Writing has been a part of me since I was ten. Before that, I drew out stick figure cartoons and scenes to try to depict the images in my head. The images were movie-like scenes. Probably, they were influenced by whatever movie had captured my attention that week. Most of those I saw as re-runs on our small home TV-screens (my late 1960’s and 1970’s American childhood was the zenith of civilization by being able to watch the medium of mass pop culture on a Zenith TV). I was drawn to the original King Kong (original), Ray Harryhausen’s Sinbad movies and his supreme Jason of the Argonauts (I was able to see this on the big screen during one summer as movie studios used to re-release movies on our longest school breaks), the exotic and bizarre Saturday morning tv shows worlds of Sid and Marty Kroft with their pinnacle being Land of the Lost, the Jules Verne combo of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Center of the Earth (both with the impeccable James Mason) the on-going (at that time) original and far superior Planet of the Apes series (which also came to television for a short run), various war and Western movies (at sometime in the 1960’s during a revisionist movement, epic Westerns with large cast of extras for action series were as interweavable as revisionist World War II movies using the same scope).
The differences between the more fantasy/fable stories and the Western/War/Sci-Fi movies was that the fantasy genres offered more hope in the future of mankind and a sense of discovery in taking on unknown obstacles and challenges; whereas, the War/Western/Sci Fi were all nihilistic, existentialistic giving little if no hope beyond nothing more than making a stand against authority offering an extended middle finger before igniting the dynamite to obliterate both the obstacle and the hero: ultimately lessons in the futility of the utility of vanity. The fantasy stories were far richer and more imaginative due to their more dreamlike qualities than the bleak “realistic” amoral and no meaning/no future landscape of the revision rabbit-holes.
And then came Star Wars in 1977 and changed my playing field, changed my way of looking at stories. It offered a larger than life epic filled with mystical archetypes and tropes: a good versus evil conflict, an imposing and seemingly unstoppable villain, a young and idealistic boy on a quest to discover the secrets needed to defeat the villain while not becoming one himself, a pair of mysterious mentors who would show him the path, various heroic companions willing to be brave, daring, and loyal. It was really was my first look at someone’s original myth making. Totally fresh and alive. It caught me up and took me where all I did was breathe, eat, sleep, and act out Star Wars.
At that time, I needed to have a male figure be my hero by doing some kind of heroic action for the sake of discovery. They might stumble; they might get trapped or side-tracked, but they always overcame and conquered evil by doing the right thing. They never gave up by standing still.
This is organic myth which comes from the place of dreams which comes from the subconscious which come from the whispering of God into the ears of our soul.
The fantasy movies had the largest impact on me. Certainly, the War/Western/Sci-Fi were apocaplytic in nature and gave ultimate sacrifices (one’s own life to be laid down or thrown away) but to win exactly what? Dignity? How could the “heroes” have dignity when they were dead? Their “victory” was to die standing up, un-bowed, refusing to bend the knee. One last fist in the sky for pride.
Empty vanity.
Psychology? Yes, but it does go deeper than the folds of the brain.
In which part of the brain does the mind reside? Which gene turns on consciousness?
For me, writing is discovery and not merely telling or preaching.
There are only a certain number of tropes and plots. There are only a certain number of character masques to don. There are only certain maps for the plot. There are only a certain number of conclusions once you’ve begun the story. But the conclusions should be commiserate with the problems the character has been given. There are only so many “so manys.”
Has everything been done and said?
If so, then why is it being all redone and re-said?
Does it have to be re-done and re-said?
There are still lessons to learn and places to go.
Because there is one ultimate lesson—the meaning of it all—and one ultimate place left to go—death and the grave.
Therefore, the answer is not inside ourselves hiding unrealized and untapped in some micro-space between synaptic neuronic passages.
Neither is the answer out somewhere drifting in the radioactive winds spit out by black holes.
The answer is in the grave.
In fact, it is an empty grave.
There has only been one empty grave.
Only one person has made the claim that no man could or would take their life but that they would lay down their life on their accord and in so doing that only they themselves would pick up it again.
Only one person was raised to a new life everlasting (no, not Lazarus of the four days).
His name is Jesus, Yeshua, the Christ or Annoited or Messiah.
To him, I bend my bend and raise my hand up (not in a fist of defiance, but in praise, adoration, and supplication).
To paraphrase Jesus’ own words, I do not fear the one who can take my life or destroy my body, but I should fear that one that can destroy my soul.
Perhaps that is why I write. To discover what Jesus has done for me and how to tell others about it.
Who do I write for? Three people: God, who is my ultimate judge; myself, as I need to listen to the dreams and myths leaking out of my subconscious; and my ideal reader, which varies from time to time depending upon the project or a particular part of a project.
If I wrote to be “marketable,” I have an ever-shrinking window of opportunity to catch the latest/hottest trend. In reality, trend chasing is always running behind someone else’s use of self-dream/mythmaking.
Why be somebody else? That’s what AI is for. AI is not itself. It can only mimick once it has been given some parameters and the execute command performed.
What is the sign of an intelligent life? It is aware of itself. It can think and have a consciousness. It can dream and communicate. It needs a power source to maintain itself. It can reproduce itself. It can leave behind artifacts of its existence and thought process. It has an eternal soul.
Maybe this last one should be first?
Can AI dream?
I write for myself, first. The ideas don’t always come to me (in a few instances, the germs came as a challenge from someone else), but sooner or later, I have to grapple with them and walk in their shoes and go the distance with them: to the finish line or conclusion.
Why do I write? To discover and learn and make sense of things. To explore and experience. To name things. Not only to live the tale but to live to tell the tale and to let the tale live as well.