Coming to terms: Blog-reality vs Life-reality

Yes, I know it's been a while. Don't worry; I have excuses. Mostly the timing of events in the month of April left me off-balance as far as putting up blog posts. Then things happened: bad things, awful things, and I was numb and unable to find the words to express anything, either about the horrors happening or even about ordinary mundane episodes of amusement which are my usual stock in trade.

I was forced to think in a deeply profound manner. What is the point of a blog? Many of my colleagues have answered that question already. But aside from a little personal pleasure ("thoughts on waking up too late"), self-promotion ("check out my latest book"), sharing writing tips ("I really have nothing new to offer"), or celebrating holidays ("here's my annual Thanksgiving post"), why take the time to dabble when there is so much going on that is decidedly undabble-worthy?

Let's face it: There are a lot more important things happening in the world today, the past week, this entire month - but if you're a writer, all that matters is the story in front of you. (The story in front of me often serves as an escape from the reality of the world I hear about on social media and television.) All this is meant to say is that not even writers can solve all the problems in the world. Long gone are the days when we could right wrongs with a well-turned phrase. Where are those word warriors who fight with sonnets instead of swords?

I'm working on an epic fantasy, as everyone and their grandparents know, yet I fell into a funk - writer's block, if you will - because of everything going on in the world: death and destruction, terrorism and earthquakes, storms and murders, crashes and floods, lots and lots of inane arguing, lying, shouting, cursing, and more or less deception by just about anyone who makes it onto the national or world stage. Plus deaths of people who were minding their own business in the music business.

It's always sad when a celebrity dies, regardless of the reason. As a public figure, we all tend to feel we know that person. We have close loved ones who die, of course, but we share that person with fewer mourners. Every day it seems another actor or musician passes on, and we are surprised because we've grown accustomed to their immortality. Theirs seems to be real while our own we understand is finite. So we pay tributes, listen to their songs, watch their movies, remember the good times we were having while they somehow were invited into those moments with us through the music or the shows. This week I've heard several people say this or that musician provided the soundtrack to his or her life. 

The phenomena remains. Time stops, the past flashing through us, like memories we wonder if we really ever had or if we are creating anew just for this moment, just so we can join in with others in mourning, in remembering, in sharing a feeling of joy at having known that person. And a feeling of sorrow at that person's passing. What once was an endless stadium of space suddenly collapses into a closet-sized reality: if this person, so celebrated, who had everything, can pass so easily, so suddenly, who am I in the greater scheme of the universe? And in that flicker of recognition, we are born again. And we go on.

An anecdote: I had been in the National Guard for about a year when a new guy arrived. On one weekend drill, I happened to see a small flyer advertising a concert which he had sitting at his station. I picked up the flyer to look at it closer. On the flyer was a striking face of the musician performing at the concert, smug expression under a wild mop of hair. The name on the flyer said Prince. I said to my colleague, both of us in our fatigue uniforms, waiting for the final formation late on a Saturday afternoon, "Who would name their kid 'Prince'?" He shrugged and said he was going to the concert that night. This must have been in Fall 1980. Kansas City. A few years later I went on a first-date which began with the movie Purple Rain. I finally put two and two together. 



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(C) Copyright 2010-2016 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

A Love Letter to the Dreamers

Dear Reader of this blog,

I've missed you. How have you been? Enjoying your summer? Or has your schedule remained the same, hashing through the daily slog of a job that does not quite suit your mental verve or skill set? I've been there, done that. My guess is that you get by through a combination of avocational misadventures and a certain portion of dreaming, both day and night. I sure hope you've been having good dreams.

It's interesting (sometimes) to contemplate dreaming. Of course, that's very much the theme of my major work, but I've sworn to myself not to promote my science-fiction trilogy today. (What's it called? Can't remember. See? No promotion today.) But seriously, as you go about your weekly routine, do you ever think about a dream you've had? I mean the nightly dream; ever wonder what it meant or is supposed to mean?--if you believe in that sort of thing. I tend to have a lot of dreams in which I am traveling, usually lost in a strange city, or alternately finding my way around a large unfamiliar house, checking every nook and cranny, peeking in cabinets. But that's just me.

And there's the other kind of dream, the kind they write songs about: Don't give up on your dream, la la la!  Well, I'm pushing 39 again (lost count how many times that's happened) and I still haven't decided what my dream is. Yes, that kind of dream: what you want to do with your life, what goals you want to achieve, what you want to be known for after you are gone. I think back to the dead music composers, authors and poets, painters, even the generals, statesmen, famous women, and the unnamed teachers who gave a simple idea to an unremarkable youth who grew up to bend the world to his/her will--those people--and I wonder what their dreams were. I suppose that because we remember them today, for better or worse, they managed to achieve their dreams.

You know, it seems the question I am asked most (that is, after "What, you're still here?") is what I really mean by the "dream land"--whether socio-scientific concept or mere writing gimmick. I recently had an experience which provides fodder for explanation: I traveled for a week. Nothing special about hitting the road and just going somewhere to see what's there. However, upon returning home, everything is the same. After a deep sleep, I awakened and the thing that occupied my attention for the past week now seems like only a dream I had. The only way to prove I ever went on a trip are the souvenirs I purchased ("souvenir" means 'something by which to remember') and the photographs I took. Nothing more. (Sure, U.S. Customs probably has an electronic record of my passage, if you want to check.)

So...if I were a character in a novel and I had various adventures, say, on another world, and then I returned home, it all might seem like a dream when I awoke from a good sleep. A little confusing, certainly. But that's the concept behind the feeling of remembering something that may or may not have happened in reality, or seemed just as real as reality in a dream, that is remembered as a real event even though it was only a random biochemical surge between 3:17 and 3:21 in the morning while you were quite unconscious yet dreaming of a greater purpose to your life than what you are doing these days for which you need all that precious sleep.

It's probably deep into the week by now, so I wish you well, and hope that whatever you do in the time remaining before the weekend, you do with honor and purposefulness. Someone will remember what you did, and that someone may very well be you. Or your dream-self.

Yours always,
Stephen

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(C) Copyright 2010-2013 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.