Bloom and Creativity

An Observation

I do not have much of a thesis for this post; I just want to record an observation I had some time ago but keeping forgetting.

Harold Bloom, a literary critic now notorious in lit departments for his Freudian misogyny (and as Bardolator-in-Chief), wrote that all creative endeavours—and he was writing primarily of authors—are in perpetual rebellion against their predecessors. This is the anxiety of influence, the fear that, in order to be remembered, they must compete with the very poets who inspired in them a love of poetry. Most authors never rise above mere imitation of their predecessors, and their poetry remains weak. But those few strong poets idiosyncratically misread their predecessors, so when they struggle against those predecessors they struggle against a predecessor that does not exist and thus produce something new in their poetry. Milton misread Shakespeare and Blake misread Milton, which is what made them great. This is the heart of creativity: idiosyncratic misreading.[1]

A lot of Bloom’s literary theory has been criticized. First, though he denies that he is a Freudian, his kill-the-father routine seem heavily indebted to Freud. (Besides, of course a Freudian would deny that he’s a Freudian. (That link has some language inappropriate for some contexts.)) Second, he can be quite sexist, and while this theory sounds gender-neutral, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar note in Madwoman in the Attic that woman authors tended not to have this competitive relationship with their predecessors; rather, woman authors, especially early ones, usually collaborated with predecessors, relying on pre-existing female poets and novelists to justify their own writing. Third, it seems a bit strange to suggest that the only way a person can be creative is through idiosyncratic misreading, even if you do posit the existence of an anxiety of influence.

But I want to notice that we can safely repudiate Bloom’s totalizing claims without losing the key insight that idiosyncratic misreading can be, or anyway lead to, a creative act. In an intellectual rather than artistic sphere, I know that I can sometimes have some of my better ideas by misunderstanding the theory I am reading. (Though it should be noted that such benefits are rare.) Moreover, I come up with good ideas for novels by reading content into existing works and then later discovering that I had been hallucinating a clever commentary that wasn’t there. As I said, I have no conclusion; I just want to observe that we can safely jettison most of Bloom’s framework while still retaining idiosyncratic misreading as one place where creativity is possible. In particular, if all work is derivative—which is almost certainly true—then idiosyncratic misreading might be a way of escaping the trap that all creativity is merely a new arrangement of old elements.

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[1] Bloom would prefer “misprision” to “misreading.”
The photograph in this post was taken and is owned by Christian H of the Thinking Grounds. It is licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

Winter

Having just read Em the luddite's post about snow in the South, I want to be clear about something.

Notwithstanding how much I gripe about the cold and how little anyone in the 'South' (ie. south of me, ie. most of populated Canada and the rest of the world) will be able to understand just how cold it is, I do find it quite pretty here. "Quite pretty" fails semantically. Whenever I see the hills from work, I pause--only for a moment, but I do pause--with a sense of blessedness that I get to live amid these hills. This was true in the summer, but in the winter it is more striking because it is newer. I've never seen these bluffs cloaked in white before. They look wilder like this, and I just want to get into them, tromp through forest drifts. I probably will do so this week.

There is a view in Fort McMurray which does, upon first seeing it, take your breath away. Whether you fly in or drive north on Highway 63, you will enter Fort McMurray at its southernmost point, which is the Gregoire-MacKenzie Industrial Park-Beaconhill trifecta. Driving north along 63 from there, you will come down "the hill"* into the Lower Townsite-Waterways area. As you come down, the hills still climb to your left but, as you ease around something of a bend and as Gregoire peters out, the trees and rocks and bush to your right will drop away and you'll see meadows roll down to a cluster of pines and spruce that give in to the Clearwater River, behind which the long, bare cliffs of the further hills can be seen. In the summer, when you first see it, the meadows are the light rich green of grass and the forest is the dusty dark of pines and the Clearwater is quicksilver and the cliffs behind are a pale earth forested with more pines and spruces that show, again, just how wide a palette "green" can be. I have not yet seen this during the daylight in the winter; I have seen it at dusk and by moonlight. Tomorrow I will go with my folks to pick my brother up at the airport, though, and this will be during the daylight. I wait with bated breath, because what little I have seen through the gloaming has hinted that it will be wonderful.

I love the winter light. It is white. Summer's warm radiance, signified best to me by a patch of gold on the rug, is nice in its place. But nothing says 'bookisness' to me like the white of an overcast day, and nothing says 'holidays and happiness' to me like bookishness. For those who haven't experienced it, when the ground is carpeted in snow and the sky is overcast, what sunlight comes through is reflected between the snow and the clouds back and forth, as though trapped between mirrors. Unlike a day with snow on the ground and a clear sky, it's usually not painfully bright (though it can be). The light, since filtered by clouds and reflected by snow, is white. Next to an incandescent bulb it looks blue, but next to a fluorescent bulb you can see what real white light it is. And since it's muffled from above and deflected from below, it's diffuse. There are no shadows. Nothing glows; there is no clear light source. There is just light.

I dislike the cold, I get claustraphobic and frustrated if I'm overdressed, my hands and legs hurt if I'm underdressed (in -35 to -45 Celsius, at any rate), I don't like getting footprints in snow, I don't like the time it takes to get dressed or the snow and water that spreads through the house no matter what you do or the mud that spreads through stores no matter what you do. You cannot kayak in the winter and there are no dragonflies or moths. Walking the dog becomes a much bigger chore than in the summer and shoveling snow emerges as grave and mature as Athena but as needy and tiring as a baby. Winter is not my favourite season--it ties for last with summer--but I must say that despite the recurrent frustrations--frustration so blinding that it's like panic only not rooted in fear--it can like no other season give a sense of underlying peace, joy, and maybe even rapture.

The hymns I associate with spring are ones of hope and renewal. I associate no hymns with summer, actually, but as a season I would characterize it as having a sense of possibility and maybe freedom. Autumn must always be new to me, gemini to spring, because that's when I start school (except this year); were it not for that it would be reaping the fruits of industriousness, winding down, impending rest. The hymns I associate with winter, though, are not properly hymns but rather carols. "Jingle Bells," yes, and, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," but more often the slow ones, so full of circumstance: "We Three Kings," "Silent Night," "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," and "O Come O Come Emmanuel." These songs are full of majesty. Not bursting with majesty, but full like filled wineskins or a well-packed lunchbox. They are soft, quiet, paced. And they are minor key, many of them. I don't know much about music theory, but minor key always strikes me as more monumental, as somehow out of our realm--fey, ominous, portentious, netherworldly, tragic, wild, or ecstatic. These carols are thus majestic, reserved, gentle, wild, full, rapturous, and otherworldy. They are that which is good about winter.

Winter is also dangerous. As a recently-initiated local historian, I am learning about fronteir Alberta in the early 1900s and am discovering just how dangerous winter could be. To us it means broken hips and sliding tires and poor visibility. To others it meant--and means--starvation and hypothermia and crashing planes and isolation and cabin fever and windigo and madness and darkness and other versions of death. If during winter the earth sleeps, than the earth has violent parasomnia. Winter is dark and dangerous and deathly, and that's how it functions as a metaphor in Frye's seasonal genres and in C. S. Lewis' fiction. This cannot be ignored, and as I pause before those hoary hills whenever I glimpse them at work, I also feel as well as I can how the early settlers of Fort McMurray must have felt about those hills--promise and freedom, hardship and death, mundanity and superreality cheek-by-cheek.

Winter is not my favourite season, no. But it is to me by far the most evocative, and I hope I always feel it.

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*Sorry to confuse you, but there are at least three "the hill"s in Fort McMurray, four if you live in or know someone who lives in Abasand Heights.
**Once I have an appropriate one, I will post a photo of Fort McMurray in the winter on here.

Lewis, Samuel, and the Nomenclaturcon

"This is a story about something that happened long ago when your grandfather was a child. It is a very long important story because it shows how all the comings and goings between our own world and the land of Narnia first began.
"In those days, Mr. Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street, and the Bastables were looking for treasure in the Lewisham Road. In those days, if you were a boy you had to wear a stiff Eton collar every day, and schools were usually nastier than now. But meals were nicer; and as for sweets, I won't tell you how cheap and good they were, because it would only make your mouth water in vain. And in those days, there lived in London a girl called Polly Plummer."

So begins The Magician's Nephew, which I have taken out from the Fort McMurray Public Library. In the same trip I returned The Silver Chair. There do not appear to be all of the Narnia books in the library; either that, or they are so popular that not all of them are ever in at the same time. Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Last Battle were also there. I have read Voyage most recently of all of them, and in fact own a copy, so I didn't take it out. I am also waiting to have read all of them before reading The Last Battle, as it is the ultimate work. I want to work through them all, though, before reading any of the critical literature offered in the library: there is are three books, including the atheistical one subtitled "The Skeptic's Guide to Narnia," as well as the somewhat dubious criticism of Planet Narnia. I intend to read them all, though.

Once I have depleted the library's resources on Lewis, I will see what they have for Lloyd Alexander.

Why?

Well, I want to write something marvellous, as you all know, but haven't the guidedness of Jon Wong, nor the--what, insistence?--of Cait's project. This is an issue, obviously. I do not lack ideas so much as I lack ideas which interest me for any period of time. What fascinates me most daunts me most in execution. Also, I lack the time here in Fort McMurray for sustained creative endeavours. I work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, plus an hour and a half to two hours travel time, as well as either cooking supper and washing dishes each night. I am also the primary grocery-shopper for the current household. Once you calculate in eating, sleeping, Bible readings, etc., I have very little time to write, and what time I do have is often lost because someone else is using the computer or I am simply too lethargic or restless after a day's work and evening's supper-prep to try. So even if I am enthused about writing something, I can't get involved in it enough to have a sort of sticking power. It dies in the infant stage.

Of course there are weekends, but I find these don't work well for writing either: I build up so much pressure to write on the weekends, but then don't have time to anyway because I have to wash the dishes from the night before and run errands and do laundry and buy groceries and cook supper, all on one day. Even if I have an hour or two throughout the day during which I could write something, I feel so much stress about having to write something and having to enjoy my day off in prep for a week's worth upcoming that I feel too wretched to get anything done anyway.

So instead of worrying about it, I'm going to read imaginative fiction that I enjoyed in the past but that I don't particularly desire to copy, like the Narnia books or the Taran books. I don't see how I'm going to get out of this trap that I'm in, but I must push on anyway.

Well, it's one of those weekends I spoke of just now. The dishes are mouldering in the kitchen, so I ought to go do them soon. And then I need to buy groceries for supper. I will start cooking supper at 5:00 or so. Say I am back from grocery shopping by 3:00. Provided that Nick doesn't come home, that will give me roughly two hours in which I do have time to write if I can drive myself to do so. Alright. That is a plan, perhaps. But 3:00 might be optimistic, and I know I'll be sore tempted to play a computer game instead of writing.

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I am currently reading from the Old Testament. That is an area I generally feel weak in, so I am giving it a quick run: roughly four chapters a day. I began in Joshua, and am now in 1 Samuel, having gone straight through Judges and Ruth.

One thing that strikes me about it (and my coworker Josh mentioned this as well) is how much of Judges could be made into a movie. Samuel also seems possible so far as well. The number of battles and speeches and political affairs is fascinating. The Bhagavad-Gita (a Hindu sacred text) has been made into Bollywood-style soap operas and is rerun daily in India; illiterate Hindus now have access to one of their texts through this medium, congregated daily in whichever village home has television access to watch their religious-cultural epic. The Old Testament (I man all of it, not just the Veggie Tales and time traveler "highlights") could also be adapted to such a model, it seems to me. Perhaps Biblical literacy would improve if this were done. It would be no adequate replacement for the textual version, of course, but it's something to think about.

I am having trouble in interpretation, though. I struggle to understand what I am supposed to get out of land divisions, for instance. I read them all, but I didn't really feel like I gained much insight. Also, it is difficult to not feel somewhat concerned by the massive genocides the Israelites committed. Wholesale slaughter tends to go against modern ethical norms: I frequently find myself asking (as I have before) how killing everyone in this village could be the will of God. I remind myself that complete understanding is impossible and that I oughtn't worry over it, but it still gnaws at me whenever I read these parts.
Anyway.

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I am going to accession in the boats at the Marine Park after all. I now have myself a nice new (well, OK, used) Nomenclature book, which I often call the Nomeclaturcon or the Gnomenclature book. It feels like one of those magical books in a LeGuin novel, which contains the true name of everything in the world.

In actuality, the book contains the name and category of every object the Nomenclature Committee though a curator was likely to come across. When you accession an item, you must choose a name and category from the book. This makes things consistent across museums, easing loans and allowing new curators to go through their precedent's files without confusion. What you see when you open the book, though, is simple a list of names of objects. Hence the LeGuin reference.

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Well, off to the dishes, I suppose.

Character Groundwork

For Creative Writing:

The idea behind filling this out is not to have information to use in your story (though it’s accessible at a moment’s notice if need be), but so they you understand your character and his/her motivations better and can then create more realistic relationships, decisions, and conversations.
For each of these questions, you can always add “Why?”

Name:
Nickname:
Appearance: (Height, body type, attractiveness)
Self-image:
Mode of transportation: (If car, what model? How well kept? How often repaired? How financed?)
Neat or sloppy? Neat at work, sloppy at home? Neat kitchen, sloppy bedroom?
Clothing: (variation between occasions? How afforded? Where bought? What style? How often change clothes, launder?)
How long does it take for them to get ready in the morning? Why?
Family history: parents names, occupations, origins, ages? Grandparents? How conscious is the character of all of this?
Friends: names, occupations, origins, ages? How did they become friends? What do they do together? How do they relate? (Even for friends who never appear in story.)
Significant other(s): see above. What sorts of people do they date? How do they understand their relationships?
Home town: still living there? How often moved?
Religion: In which religion was character raised? Still practice the same one? How seriously do they take it? How public are they about it? How serious is their home environment about it? Which church/temple/mosque/synagogue do they attend (and how often)?
Job: Is it a job or career? How dedicated? How much do they like it? How long do they plan on staying in this job stream? How much have they thought about it?
Living arrangements: Apartment, house, duplex, townhouse, trailer, commune, homeless, residence? Rent or own? How financed? With whom do they live?
Politics: political leanings? Are they partisan? What are their hot-button issues? How involved are they? How informed? How vocal?
Hobbies and Talents: is there any overlap? (ie. are they good at their hobbies?)
Pets: how many? How often? As kids? Which kind? How do they treat them? How important are their pets to them?
Philosophy of life: do they follow any movements? Any role models? Any catch-phrases or sayings? How good are they at ‘living’ their philosophies? Optimistic, pessimistic, middle-road?
Music: genres and artists? How often do they listen to music? When and for what reason? How seriously do they take music? Buy, download? Can they play?
Books, movies, art: answer same questions as for music, especially if they are important to character
Eating: well? What cuisine? Cook, order, eat out? Favourite snack when happy? Favourite snack when depressed? Least favourite vegetable? Favourite junk food? Binge or starve? What do they drink? How often? Do they eat differently in company than when alone? Food restrictions (ie. religious reasons, philosophical reasons, allergies)?
Reactions: to being surprised? To being insulted? To being disadvantaged? To being attacked? To being disgusted? To failing? To succeeding? To making a mistake? To being afraid? To being complimented? To being criticized? To be overworked? To being seduced? To being rejected? To martyring themselves? To being martyred for? To attention? To being ignored? To being wrong? To being right?
Flaws: what flaws do they know they have? What flaws do they not know they have? What traits do other people think are flaws but actually aren’t?
Habits: good and bad. What do they do without knowing it? Chew nails? Say ‘um’? Look away when they lie? Snort when they laugh? Wrap their fingers on the table? Counting things they see? Reading anything they see? Scratching? Biting their lips? Forgetting names? Saying people’s names too often when talking to them?
Fears: what are they afraid of (corporeal and abstract)? How do they deal with these fears?

Personality Test

At Navs tonight I took a personality test. Usually I see a personality test and think, "I put in information; it gives a label; I look at what the label means and discover it means that I put in this information. Sum information gain=0." What surprised me was most tonight was that the answer surprised me.

The quiz concerned how we most frequently/effectively connect with God. I was expected "Comtemplative" or "Intellectual" to be up there. I didn't actually know what the labels were until I finished the quiz--Dan had us not look at the tally sheet, and wouldn't even give us the label key until we were done--but I had a fairly good idea that at least one of them would be on there when I was answering the questions. But get this: they were both among my lowest categories. No, what I scored highest in were "Serving" and "Creation." This means I feel most attached to God when I am serving others and when I am creating something or admiring Creation. The last one I could have guessed; the second I should have guessed, but hadn't.

It made sense, though. I read the description for Serving and everything it said was true. Now, I'm fully aware of the Horoscope Illusion: each prediction or description is tailored to apply almost universally, and yet appear too specific for that to be true. I suspect personality tests do the same; at least, very few categories in personality tests appear totally unrelated to me. So I read the other categories, and, lo and behold... they didn't describe me. I could not 'resonate' with them (I don't like using that word, but I can't come up with a suitable alternative at the moment). I don't worship with people so well; I mean, I like being in a crowd of people who are utterly invested in worship, as in Praise and Power here at school, but interaction with people hasn't ever struck me as particularly holy. I suppose it can be, but I haven't felt the energy, though. Unless, of course, I'm serving...

It said of me, "You feel uncomfortable if you don't have a role to play." That's true. I've known it to be true, as well; I have to contribute somehow. I get antsy if I don't. It also warned that I have to recall that serving is an act of worship. True, that. Once I get started I serve easily, but somehow I forget sometimes.

Now, why was I surprised? I've been aware lately of how much I get from helping people. If you ever want me to do something, appeal to my altruism. Don't try to make something sound good for me; that never works. Make it sound like the right thing to do, and I'm yours. The thing is, I'm terribly concerned I'm not serving enough. Do you know how many opportunities to serve I see, and how comparatively few I take? The gap is huge. I am so far from being a servant of God that it's overwhelming.

And yet I realize, as I look around me, that I am serving more than your average Joe is. I volunteer two hours at Run&Read (3 hours in walking there and back); I have an English buddy, a first year student I'm helping learn the ropes of the English department; I edit people's papers pretty much pro bono; I hold open every door I can, and offer to carry things for people whenever I remember to; I give pretty near all of my pocket change to beggars when I walk down Princess Street; I give to almost every charity that asks, buying from bakesales when I'm not hungry or giving whatever's in my pocket to the deaf-mute people who come door to door. (And I wonder why I'm short on money?) This isn't even the complete litany, either. I'm not including my work facilitating Navs or the one-off volunteering I do through them sometimes, or my work on colloquium (though CV-padding is part of my motive on that one, let's be honest).

This isn't to make myself look better. This is to illustrate that, yes, maybe I do have derive worship from volunteering and didn't notice. It also illustrates what I need to be doing more often; I have to find somewhere to volunteer over the summers. I really do. It's soothing to me.

Related to the distance between what I'm doing and where I want to be: it seems to me that each time you advance along a certain path towards building the character you want to be, you find that your ultimate goal is further off than you had wanted. Say you're an average person, so far as politeness goes. Say you want to be more polite than you are. So you do those obvious things: you say "please" and "thank-you" when you ought and you try to be more diplomatic. But as you start to do these things, you see more gestures you could perform that you hadn't thought of. Once you've completed this, you see more manners you ought to keep; these manners, however, are a little harder to do. Maybe holding that door open isn't convenient right now, as you're late for class, but good manners indicates you ought to nonetheless. Maybe you forgot you had that assignment and you could really use the evening to work on it so it wouldn't be all crammed into your weeked, but you said you'd go to your friend's poetry reading. Sure, everyone else is going, so she doesn't need your support in particular--but you did say you'd go. Each time you become more polite, you realize how woefully far you are from being truly, perfectly polite. Each step you take, the longer you see the journey is. That is maybe why I see that I am not serving very much at all, while others think I am serving a lot. I am further down the road, and from this vantage I have a better sense of how little of the path I've traveled.

The "creation" part I wasn't surprised about. I already knew that making things is a passion of mine--absurdly so; I make maps in computer game editors even if I doubt anyone will ever play them--and I've dabbled in devotional poetry. You can dig in my archives to find some not-very-skilled results. I swear I'm better now. I ought to do more of that. The flip side is that I also enjoy veiwing creation, and this too is true. I love learning about the technical aspects of art. How does one animate (my brother fills me in on that)? How does one practice photography? What are the theoretical implications of sculpture? What defines musical genres? How does one act, or design a set? Also, how can one harness these to worship God, process the Revelation, spread the Gospel? Also, being outside, walking in the world--natural is prefered, but urban will suffice in a pinch--is a deeply calming and meditative process for me. I process through walking. Walking is key. Also, animals of all stipes (and spots and bumps and phosphorescent wrinkles) focus me. This isn't artistic creation of course, so much as capital-c Creation. I don't know how much these two elements should be connected; it seems like a play on words more than a logical connection, metaphor over metonymy. But look at the Romantics, look at Aristotle, look at Indigenous peoples, look at Taoist paintings. They fuse art and nature all the time. It seems one cannot exist without the other, for them. Creation and creation; both things I love.

Perhaps I'll post the quiz on here tomorrow, when I shouldn't be getting ready for bed. Perhaps you'd like to take it, if you're at all interested in learning how you connect with God.

Enough

How good are you?


Ask yourself this question. How much are you worth? How valuable are you? You might want to ask me to specify in what realm I mean, but let's forget that. Just answer generally. How good are you?


I was talking a bit to my mother about a book by Mary Jo Leddy called Radical Gratitude; particularly, I was drawing from a particular passage that I find important but have a very hard time applying sometimes. My mother was particularly intrigued by the concepts involved, and by the little additions I added, and has apparently been spreading it to other people--though I'm not sure how they've received it.


Interestingly, these ideas dovetailed with a theme my church's minister presented in the sermon last Sunday. He articulated them in interesting ways, and I think I want to discuss what these ideas are and what implications I have here...

Leddy's book seeks to reform our private and public lives through advocating that we be radically grateful. This sounds simplistic, but if followed the way she encourages, the results are far-reaching. What interests me is this passage:

"We get the message that it [the products we own, the money we have, etc.] is never enough. But it doesn't stop there. It stays with us even when the shopping seems done for a while.
"Slowly but surely this message transmutes and transforms us at other levels of our being:

"I don't have enough
"becomes I am not enough
"becomes I am not good enough

"To say 'I am not enough' is to acknowledge a generalized sense of powerlessness. It is all those feelings that gnaw away at the hopes we have treasured: I can't do much about it. It won't make any difference if I try. It's just impossible. Why should I care anyway? That's the way things are. He'll never change, he's always been like that. She'll never make it. We'll never make it. They're losers. We're losers. You can't on the whole system. Don't waste your time.
"To say 'I am not good enough' is to admit a vague feeling of guilt. It is those feelings that claw us from the inside out: Who am I to say? I've never suffered that way. I should have done more. I could have done more. I shouldn't have said that. I don't have the right to tell anyone what to do. We have to clean up our own act first. It must be my fault. It must be America's fault. It's up to us."

She goes on in this vein, and this is connected intimately with the consumer culture of which we are a part. Note that, while she writes in an American context--hence her blaming America--I think it still applies in a Canadian one. Among her solutions to the problems of our society is this passage:

"... one has already been given the most fundamental necessity, the gift of life. When we stop taking this first gift for granted then we can begin to experience the radical liberation of gratitude.
"--Rather than wasting away from a fundamental sense of dissatisfaction with oneself, a person can begin to realize that the life he or she has been given is enough to begin with, enough to go on.
"--Instead of being comsumed with a sense that we should always be more--more caring, more successful, more loving, more talented--we can be sustained by the awareness that the gift of life is enough.
"--As we set some limits on the spirit of craving and dissatisfaction which holds us captive there is an almost simultaneous liberation of a new sense of power.
"--To say I am enough is to say that, just as I am, with all my strengths and weaknesses, I can make a difference. This is teh beginning of a new sense of power.
"--This is also to say I am good enough, which is the beginning of liberation from the vague guilt that paralyzes us in the culture of dissatisfaction.
"--This awareness begins to transform us at other levels of our lives and we can begin to say I have enough with a happy and free spirit."

I like to rephrase it this way: You were made by God, as you are at this very moment. This makes you infinitely worthy, as you are right now. Of course you have room to improve. Of course there are numerous ways in which you do not live up to the models of good people. And this is relevant; you should strive to be better in all those things that are worth perfecting. Yet this does not mean that you are not enough as you are now. You are still a creation of God, and you should value yourself accordingly.

In the sermon the other day (almost a full week at this point in writing), the pastor drew on a passage in Phillipians 1, where Paul calls the body of Christians "saints." In being a sibling in Christ, we have all achieved sainthood. Granted, we may be fallen and miserable saints, but we are saints nonetheless. That is to say, we have the potential to work wonders in the name of God.

Consider this as you live your life. Everyone around you is a creation of God: treat them accordingly. You are capable, right now, of doing anything of value. Act accordingly. The path does not require that you begin ready to face the end; the path is there to make you ready. So get started.

This sounds awfully preachy, and I certainly don't live up to these standards. But I am beginning to try. I am becoming comfortable with the incredible power that rests in me, as it rests in all of us. I must now determine what it is that I am meant to do with it.

Perhaps we ought to begin, all of us, right where Jo Leddy starts us. We begin in gratitude. We must be grateful for that one thing most of us overlook. We must be grateful for ourselves, for who we are right now. There may be many things--many, many things--that we do not like about ourselves, but if we try, we may begin to see those things that are good, those potentials we do have. If we are grateful for those, then that is perhaps the point at which all the rest becomes easy.

Or not. To paraphrase Dumbledore, the easy path is not always the right one, and some day we will be asked to choose. Let us all hope that we choose the right one.

God bless,

English Clergyman

Journal #5: Retro-writing Origins in Light of Shklovsky

The Lives of Amphibians and Chimæras

Journal #5

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Retro-Writing Origins in Light of Shklovsky

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[Comment: Plot spoilers of Wicked, the Star Wars prequel trilogy, and Casino Royale follow.]

Some characters have reached legendary--perhaps even conventional--status in the modern public consciousness: Darth Vader, Superman, Batman, the Wicked Witch of the West, James Bond. There are others that are perhaps older and more lasting, such as Robin Hood, Frankenstein, Dracula, and their kin. However, I select these five for very specific reasons: within the last half-decade, movies or books have been released that detail the origins of these iconic figures. George Lucas released the prequel trilogy to Star Wars to explain the origin of Darth Vader and to remind people that Darth Vader is a tragic villian and not a stand-in for Evil. Batman Begins details the development of the Dark Knight to rejuvenate (and thus rewrite) the franchise. Wicked, by Gregory MacGuire, chronicles the life of the Wicked Witch of the West--from different points of view. Casino Royale introduces a new Bond actor and simultaneously introduces a new Bond, this one with a history. I have not seen the new Superman, but I suspect it's similar.

To me, the real treasure of these is not just the new perspective gained, though this is certainly an important part. The best part is to see the iconic elements that make up these characters slowly emerge. The end of The Attack of the Clones gives us the loss of Anakin's hand and the beginnings of his cyborg identity, which culminates in his finally donning the mask at the end. Vader's transformation is rushed, but in Wicked the elements slowly drop into place--first the crystal ball, then the slippers, then the hat and broom, then the castle, then the monkeys. Similarly, Casino Royale only gradually introduces these elements: the 007 status, the Aston Martin, the tuxedo, the martini, the distrust of everyone, the famous introduction, and the theme music.

This only works, of course, because the audience already recognizes these iconic elements and anticipates their arrival. As in Aristotle's tragedy, the audience knows how it's going to end; the enjoyment comes from seeing the process. The re- or retro-writing of origins alters our understanding of the character and thus surprises us. But it also works in an opposite way; the gradual introduction of the props and characteristics we recognize is a re-assertion of the familiar; at first, we are slightly uncomfortable with the knowledge that the character before us is so different than the character we know him (or her in the case of the Witch) to be. Thus I was slightly uncomfortable with Casino Royale because the look and feel of the film is so entirely different: Bond was sentimental, committed to Vesper, and not a super-spy at all. In the last scene, though, all of the required elements return--the suit, the callousness, the introduction, and the them music--to satisfy me that, yes, this is a Bond movie. Thus while Shklovsky[1] is correct that art defamiliarizes, it also satisfies when it confirms, and it is most effective when it combines these two techniques.

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1] This does seem like name-dropping, I know. Shklovsky is a thinker we frequently discussed in class, so I felt it was fine in this assignment to drop him in without preamble. Shklovsky was of the Russian formalist school of literary criticism, and he suggests that literature defamiliarizes the reader; by presenting the reader with a new and shocking perspective on a familiar object or institution, Shklovsky argues that literature changes our understanding of the world and "pricks" our consciences.

Excerpt from Stephen King's "Song of Susannah"

It's probably somewhere between illegal and immoral for me to post this, but if someone has a problem with it that can message me and I'll remove it.

Anyway, I don't think this'll spoil the plot for anyone. It's a partial explanation of the history/mythology King created for The Dark Tower series (and by association all of his work, it seems to me), by a character named Mia to another named Susannah. However, if you do wish to not read it in fear of spoiling the book, I understand. I've paraphrased in some places to focus specifically on what I want to examine.

"How many Beams do there be, Susannah of New York?"
"Six," Susannah said. ...
"Six, aye. And when the Beams were created out of that greater Discordia, the soup of creation some (including the Manni) call the Over and some call the Prim, what made them?"
"I don't know," Susannah said. "Was it God, do you think?"
"Perhaps there is a God, but the Beams rose from the Prim on the airs of magic, Susannah, the true magic that which passed long ago. Was it God that made magic, or was it magic that made God? I know not. ... But once upon a time all was Discordia and from it, strong and all crossing at a single unifying point, came the six beams. There was magic to hold them steady for eternity, but when the magic left from all there is but the Dark Tower, which some have called Can Calyx, the Hall of Resumption, men have despaired. When the Age of Magic passed, the Age of Machines came."
"North Central Positronics," Susannah murmured. "Dipolar computers. Slow-trans engines." She paused. "Blaine the Mono. But not in our world."
"No? Do you say your world is except? What about the sign in the hotel lobby?"...
...When she'd said Not in our world, of course she had been thinking of 1964--the world of black-and-white television, absurdly bulky room-sized computers, and Alabama cops more than willing to sic the dogs on black marchers for voting rights. Things had changed greatly in the intervening thrity-five years.The Eurasian desk clerk's combination TV and typewriter, for instance--how did Susannah know that wasn't a dipolar computer run by some form of slow-trans engine? She did not.
"Go on," she told Mia.
Mia shrugged. "You doom yourselves, Susannah. You seem positively bent on it, and the root is always the same: your faith fails you, and you replace it with rational thought. But there is no love in thought, nothing that lasts in deduction. only death in rationalism."
...
"The magic went away. Maerlyn retired to his cave in one world, the sword of Eld gave way to the pistols of the gunslinger in another, and the magic went away. And across the arc of years, great alchemists, great scientists, and great--what?--technicians, I think? Great men of thought, anyway, that's what I mean, great men of deduction--these came together and created the machines which ran the Beams. They were great machines but they were mortal machines. They replaced magic with machines, do ya kennit, and now the machines are failing. In some worlds, great plagues have decimated whole populations."
...
"The Crimson King's Breakers are only hurrying along a process that's already in train. The machines are going mad. You've seen this for yourself. The men believed there would always be more men like them to make more machines. None of them foresaw what's happened. This...this universal exhaustion."
"The world has moved on."
"Aye, lady. It has. And left no one to replace the machines which hold up the last magic in creation, for the Prim has receded long since. The magic is gone and the machines are failing. Soon enough the Dark Tower will fall. Perhaps there will be time for one splendid moment of universal rational thought before darkness rules forever. Wouldn't that be nice?"

I want to draw attention to the notion of rational materialism, etc., in this piece. Think about how it's represented: temporary, flawed, inferior--a poor replacement for magic. Further, what are the reprecussions of this replacement?

Creationism v. Evolution: Why I Don't Care (A Rant)

Perhaps it is about time that I make my views on this clear. There may be a few of you who are reading this not because you know me but because you've found your way through external sources likely don't care all that much, but then I don't suppose that you actually exist at the point of writing this. If you do exist, I'm pleased indeed and ask that you show this to all of your friends, if you think it's worth it.

Those of you who do know me have occassionally asked or wondered aloud about this, but I doubt I've given a straight or complete answer. One of my housemates asked the other day, and I gave something similar to the following answer. Having discussed it aloud with them, I figure I can broadcast it to the world, provided the world listens. (I know; there's a gap in the chain of reasoning. Watch me not care.)

I have posted a link, called "A Rather Upsetting Turn of Events," or something like that, under my Interesting Links section. This will take you to a newspaper article concerning the Rally of Reason, a protest against the Creation Museum in Cinncinnatti (did I spell that correctly)? That museum has exhibits of the Garden of Eden, with naked human children frolicking with dinosaurs, a model of Noah's ark and an explanation of how the Grand Canyon was formed by the Deluge, and other literal interpretations of Genesis. The Rally of Reason consisted of scientists and Christians who disputed the literal interpretation of Genesis protesting in front of the museum on the grounds that it a) would corrupt the minds of their youth and b) gave Christians a bad name as silly and ill-informed.

I should note that I have been unable to find evidence for this, but if I recall correctly, a little while earlier an Evolution History Museum was protested by a group of Christian activists.

My immediate response to this was that the Creation Museum was being silly and giving Christians a bad name, and that the protesters were being silly and giving non-Christians and liberal Christians a bad name. Overall, I think that protesting about someone else's freedom of expression is both idiotic and ironic.

Upon examining that response, I've come to understand that maybe the Creationists have a point and aren't completely ridiculous, and that the 'Reasoners' should be worried about the spread of misinformation, provided that Creationism is misinformation.

It is in the wake of this event that I more firmly articulated, to myself, my opinion of the Creationism v. Evolution Theory debate. That opinion is that both are true and that which is 'truer' is utterly and completely irrelevant. To claim that you know which is true and which is false is gross arrogance, and we all know where pride takes us.

Here's my reasoning:

To all of our knowledge, the scientific explanation is usually quite good at predicting phenomena in the physical and natural universe. Science is a really good heuristic device, and, used as such, we can talk about a theory being 'true.' By true, I mean that it accurately models what will happen in the future, so far as the physical world is concerned. Evolution theory helps us understand the on-going changes in organisms; we can hardly deny that evolution is at work today. Looking at the fossil record improves our understanding of the process, and therefore is useful and 'true' within the scientific heuristic. At this point I am not claiming that it is historically true (ie. that it actually happened in the past) that all life evolved from micro-organisms. I'm just saying that it is useful to discuss evolution as true when we make predictions.

To all of my knowledge, ethics, morality, and spirituality do not exist in a void, but within a context. For Christians, part of this context is the Old Testament. The Genesis myths (note that I do not mean myths in derisory sense, but in the sense that they are actually meant--if you don't know what that sense is, go look it up) explain spiritual and social realities to us: that we are fallen, true goodness is inaccessible without God, that God punished sinners and rewards believers, etc. It is obviously a more complicated picture than that; I'm just giving examples. In this sense, the Creation account(s) are true. Here 'true' means 'has meaning that is relevant in reality.' At this point I am not claiming that it is historically true (ie. that it actually happened in the past) that all life forms were created as they are now in the Garden of Eden some 6000 years ago. I'm just saying that it is useful to discuss Creation as true when we make moral decisions.

To all of my knowledge, we will never know which is historically true. Of course, we will never 'know' in the same sense that God is forgiving, just, omniscient, or even extant. So, you may say, if you are willing to take one on faith, why not take the other?

For a while there, I had believed that both were historically true; Genesis explained the whys and the whos and evolution explained the whens and the hows. This, I think, is a fairly moderate and fairly common stance among the average non-vocal Christian. Vocal Christians tend to lean toward a strict Genesis account. Non-religious people, of course, more than lean toward the evolutionary account. I thought this was a perfectly reasonable synthesis, a perfectly pious synthesis, and a perfect safe one, too.

Then I realized that even this had some holes. While I was inclined to say that forcing a literal interpretation on the Bible was limiting God, a lot of the old poets (read Donne) point out that not allowing for a literal interpretation was what really limited God: must God bow to science? Here, of course, we enter the delicate dance of spinning the truth and arguing both sides and other forms of sophistry. The notion of the best rhetorician taking the prize of Truth disturbs me, so I refuse to participate. They could be right; I could be right; who's to judge? That is, how am I to know, in this world and not the next, which is true? Looking at the Bible doesn't seem to help here, since what I'm concerned about is the proper interpretation of the Bible. It would be working in circles to try and get that information from the very thing I'm trying to learn to read. I needed another way.

What eventually occured to me was that historical truth was irrelevent. I would never be able to know what is Truth in this case. I do know, however, everything I need to know to work with. If I want a prediction in physical phenomena, I'll turn to the heuristic of science. If I want spiritual and moral lessons, Genesis (and the rest of the Bible) will contain those answers, as will fervent prayer. I really don't need anything more. If I tried to assert one account or another, one interpretation or another, it would be akin to asserting some detail about God that God himself hasn't revealed (ie. whether He speaks in metaphors or literal truths). It is when you make an assertion at all that you are limiting God and robbing Him of His mystery. This, of course, is pride. I would like to avoid pride.

So this is where I sit: both creationism and evolution theory are useful, and therefore 'true'; anything else is irrelevant to my life and I actively refuse to care or commit. In doing so, I become that much more comfortable with the mysterious nature of God and surrendering everything, even my curiosty, before Him.

After this realization, I really began to understand why I felt that both the Creation Museum and the Rally for Reason were silly and destructive. They made assertions they had no right to make. If everyone had this feeling of pious apathy, there would possibly be less conflict and more harmony, and really, is that not one of Christ's primary lessons--peace?

I suggest that you seriously think about this. Come to your own conclusions--don't let my rhetoric persuade you of an untruth.

After all, I have no right to assert even this lack of commitment as right.