Intersections, Part 0: The Introduction

"Novelists when they write novels tend to take an almost godlike attitude toward their subject, pretending to a total comprehension of the story, a man's life, which they can therefore recount as God Himself might, nothing standing between them and the naked truth, the entire story meaningful in every detail. I am as little able to do this as the novelist is, even though my story is more important to me than any novelist's is to him - for this is my story; it is the story of a man, not of an invented, or possible, or idealized, or otherwise absent figure, but of a unique being of flesh and blood . . . If we were not something more than unique human beings, if each one of us could really be done away with once and for all by a single bullet, storytelling would lose all purpose. But every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect, only once in this way and never again. That is why every man's story is important, eternal, sacred; that is why every man, as long as he lives and fulfills the will of nature, is wondrous, and worthy of every consideration. In each individual the spirit has become flesh, in each man the creation suffers, within each one a redeemer is nailed to the cross." -Herman Hesse, Damien

The above quote, provided by Sugarmama on a recounting of her time spend in Montana, resonated with me quite deeply. I first read it a month or two ago, when she first made a list of her favorite posts.

As a writer, we are indeed all gods of our own works. We have complete domain over the characters, what they say and what they do. As it happens, I don't control my characters as much as they control the story. Meaning that I simply make the characters, define the relationships, and they work the rest out themselves. Of course, the characters are created as such that there is really only one course of action for them to take at most times. While I rarely know how a novel is going to end until I'm halfway through or so, by the time I'm done I cannot imagine it having ended any other way. But while I don't exert much control over my characters, I at least have the ability to define the narrative. I can tell the story, which is merely the product of the characters and their growth (or failure to do so), in such a way as to outline the morals of the story. One even leads to another, which leads to another, and so on, but I can explain how these interactions take place, why what happens happens, and what doesn't does not.

So while I'm not omnipotent, I am somewhat omniscient.

I have historically been lucky, in a way, that my life has worked in such a way that I draw lessons from my failures, take notes of my successes, and can generally supply a narrative of where I've been, what I've done, and the ways that I have been affected by it all. My life has been a series of seemingly coincidental meetings and sprouting philosophy and emotion that, for the most part, I've been able to make remarkable sense of it all.

When I was a kid, I adored this girl named Sarah. I called her Sarah Goddess, which to me she was. Of course, the real Sarah Beth could never match the ideal Sarah Goddess that I had created. So while I admired her flesh and mind, what I really adored was merely a figment of my imagination. At the next intersection down the road, I met Arte, who was actually someone I could deal with, but in typical sixteen year old fashion was more in my mind than she was in real life. Then came Ora, who was all too human and, I'd say, the first girl that I ever loved for who she was, not who I imagined she could be.

This trend continued as each step I took seemed an immediately improvement on the last. Even when they ended in disaster, there was nonetheless a lesson hidden in the shards and debris left behind. Like a random object you can pick up in a video game, it was certain to be of use later. Each adventure built upon the last. That's not to say that each was better than the last, but there was a strong sense of continuity where they each seemed to pick up where the last left off. Even when I knew I wasn't with "the one" I still new that this was still a step on the way there.

At some point, the lessons started becoming muddled and contradictory. When the next intersection came, I just I kept driving. So many pitfalls, so many potential mistakes. Everything I did was second-guessed right along side of everything I didn't do but wondered if I should have. My breaks didn't seem to work and I didn't have the courage for a wide turn. And all I could do was keep driving. For about a year and a half, that's really all I did.

That's not to say that I stayed my path. There were some turns along the way, but always dirt roads leading to nowhere. One of them was Lisa, who reminded me that there are consequences even when taking a short detour. I had become embroiled in the very thing I was pressing -- smashing -- my accelerator to avoid. And I grew tired and weary. I realized that something needed to change as I didn't even know where the road I was on was headed. Maybe I needed to stop and ask for directions or I just needed to pull over on the side of a desolate stretch of road and rest. Whatever the case, I needed something.

That was when I posted My Little Identity Crisis Melodrama. It was a few odd turns that got me to do that, as I'd never really used a blog for an unloading of deeply personal things. I'd taken a short hiatus and wasn't sure what to tell everyone, so I left a bit of an ominous message. That lead people to worry and so I decided when I'd go back I'd explain what was going on. Unfortunately, when I tried, I couldn't get the words out. So I applied a narrative to it, put it in the form of a conversation with Lisa, a conversation with my deceased friend Keith, and an abrupt ending. It was abrupt because while I was able to provide a narrative for preceeding events, the characters stopped moving when I stopped writing. In other words, while I knew how I got there, I still didn't know what to do next.

When I finally couldn't deny that anymore, I wrote Me, Myself, & I. I was hoping maybe if I use different characters, version of myself from various points in my life, I might be able to figure out where I should go next. Unfortunately, part way through I was terminated from my job and everything got put on hold. All of the questions suddenly became so big, so overwhelming, I didn't know what to do. I couldn't even begin to try to figure everything out. I didn't even know where to start. Whatever problems I was having in my personal life paled compared to finding work. But job hunting is 4/5 waiting, so what could I do?

Then my ex-girlfriend almost got us kicked out of Starbucks, and suddenly everything made sense...