So, I haven't posted anything in a couple of days. I think it's because I've been, if not happy lately, then at least busy and my relatively-normal level of content with life.
Or, in any case, not miserable.
My bestie and I were on Skype last night talking about it, and he informed me that J.R.R. Tolkien used to keep extensive journals, but he would only write in them when depressed. You can read these journals and use them to paint an image of the author, and end up with this picture of a tormented artist in all sorts of emotional pain and spiritual damage, but you would miss the parts where he didn't write anything, long periods of time when everything was going well enough that he felt the need to just bask in the glory of his life and not have to put pen to paper to get his feelings out.
I just finished the second book in my series, which is called Sky Coyote, and it features the Immortal Facilitator Joseph posing as the Native American trickster figure Sky Coyote, a coyote god who happens to be the only friend humanity has among the pantheon of this particular faith. He has to lift an entire village up and out of the annals of history, to rescue them from the coming invasion of white men and small pox. Of course, the natives really have no idea how to cope with their only friend among the gods coming to them, in the flesh, and telling them to get ready to pack up their lives and leave their homes forever. The struggle, and Joseph's response to it, are poignant and insightful.
The Truth of anything is what is is, and it cannot be anything else without ceasing to be the truth. That's what truth means. Truth is all true things in their entirety. All of it. Completely accurate. And in order for it to be Truth and not just true, you need all of it.
Thus, the human struggle with Faith.
Anyway, Tolkien.
Were his personal journals really true, then, if he left out all the good bits?
Do we really know the man from his journals if he left out so much of his life? Can we really say we have any idea who this author really was when we don't know his character at the best of times?
If I only post here when I'm feeling down, do you really know me?
I feel like when things are going pretty decent for me, I have less energy and inclination to write on here. No one likes a story that starts "Once upon a time, there live a happy little elf in a happy little forest and he had a happy little life." (<--incredibly vague reference to A Series of Unfortunate Events, which I have neither read nor seen in quite some time.) Does anyone like to read stories with no arcs?
No. Fuck that shit, that's boring.
But, I'm still not writing this for you guys.
I think the reason I don't write when I'm in a good place mentally is because I treat my life like the baked fish. The goodness is the flesh, and it's delicious, and I want to just savor it in all its fishy deliciousness. The bad stuff, the bones and skin, I just want to leave on the plate (my mind) but it'll rot there, so I have to throw it out.
And by throw it out, I mean vent about it.
On the internet.
To strangers.
It's cool, though. I mean, you don't have to go through my psychological garbage if you don't want to, but if dumpster diving is your thing, who am I to stop you.
And occasionally, you find some useful treasures.
Or, in any case, not miserable.
My bestie and I were on Skype last night talking about it, and he informed me that J.R.R. Tolkien used to keep extensive journals, but he would only write in them when depressed. You can read these journals and use them to paint an image of the author, and end up with this picture of a tormented artist in all sorts of emotional pain and spiritual damage, but you would miss the parts where he didn't write anything, long periods of time when everything was going well enough that he felt the need to just bask in the glory of his life and not have to put pen to paper to get his feelings out.
I just finished the second book in my series, which is called Sky Coyote, and it features the Immortal Facilitator Joseph posing as the Native American trickster figure Sky Coyote, a coyote god who happens to be the only friend humanity has among the pantheon of this particular faith. He has to lift an entire village up and out of the annals of history, to rescue them from the coming invasion of white men and small pox. Of course, the natives really have no idea how to cope with their only friend among the gods coming to them, in the flesh, and telling them to get ready to pack up their lives and leave their homes forever. The struggle, and Joseph's response to it, are poignant and insightful.
"Well, I thought-it's just that before You came, I had my own ideas about the way things worked. All that about Father Sun drinking blood and devouring corpses, like the priests told us-I mean, that couldn't be true. He's no more than a monster if He does things like that. I had Him pictures more like a kind of grandfather, loving but stern. Terrible to the wicked, yes, that I could believe. And . . . I thought some kind of higher order prevailed in the Upper World. But from what You say, things are just as bad up there as they are down here. Even God cheats." He gave a shaken little laugh that caught on a sob.I don't disagree with any of this. Yes, it's a fictional struggle of a fictional character's actual worldview needing an immediate shift, but that baked fish analogy, in addition to spiking an immediate craving for seafood, makes an uncomfortable amount of sense.
I sighed and shrugged. "Nephew. What did you think, when the priests and shamans told you about us Sky People? When you hear a story, do you believe only the nice parts? Truth isn't like a baked fish, where you can eat the flesh and leave the bones and skin. You have to eat it all."
The Truth of anything is what is is, and it cannot be anything else without ceasing to be the truth. That's what truth means. Truth is all true things in their entirety. All of it. Completely accurate. And in order for it to be Truth and not just true, you need all of it.
Thus, the human struggle with Faith.
Anyway, Tolkien.
Were his personal journals really true, then, if he left out all the good bits?
Do we really know the man from his journals if he left out so much of his life? Can we really say we have any idea who this author really was when we don't know his character at the best of times?
If I only post here when I'm feeling down, do you really know me?
I feel like when things are going pretty decent for me, I have less energy and inclination to write on here. No one likes a story that starts "Once upon a time, there live a happy little elf in a happy little forest and he had a happy little life." (<--incredibly vague reference to A Series of Unfortunate Events, which I have neither read nor seen in quite some time.) Does anyone like to read stories with no arcs?
No. Fuck that shit, that's boring.
But, I'm still not writing this for you guys.
I think the reason I don't write when I'm in a good place mentally is because I treat my life like the baked fish. The goodness is the flesh, and it's delicious, and I want to just savor it in all its fishy deliciousness. The bad stuff, the bones and skin, I just want to leave on the plate (my mind) but it'll rot there, so I have to throw it out.
And by throw it out, I mean vent about it.
On the internet.
To strangers.
It's cool, though. I mean, you don't have to go through my psychological garbage if you don't want to, but if dumpster diving is your thing, who am I to stop you.
And occasionally, you find some useful treasures.
THANK YOU!!! This is so true! Shouldn't a journal be more about documenting the most emotional moments of your life? If you wrote everyday, eventually your journal would be more "blah blah blah... life is good" nonsense. The title of my blog is "The Bitter Blogger," but I barely post anything in it because I hardly have the energy or material to write about. That being said, I'd like to clarify that sometimes I DO have the energy and write random shit, so everything in my blog isn't necessarily my best work, capiche?
ReplyDeleteCapiche! And thanks for the support. :)
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