood as any strangeness in his unique combination, or gradual differentiation, of functions and faculties which in themselves are universal. Every human face has a nose, two eyes, etc., but these universal factors are variable, and it is this variability which makes individual peculiarities possible. Individuation, therefore, can only mean a process of psychological development that fulfils the individual qualities given; in other words, it is a process by which a man becomes the definite, unique being he in fact is. In so doing he does not become “selfish” in the ordinary sense of the word, but is merely fulfilling the peculiarity of his nature, and this, as we have said, is vastly different from egotism or individualism.
Now in so far as the human individual, as a living unit, is composed of purely universal factors, he is wholly collective and therefore in no sense opposed to collectivity. Hence the individualistic emphasis on one’s own peculiarity is a contradiction of this basic fact of the living being. Individuation, on the other hand, aims at a living co-operation of all factors. But since the universal factors always appear only in individual form, a full consideration of them will also produce an individual effect, and one which cannot be surpassed by anything else, least of all by individualism.
The aim of individuation is nothing less than to divest the self of the false wrappings of the persona on the one hand, and of the suggestive power of primordial images on the other.
From Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor
That mythological motif of the atonement with the father, which has come down through the Christian tradition and has been read chiefly in historical terms, is given the sense of an actual experience that anyone of us may have and must have if we are to break past ourselves. It comes, however, in and through a personal relationship, for only in relationship to another can this experience, with its human costs, occur.
It is in human relationships that the operation takes place—the relationship of me to you, of you to another, of you to your job, of you to Earth—relationship is the field where the individual is in process. In marriage, for example, when one sacrifices, one is not sacrificing to the other, one sacrifices rather to the relationship. In the relationship both participate, so you are sacrificing an aspect of yourself in relation to another, and there is no psychological development outside the relationship. That is what we have in the center. It is the form of a cross. Relationship and yielding. Dark and light together.
Now from a book on screenwriting, My Story Can Beat Up Your Story
Your hero starts the film as an Orphan. A crisis arises, throwing your hero’s world out of whack, and he or she leaves or is forced out of Orphan status and begins to wander in order to learn what is needed to answer the central question [of the story]. Around the midpoint of the story, your hero becomes a Warrior and fights with all of his or her might and cunning in order to answer the central question, even to the point of his or her near-death or the near-death of someone close. And still it isn’t enough. The central question remains unanswered. What action is missing for your hero to take? What more could he or she possibly do?
Sacrifice his or her own life, that’s what!
Your hero must be willing to die and not be reborn in order to answer the central question. He or she must be willing to be a Martyr, to give up everything for a greater good. Only by willingness to lose it all can your hero win it all. Only by giving up what your hero thought he or she wanted can your hero be rewarded with what he or she needs. Remember in Chapter 3 where we discussed what your hero is wrong about at the start of the story? It is at this point where your hero must confront and overcome that wrongheadedness.
From another book on screenwriting, Save the Cat! Strikes Back
And that Dig-Deep-Down point, that “Use the Force, Luke!” beat, is what we’re all looking for whether we are writers of the story or the audience for it. Yes, this way of looking at the ending of any story also works when the hero or heroes are “Defending the Castle” as seen in the finales of Saving Private Ryan, Shaun of the Dead, and Blazing Saddles—or in “Escaping the Castle” as seen in Alien, Free Willy, and Defiance. Whether your team is on the offense or defense, the lessons of friendship, teamwork, selflessness, and nobility are the same, and the Dig-Deep-Down moment is key. No matter what the permutation of your tale, it’s the dynamic we seek, for the need of any story boils down to being touched by powers unseen.
Special effects are fine, great set pieces are wonderful, funny jokes and unique characters are vital. But if you take me to the divine in your story, I will tell all my friends about it.
That’s what storytelling is really about.
Finally, maybe even a Bible verse, eh? Jesus speaking, from Matthew 10:39 (New American Bible):
Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Go forth and meditate on all this!
Whatever else Writing
November happenings
Here’s a journal-ish update of what’s going on here…
Job
At the end of October, I got a part-time night-shift job with the local newspaper printers, so I’ve been adjusting to that. It’s a nice stress-free job in a nice place with nice people, and the income it provides, even if small, is much appreciated; I’m still paying off a stupid college loan, and it’s always nice to have a little bit of spending money. It has some weird hours; I start at 11:45 PM and get off whenever the work’s finished, which is usually around 2:30 AM or 3:30 AM, but sometimes as late as 7:30 AM. My sleep schedule is usually already wired to those times, so that’s not a big deal. It’s just that I still haven’t quite figured out how to manage my time before and after in terms of meal-eating, working on my creative projects, and studying films (a more academic way to say “watching movies”… but I do try to pay special attention to story structure and filming techniques… I still want to make an indie film someday, even if it’s a short film). So I haven’t been getting much done creatively for the last half-month.
Laptop woes
For the last month or so, my laptop has been giving me increasing troubles with blue screens of death, crashing programs, and a hard drive that’s making ugly noises that it shouldn’t. So I’m guessing the hard drive is having issues. I don’t quite have the funds for a new computer at the moment, so I’ll probably have to replace the hard drive soon. Not looking forward to that. Fortunately I think all my important data is backed up, so I shouldn’t lose anything besides time and money. For now, I’m putting it off until I just get a little too fed up with the crashing or until the drive just dies completely… but I’ll probably have to replace it before the year is out. Maybe in a couple weeks when I get my next paycheck.
Book on melody
Yeah, I had hoped to release that book on melody by November 25th of this year, but of course that ain’t gonna happen. I’ve done hardly any work on it, and now I have some more ideas I want to try in terms of creating a program that generates entire symphonies.
Son of a Dark Wizard
I’ve started posting chapters of my upper middle grade fantasy book on Morrowgrand.com, and I mention my ambitions with this project (and my method of self-publication) on my writing blog. Most of my creative energy is currently focused on writing a music score / companion album for the book. I’m hoping to have the score finished sometime next month; it’s a lot of fun to write, and I’m experimenting with more chromaticism than I usually employ. Rather than the happy fanciful flying about that Voyage of the Dream Maker featured, this score is dark, moody, and mysterious. At least, that’s what I’m going for.
Lacking the proper funds to commission a pro artist, I’m probably going to try illustrating the cover of the book and companion album myself… we’ll see how that goes. (If I ever do have the funds, I’ll commission a pro artist for a more professional-looking edition later.) But for now, my focus is on the music.
Other writing projects
I’m still co-writing several projects, on which productivity is slow as usual, but I don’t feel very bad about that considering the circumstances. Anyway, I do hope to start another solo writing project as soon as I can, as I hope the creative energy that will give me will aid the productivity of the co-authored work. I’m still stuck on plotting the intricately woven storylines of Stormground, but I have some smaller-scale ideas that I’m going to try fleshing out.
Philosophy
Pope says shocking things about science!
I thought it was funny to see the Pope in the news for talking about science. (Google it and read a few articles if you don’t know what I’m talking about.)
The notion of God-creation has always transcended any explanation of how it physically happened. That is, how it physically happened doesn’t matter. Looking to physical explanations misses the point of the belief; after all, without a conscious entity that intends for certain things to happen, nothing ever happens for a “reason to be fulfilled.” Creation is an inherently metaphysical thing.
This is an imperfect comparison, but let us say that there is a child playing with LEGOs. He builds a small house with the LEGO bricks. Where did the house come from? Did it come from the child’s mind, or from the LEGO bricks?
To answer that the house came from the child’s mind is not to deny that the house is made of LEGO bricks.
Of course, what’s really ridiculous is how the media likes to portray the Pope’s words as being anything special in the first place, as if there is some gap to fill between science and Catholicism in the first place, or as if the ideas of the big bang and evolution ever conflicted with anything in Catholic teaching at all, or as if previous popes haven’t said similar things.
I may have blogged about this before, but I think some of it stems from a misunderstanding of science especially. Science is often used as an excuse to reject anything religious (because them Christians is weird and them organized religins is the devil!) with the assumption that if something is “science”, it can be “proven” with some sort of materialistic evidence, which could be found in some science journal somewhere. Of course, this really isn’t “science” in the traditional sense; this is the Science! of the modern man, the Science! that saves us from being obligated to defend or argue for any sort of morality. Disagree with a religious person about anything, and never fear, because Science! is on your side!
But the physical sciences never actually prove anything to be completely correct, nor do they somehow auto-generate any explanations for anything. Rather, we humans come up with explanations based on observations and predictions, and science gives us a means by which to disprove the explanation, so that we can form a more accurate explanation. That’s what science mainly is: a method by which to disprove explanations.
So firstly, science depends on the metaphysical; it makes no sense trying use it to reject the metaphysical. And secondly, there’s no “gap” between science and theology. Theology doesn’t make “scientific” claims in the first place, anymore than someone saying “I love you” to someone else is ever meant as a scientific hypothesis.
Stupid things
Fake geeks
On tumblr, author Neil Gaiman was asked: What’s your opinion on there being “fake” and “real” fans/nerds?
Neil Gaiman goes on to not really answer the question. He says, “I think all people, not to mention fans, nerds, geeks and suchlike are real.” OK… but that wasn’t the question. The question was about fake fans/nerds. Not fake people. He goes on to say that he tells people at his book signings that he’s glad they read his book, no matter their self-proclaimed level of fandom. I think any author with any business sense would do the same. But, again, that really wasn’t the question.
So I think the Internet needs my opinion on the subject, because I am a blogger, and this is what bloggers do: write opinions nobody asked for.
(On a side note, if you Google the term fake geek, you seem to get a lot of stuff about a meme called Fake Geek Girls. I had never heard of that, and don’t really know what it is. This post is only about the idea of “fake geeks” in general, or “wannabes nerds.” As franchises long considered geeky have become mainstream in the last ten or fifteen years or so, and as media companies cash in on the popularity shift, there seems to be a bit of a culture war regarding who’s turf these geeky franchises belong to. This post doesn’t really address that either, though certainly this shift has given rise to a modern epidemic of “fake geeks.”)
Yes, there are “fake geeks.” These are people who claim to love something, but really only want other people to think they love it. It’s nothing new; vanity of this sort has existed since the first caveman lied about how many wooly mammoths he’d slain. (He was a fake wooly mammoth geek.)
The true geek is like Donkey from Shrek; he might be really annoying, but he’s happy with himself. The fake geek is like Shrek, at least the Shrek at the beginning of the first Shrek movie. He puts on a tough-guy act, pretending he doesn’t care what anyone thinks about him, but he’s actually very insecure. (That is why a “fake geek” cares about the label at all.)
Fake geeks care too much about their reputation. You can spot these sorts of people because they care more about showing other people how geeky they are than actually geeking out on the subjects they claim to geek about.
For example, you cannot claim to be a chess geek if you don’t know what en passant is. If you truly love chess as much as you claim, you’d know the rules. That said, it’s OK to be a chess beginner. As Gaiman says, everybody starts somewhere. It’s not snobbery that’s keeping chess geeks from accepting anyone among their chess geek ranks. But the geekdom has to be earned; you don’t get to bestow it on yourself after your third chess game.
And, again, that’s OK. True geeks are out there and ready to help you rise to true geekdom. True geeks love being paid their geeky dues. But you have humble yourself before your geeky interest, and you have to be honest about wanting that true geekdom, because you’re going to have to work for it. If you want to be a chess geek, but don’t actually want to put in the long hours staring at a chess board, reviewing Bobby Fischer’s games, and reading Vladimir Vukovic, no geekdom for you.
If you truly love it, that shouldn’t be hard. True love leads to true geekdom.
But if you’re just in it for the perceived social glory, forget it. You are a fake geek.
“Fake geeks” can be a problem for real geeks because fake geeks are incapable of geeking out about their supposed topic of geekery. When you claim to be a geek just to impress people, but then can’t engage in a geeky conversation with a true geek, you’ve just wasted that geek’s time. That true geek spent a lot of time earning his geekdom, and he’s starving for some deep geek conversations and geeky social bonding. When you claim to be a geek but then can’t actually geek out, it’s tantamount to slapping that geek in the face! How could you be so mean to a geek?
A “geek” is like a “genius”; it’s a subjective label we give to others based on our own impressions of them. Sorry, but you can’t come up to me, proclaim to be a genius, and expect me to be instantly impressed (even if you truly are a genius, which you’re probably not if you feel the need to tell me about it). Similarly, if I am not impressed by your apparent shallow knowledge of a subject, I’m not going to consider you a geek. You don’t get to decide for me how impressed I’m supposed to be by your fandom. But, as I said, it’s subjective. If you claim to be a quilting geek, I’ll probably take your word for it, as I know very little about quilting. But if you claim to be a SpongeBob geek and can’t recite the FUN song, I’m seriously going to doubt that you truly love SpongeBob.
(Even worse is when people claim to be geeks about what you love, but then claim to be offended about what they don’t like about it, as though you too are obligated to be offended with them by virtue of your shared interest. True geeks know what I’m talking about.)
As I’ve said before on this blog, when you truly love something, you don’t care about what other people think anyway. So anyone who’s truly concerned about being labeled a “fake geek” is most likely that very thing.
Now, all that said, this isn’t the perspective from which Neil Gaiman is speaking about the topic. If you’re selling something, the last thing you’re going to care about is a customer’s level of geekery. A dollar is worth the same amount from anyone. Probably 95% to 99% of his sales come from non-Gaiman-geeks, including myself, and he’s savvy enough to not upset us. I’m not saying his views aren’t genuine. I’m saying they come from the perspective of someone who’s selling a product, not a true geek who’s been blatantly lied to by a fake geek.
Dreams
Hypnopompic hallucinations
I woke up this morning staring at the ceiling, and on the ceiling was the clear image of a young woman’s green eye staring back at me. I blinked my eyes, made sure I was awake, but the image lingered. After a moment, it faded away, but I thought the incident was rather bizarre and somewhat creepy. It was as though a random dream image had been burned into my retina so that I could see it even in waking life. I’ve had minor sleep-deprivation hallucinations before, but this was more vivid than those. It looked a bit like a fragment of a Vermeer painting:
Some internet searching confirmed that I’m far from the only one to experience this sort of phenomenon. According to Wikipedia’s article on the hypnopompic state (the state of consciousness leading out of sleep):
When the awakening occurs out of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, in which most dreams occur, the hypnopompic state is sometimes accompanied by lingering vivid imagery.
So, assuming the vision was not actually a dream-seer from another dimension spying into my waking life, or a mystical prophecy that I am to meet and wed a green-eyed beauty (although I’ll leave those possibilities open), I’m guessing a “hypnopompic hallucination” is what it was.
And, come to think of it, I’ve had these sort of hallucinations before — with music. It’s not uncommon to wake up to beautiful music that isn’t there. I’ve just never had it with such vivid imagery before.
Oh, and the dream that preceded the hallucination was quite nice. I was exploring a university campus, but it was in some royal futuristic steampunk world. The university buildings were like gilded palaces, curved like the sides of pirate ships. In one room, I witnessed a number of gamers playing a grand war game involving a bunch of little toy soldiers that were moved about a wire mesh grid. When soldiers from opposing armies clashed and fought, mini-games involving dice and cards were played to determine which piece would defeat the other. It looked like a lot of fun; I need to design the game for the real world now.
Music composition Writing
With new headphones, new album in the works
Last month, I was finally able to get my hands on a new set of headphones:
The Sony MDR7506 Professional Large Diaphragm Headphones
So, while procrastinating on fiction writing, I’ve been rediscovering the magic the music composing, and have already composed two tracks, roughly ten minutes together, for my next album.
This album will basically be a collection of short musical pieces that each go along with a fairy tale I’m writing; I’m aiming for about ten to twelve tales in all. The tales themselves will be released for free online (though I might put together a CreateSpace paperback, mostly for my own guilty pleasure). The album itself will likely be released through my bandcamp page, with some corresponding YouTube videos.
Speaking of YouTube, I’ll probably "monetize" my channel sometime soon. While I really hate subjecting viewers to ads, monetizing your account is the only way to get custom thumbnails on your videos, and I really hate the automatic default thumbnails on my videos at the moment; they look abstract and bizarre, and they’re not doing me any favors. I’d like to have titles on there, and some recognizable "style" to them. I still like using the Music Animation Machine in the actual videos, though, rather the fantasy art like some YouTube composers use; I find the Music Animation Machine’s visuals are just a lot more captivating and engaging.
Anyway, of the two tracks I’ve written at the moment, one is orchestral, while the other is a sort of bitter-sweet lullaby for harp and two whistles (tin whistle and low whistle). Of course, they both feature my typical song-ish melody-driven style. They still need some tweaking, but I’m very pleased with them so far.
The new headphones are simply excellent for composing work. Looking forward to continuing the work. Of course, this is only delaying my work on that book on melody writing, on which I’ve hardly made any progress since my last post, but becoming obsessed with the joy of melody writing again doesn’t hurt, I guess.
I’m also spending this week trying to get my internal clock back on a normal schedule. Since college, my internal clock refuses to stay on a 24-hour schedule; it seems to be slightly longer, so it tends to slowly shift out of whack, until it’s almost completely backwards, and I have to force it back into some sort of normalcy, which neither my mind nor body appreciate as they fight against it, making me randomly tired in the afternoons, wide awake in the middle of the night, hungry and not hungry at random intervals, random headaches (which I get anyway, really), etc… lots of fun.
Non-fiction books
My tweet is in print!
As tough as it is to write a novel and getting it published, how many published authors can lay honest claim to having a tweet published?
Working On My Novel
Whatever else
There’s too much stuff I want to do…
I recently finished a few weeks of freelance programming, creating some custom software that allows the client to quickly format / generate bid documents for a demolition company. It’s nice to finish something that’s actually productive, something I haven’t done much of this year…
Anyway, I’m now back to having a bunch of free time and a continuing burning desire to not have to get a real job that will steal it all away again (even though I’m really broke). I have a lot of projects I’d like work on, including:
- Finish writing that book on melodies that I’ve been planning for years
- Write a fantasy series and indie-publish it on Amazon Kindle, Smashwords, etc.
- Write more music and put together another album
- Write and draw a web comic based on that cartoon series I created back in 2012
- Write fairy tales — I’ve been wanting to write short weekly fairy tales, just for fun
- Do something with computer game programming — I have a short mystery game I planned out a year ago that I still haven’t done anything with. I’d like to learn how to use Unity or something, create some pixel art, and actually try to make it
Of course, the problem is that making any sustainable revenue from any of these areas of interest takes time… too much time. So much time that a sane person would get a real job in the mean time.
But I really don’t want to have to be sane.
The other problem is that it’s hard to have focus when there’s so much you want to do, but lack of focus is the bane of progress.
But I do want to be more disciplined, which includes setting and following deadlines, something I’ve never been very good at, especially with more creative-oriented projects like writing. But… I have to.
I’m not sure how this is going to work out, but here’s my current plan: My book on my theory of melody will be my top priority. I’m setting the deadline of having an eBook version of it available on Amazon Kindle by November 25th (my birthday). Meanwhile, I’ll set smaller piecemeal deadlines and goals for the other projects each week. I’ll see if that will help me accomplish anything, or if I’ll need even more focus than that to make progress.
I’ll probably also try to blog more, because I think blathering about updates on my progress helps me actually make some progress because it gives me something to blog about. Weird circular psychology, but it works, like making a to-do list and crossing things off…
Oh, and I’ve still got some co-authoring projects going on, which are exciting, so they will be stealing away time as well.
Anyway, for the remainder of this week, my goals will be to:
- Plan the “book on melody”, breaking down the project into smaller chunks that can be given deadlines of their own
- Finish plotting that fantasy book I’m working on called “Stormground”
- Co-authoring stuff
I’d also like to try to use some of the money I made from that freelance programming gig to buy a new set of headphones. I haven’t had a good pair of headphones to compose music with for over a year now (maybe even two years… or three… it’s been a while). I usually use wireless headphones, but they’re not very good for composing because they make automatic volume adjustments, keeping things from being too soft or too loud. Which is great when you’re watching a movie or just listening to music, but it’s terrible when you’re actually trying to compose it. Plus, wireless headphones always have that faint white noise in the background, which is very annoying when you’re trying to hyper-focus on sound. And my other headphones have pretty much worn out, or were cheap and terrible to begin with. So: must buy new headphones. Especially since composing some new music will be necessary to help advertise the melody book, and I want to start building interest for it as soon as possible.
Interesting finds
Presidential cousin… or not
So I was exploring the tree of my 13 x great grandfather, Sir Thomas Adams, Lord Mayor of London, trying to see if there was a connection between his tree and the tree of that other famous Adams man, John Adams, the second president of the United States. Just browsing through several trees online like this one, a connection emerges easily enough: Sir Thomas Adams’s grandfather, Randall Adams, was brother to a Henry Adams, the 4 x great grandfather of John Adams the president. That would make distant cousins of us.
But wait.
Something doesn’t look right in this tree.
Randall Adams was born and died in Wem, Shropshire, while his father and brothers were born and died in Barton St David, Somerset?
Hmmm. I’m not so sure Randall Adams actually belongs in this family. Although the dates are believable, I couldn’t find any evidence that Randall’s father made a brief visit to Wem and left a son there. And these trees have no resources to back up the connection other than private emails.
I haven’t been able to find any trace of Randall’s true parentage, so they may be lost to the mysteries of time.