(Source: mmmyesbillhader)
I’ve recently begun the process of writing my first non-obligatory fictional short story. I’ve retained this sort of creative virginity for sometime, but I feel as if it’s only logical to begin writing stories now if I hope to do this as job someday. In terms of cognitive creation, I’m not looking at this experiences as great sex, but rather as an awkward it’s-my-first-time-let’s-get-this-out-of-the-way leap into promiscuity. It will, quite obviously, be nothing along the lines of a Jeremy Lin debut; it will feature a plethora of mistakes that I’ll hopefully learn from.
Although the core story-line is not yet concrete, I’ve begun to discern some of the themes I wish to express in the story. Several nights ago, I was sitting in bed, furiously scrawling in my notebook any idea about the story that I deemed of usable value. My trail of thought and creation eventually met a dead end, and I was left with an ominous question. I etched down the inquiry so that I could answer properly when my brain wasn’t puking out it’s collection of long-oppressed literary elements. It reads as follows:
“How to you argue the importance of fiction in a world where made up stories are considered a product of an insane and unenlightened person?”
Over the past few days, I’ve been locked in a malicious cage fight with this question. Sure, fiction is simply entertaining, but that’s a far to simple answer to such a specific question. After all, reality television is entertaining, and it’s real (well, it used to be). Fiction is important to our world, but it’s necessity is of an almost seemingly paradoxical nature. It’s sort of like somebody convicted with a drug addiction. They will become attached to that drug, and their entire life will begin to evolve around that addiction. The drug makes them feel good, it entertains them, but it would serve no adherent purpose to somebody who wasn’t addicted to drugs. Much like a drug addict, humanity has built our world around the idea that made up stories can matter. They have always mattered, and will continue to matter, simply because they have mattered in the past.
Or is there some underlying elegance of fiction that makes it truly essential? That is, other that to fuel humanities addiction. In the world of my story, fiction does not matter because it is realized as not true, and therefore of no value. The world instead craves reality television, and biographies, because these thing are real stories of real people doing real things. The people of my created world scoff at those who rely on fiction, to the point watching films and reading novels is considered a side effect of insanity. In there world, fiction has never mattered, so why would ever matter?
However, there comes a point in my future story where an fiction-loving “lunatic” confronts an able-minded man on the importance of his taboo affection for made up things. The true importance of fiction lies in the perfect situations it can construct, and how it can exploit these situations for the benefit of the consumer. It’s quite obvious that we live in a less that perfect world, teeming with less than perfect situations. And I don’t mean perfect in terms of harmony and peace, but rather in absoluteness of themes. Even in stories based on reality, meaning stories that don’t express aspects of science fiction, are created so that every theme aligns in perfect unison with the overall idea of the film or novel. This affords us the opportunity to step back from reality for a moment, and view the machinations of our random and unpredictable world that we try to escape.
I’m going to write this story in attempt to warn people of the problems with the encroaching decay of fiction in our own society. Television is becoming dominated with reality shows, and although most are constructed, they give people the idea that they’re are real, and that they matter. In all actuality, these seemingly true stories matter no more than their fictional counterparts, and the idea that they do is truly absurd. Fiction is not real, but it almost acts as the limbs of our humanity. It’s not real, but it comes from truly real people, who live real lives. The line between fiction and reality used to be indistinguishable, where fiction mattered as much as reality, so the themes in both real and non-real things could be swapped carelessly. That line is becoming more defined as time goes on, which could develop a stagnate state among society.
If fiction is compromised, we will have no mirror in which we view the reflection of humanity. We will be unable to discern the fallacies, and correct upon the areas of society that need it the most. Fiction acts as the evaluation team for humanity, and without it, we cease to grow as a species.
Teenage girls are irrational creatures. Numerous times I’ve been on bad terms with my female friends simply because they found it necessary to be mad at me that day. That’s really unfair to say though; humans in general are irrational, and young women are just exaggerated versions brought on by God’s desire to have their little brains teeming with malevolent chemicals.
Human irrationality, whether it causes girls to slap me or not, appears most pungent in our inability to understand and accept death. After all, living is the only thing we really do, so trying to comprehend death is nearly impossible. Our ambiguous ends frighten us, so we establish the illusion that our time on Earth is personal, and we can spend it how we choose. Essentially, our short-sighted nature has developed in us a sense of free will.
But how free can we be if our lives entail the unavoidable facet of death? In Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist, is constantly being heaved into inevitable situations. Despite being completely unfit for battle, he is drafted and must fight in World War II. Billy sees people die all around him, most notably men that are far better soldiers than he is. The ability of the soldiers doesn’t determine weather they live or not, but rather some invisible force that leads them to their untimely death. They have the free-will to choose how they live life, but no evident ability to avoid the end of their lives.
I live in Kansas, a wonderfully simply place where the 2nd Amendment is often greeted with more enthusiasm then the 1st. This place seems to be a Mecca for gun enthusiasts, almost to the point where bearing arms is closely associated with feeling secure. I’ve seen numerous News specials featuring a good ol’ blue-blooded American showing the world his unending stashes of hidden guns that either make him feel like a man, or help him sleep at night. Regardless, I find it humerous that people feel secure in our unpredictable world by owning a gun. If we ever get bombed like Dresden did in the book, not even a Halo-esque rocket-launcher is going to keep you alive. We think we have the free will to perpetuate our lives, but in reality, our lives our hectic time-bombs portraying no forewarning of imminent demise.
So why don’t we just give up? After all, no matter how many guns we have or how smart we are, a worldly death is the ultimate fate of every being on the planet. We might as well curl up in our closets, and listen to Celine Dion while eating ice cream. Or, we could attempt to squeeze every last pleasure out of life, because a life barren of free will leaves nothing left to do but indulge in hedonistic behavior. Right? It’s only logical to end our search for achievement, because our victories will be subsidized by our fate of death. Right? Forget about everything else; let’s just have fun. Right?
Wrong. Shrouded by the common denouncements of free will in the novel is a subtle reassurance that trying in life is not a futile attempt. Amidst the cacophony of freedom less war, a moment in the book reminds us that although death is inevitable, fighting back the urge to “give up” is what makes us true characters. Towards the end of Slaughterhouse-Five, Edgar Derby, an American soldier hiding out will Billy and the other POWs, stands up to an American turned Nazi. Before this confrontation, Vonnegut mentions that Derby is the only real character in the entire book; “There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick and so much the listlessness playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters. But old Derby was a character now,” Vonnegut goes on to say.
Although the book may come off as existentially pessimistic, it reassures us that trying in our uncontrollable world is what truly makes us decent people. So yes, you can spend you’re entire life eating Twinkies and shooting heroin, knowing you’ll die like everyone else, but it turns out that human beings are worth a little more than that.
Everyone is tired of introverted, converse-wearing, dirty fan fiction writing 16 year-old girls droning on and on about how the Hunger Games books will never be surpassed in excellence by the cinematic interpretations of the novels. While these arguments are menial, and for the most part derivative of self-righteous intentions (“Well, if you had read the books like I have…”), they do beg the question; which is better, books or movies? Both are wonderful in their own rights, and people often don’t understand that movies are not copies, but rather interpretations of the books they’re based off. Movies offer more immediate sensations, and their short length appeals to our generations dually short attention span. Novels, however, create an intimate relationship between the story and it’s reader, and are more openly interpretable.
Despite what the title may lead one to believe, I’m not trying to say books are better than movies, but rather that they should be the predominant manifestation of creativity in our society. Both are mediums through which we carry the fiction of humanity (the necessity of made-up things in our society is an entirely different explanation within itself). However, books are an essential outlet for human creativity not because they are personal, but because they are so unfathomably simple. To put it in layman’s terms, they get the fricken’ job done.
The International Space Station exceeds the feasible comprehension of my mind. Right now, thousands of miles in space, there is a giant hollow hunk on steel flying around our planet at hundreds of miles an hour, carrying living, sentient, self-aware creatures. It is comprised of thousands of intricate parts and dozens of computers. We started by following animals to survive, and now, only several thousand years later, we can live outside of our planet. The incredible technological magnitude of such a project is astounding. Do you know what’s more fantastic than a vehicle of that complication? The wheel. Think about it; A rock chiseled into a circular figure managed to increase the efficiency and longevity of human mobility by an exponential value. It’s simple, but effective.
When a creation is complicated and amazing, it infatuates me, but when something can maintain that same wonder with a simplistic nature, in blows me away. It manages to arise from humble beginnings to define the world around it. Books are no exception. When C.S. Lewis wrote Out of the Silent Planet, he used the aid of some paper, a pen or type writer, and an unconfined imagination; out of these simple means he managed to create an entirely new world of inspiring depth and outrageous characters. If Silent Planet where made into a movie, even in the present day, it would require cameramen, dozens of actors, an entire army of visual artists, and an impractical sum of money. Lewis managed to immerse me with words on pages in a way that movies never could.
Fictional Stories are important to our society, and important to each person individually. Every person in their life has contrived fiction. From playing house as a child to fantasizing romantically as an adult, it’s quite evident that the desire to make things up is wired into our nature. Not everyone can portray these thoughts by making a movie; they do not have the resources to do so. On the other hand, anyone can write. Regardless if your eloquent, or subsidiary, intelligent or slower, capturing your story in words requires nothing more than a pen and paper. Really, not even that; make up stories in your head and remember them. It’s so simple and fantastic and wonderful, and anyone can create any sort of story that they want. After all, we were created in the image of the most brilliant creator of them all; we were created, so that we may create. And making up stories (and writing them down) is exactly how that can be done.
Some say fear controls humanity. Others believe that love stabilizes our society. The true governing force lays nowhere on the spectrum, and is the reason those people have been lead to believe in false jurisdiction. In actuality, Deceit keeps the fabric of man-kind from ripping into a tumultuous heap of threads.
