It's been a while, but...

I felt like posting this. probably because I really like procrastinating important Finals stuff. Read it if you will! Words aren’t the point of writing; tellng a story is. If one tries to make literary devices, philosophies, didactic criticisms, and all the like the point of a story, the story will disappear and so will the value of the piece. But if one tells a story, a true story, all these things shall be added onto the story, and will make something so powerful, so deep and potent, that you will know that Truth has come into the story. Ignore the fact that this entire little blob is a didactic writing philosophy, that attempts to be literarily toothsome and witty.

Le ramble of le feelings and new beginnings

Ah, so the school year is over.... Huzzah!! For some reason that makes me feel like blogging. I have yet to post my mostly-written blog about the linguistics conferene, but I'd still rather just post a random blog about life. It's hard for me to talk about feelings. There is such a chaotic conglomeration of colors and sounds that make up my feelings most the time that to describe them is a hopeless waste of time.. I'm sure you (le reader) understand. we are, after all, human :P Which makes me wonder. If we humans are made in God's image, doesn't that mean that God may oftentimes feel conflicts in his emotions too? I don't know. I'm no theologian, though there seems to be some evidence for this in Isaiah, and Hosea, and other books. Which this just makes me love God even more. I think it's funny how sometimes we attribute God with the emotional range of a teaspoon (thank you Hermione), when he's the one that emotion and feeling came from. God changes his mind too. But anywho. Back to my first idea. It feels like right now is a new beginning. School is over and I'm super excited to start working, writing again (that's a WHOLE 'nother story, no pun intended), reading, and spending time with my family and friends.. Things are changing so quickly, and sometimes it seems as if I am a bystander on the bank of a mountain river, swollen to bursting with the melting frost coming down the mountains. But this is entirely untrue. Perhaps the real truth of the matter is that I am a person flowing down the river, with the trees and the rocks and the snow and ice melting so quickly, draining into the river, creating a new torrent that will flow somewhere new. I know, I know, I'm using all these metaphors... I've met a few people who think metaphors and similes are rather silly-- after all, why not just go to the heart of things, to the bones of what you are trying to say? Well, It may be just me, but I think better in pictures. There is so much more depth to describing a raging mountain stream, ice-cold and flowing down to give new life (however distant, down to the valley floor it may be), than just saying "I've got a feeling new things are coming. Yup. It'll be crazy, crazy good, and crazy bad." Which is an entirely good way of talking... But it does leave something to be visually desired. But! In honor of straight-talk, I will end with this. I need to go finish the dishes, finish my college applications, and I'm feeling very apprehensive about the whole thing. And oh, I want to get a book of Nietzsche's so I can see what the "tortured genius" is all about. Yeap. Have a lovely day :)

?

Does a quail wonder why it does not have stronger wings, or fierce claws to protect its young from coyotes? Does a rabbit wonder why it has only a sensitive nose and strong legs to flee with, instead of a rippling couture full of spines and teeth to retaliate against the hawk? Does a fly wonder why it is swatted at, smashed, sprayed, and hated only for wanting to sustain itself? Does a cactus wonder why it does not have legs or swift wings to walk, to move, to fly with like the birds who rest in its shadow? Does a chair wonder why it does not have joints and sinew and the will to move about freely like those who temporarily share its confines and curvature? Why does a human wonder, then?

Duty and Desire

I've been reading a book called "The Journey of Desire" (By John Eldridge) off and on for about the last year or so. It's a good book. In this book, John Eldridge talks about how much Desire should have a place in our lives as humans, relational beings, and as Followers of Christ. He quotes Augustine, and this pretty much sums up the gist of what I am trying to say, and what I struggle with: "Give me a man in love: he knows what I mean. Give me one who yearns, give me one who is hungry; give me one who is far away in this desert, who is thirsty and sighs for the spring of the Eternal country. Give me that sort of man: he knows what I mean. But if I speak to a cold man, he just does not know what I am talking about." 

Because I struggle so much with the pendulum of Duty and Desire. I do a lot of things that I don't want to; I also don't do a lot of things that I don't want to. But do I do a lot of things that I want to? Not really. I'm not talking about things like staying up 'til 1 in the morning, watching episodes of Monk, or eating a whole container of ice cream. Those are indulgences, fleeting desires of the earthly body. I'm talking about the things you're passionate about, that your heart quickens just thinking about; the way you feel when your Love is close by. That kind of desire. You know, I don't think many of us do too many things that we really, truly, want. Why? Because. We've been disappointed in the past; we've been so deeply hurt that months, or even years later, there's a gnawing, poisonous hole still eating outwards into our souls. And believe me (though you certainly won't have to take my word for it), this hole will grab your attention, sooner or later. It's not something you can ignore forever; either you ossify into a man of stone, oozing poison onto all around you, or you collapse into a shivering, slobbering mass of pain. And there's not much I, or anyone, can do about it. Like Johnny Cash so aptly says, "I will make you hurt." We all make each other hurt. We all disappoint each other. There's nothing we can do about it, except hide in our soul-caves, flinching at the thought of chasing after real desires, not those silly things that we say we want. Because I'm afraid that I won't be able to catch that desire; or worse still, it won't be what I thought it was. But that's not the end, is it? "It can't be, it can't be." Because there is one who can heal our gaping holes, ease our woeful disappointments, and-- if we let Him-- breath life back into the embers of Desire. Yeap, I'm talking about Jesus. God. Yahweh. But it takes something. God doesn't take a scrubber to your soul, and scourge all the dirt spots off, and return it to you, shiny and squeaky clean. He wants you to give your soul to him, your heart, your mind-- piece by piece. Do you trust Him to do that? Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't. The hardest part is trusting Him, trusting Him to not make mincemeat of your desires-- but realizing that God himself gave you these passions, and He created you to pursue them. I pray that you trust Him enough to give him your desires, and when He gives you the go ahead, to pursue them with all you're worth. Because any desire is an empty one if it isn't superseded by the desire to know, and be known, by the God of the universe, by the Maker of our hearts.

Evangelism Is Not a Gift.

Is is a matter of obedience and disobedience, like so many other things in the Christian life.
-Mark Cahill
I suck at talking about my faith.
But when it comes right down to it, that doesn't matter, that shouldn't matter.
Because when the rubber hits the road, we are talking about people's lives. And not their physical lives, but their spiritual ones.
Do you know the one thing that we won't be able to do in Heaven?
We won't be able to witness to people who haven't heard of the all-encompassing love of Christ.
That chance will have been completely spent.
"Witnessing" (the very word) makes me cringe. It makes me think of stuffing things people don't want to hear down their throats, but this is not what witnessing should be.
It should be the passionate portrayal of a passionate God's love for his people, whom he is so passionately seeking.
Nothing boring or "stuffy" in that, don't you think?
Because in the end, it won't matter how many philosophy books we read, or how many dollars we earn, or how many iPhone's we bought.
It will matter how we spent our lives, not our money. How we gave our time, opened our hearts, and spoke our words-- All for the glory of God and the reclamation of His people.
I know that many times people say, "Live out your faith! people will see that, and know your different."
And yes, this is true. But words bring articulation to actions, and so must be supported by them.

This isn't a kid's game. These are people's souls we're talking about here.
So where will you dwell for eternity?
What will God say to you when you meet him face to face?
I pray that I will be able to have the courage to change what I think God would say right now.
Because nowhere does it say that being a Christian is easy. But it is a Blessed way of life.

About Writing: Part 2

Well, I figured it was about time to finish my ran- er, blog about writing.
Where I left off, I was talking about context and culture, continuity and all those nice “see” words. (saying “c” just looks wrong to me.)
    There is really not too much that I want to say, other than this: You must put yourself into your writing.
Yes, I mean long nights scratching your head, trying to make all the frayed (if you weren’t careful, and sometimes even when you were) plot ends come together, and all that wonderful, agonizing, fulfilling stuff.
    But more so I mean putting you into your work. That’s right. you. (Meaning the writer, which, hopefully, will mean YOU you. And yes. I just used caps. But hey. This is a blog, right? Anything goes… but shouldn’t.)
    What I mean is this. You (speaking to the writer, not the reader) can put a quadrillion hours into researching for your book, can wrack your brain for the most intriguing plot twists and can try to be as original as possible-- but all this will fail to make a good book unless you put your heart into it.
    Let me give an example.
    I read (most of) the series “the furies of Calderon” by Jim Butcher (he also wrote the Dresden Files). The first book was great. It was about this kid in a magic world, who, by birth or by design, had no magic himself-- yet he made himself useful, and indeed essential to his world. Books 1-3 were great.
    I got to book four-- and he finally got a little bit of magical power. And I was like, okay, sweet.
But then I got to book five… And well. Things just got monotonous. And I know that all that was rather vague, so let me re-do that a bit.
Jim butcher had an interesting protagonist, good supporting characters, and an interesting setting as well as culture (based roughly on ancient Roman civilization). But after the third book, Jimmy made several big mistakes, and he murdered his own series.
    First of all, everything worked out for the protagonist. He got the girl. He got the family he always wanted. He got the magic ability. He got the kingship, for Pete’s sake. He got the alliance with the ancient enemies (to unite against a bigger, badder enemy). And eventually (it took him waaay too long, but) he got rid of the bigger, badder enemy too.
    I’m sorry, but this is a departure from reality. Since when does life work out so well all the time?
    Granted, small minor (redundancy intended) characters die. The protagonist says he’s sad about all the no-name citizens who were killed by the nigh-indestructible, always adapting and improving, wax-eating, exponentially growing, never-logically-explained Vord creatures (aka the bigger, badder enemy). But we’re viewing the world through the Protagonist (and a small cast of almost-protagonists). And none of them experience acute suffering. (Sounds kinda like Twilight, huh? Okay, sorry, sorry…)
    Why is this important? Why must someone die to make a good book?
    Well, the fact is… They don’t.
    Yeah. I just contradicted myself. Boo-yah!
    Let me explain once more. Death, in all its macabre er… aura, is a thing that (almost) all of us can relate to. It’s something that a reader can connect to emotionally. And there is where Mr. Butcher (was that a coincidence?) made his mistake. He forgot to give his readers characters that they could connect with.
    In the second book in the series, there’s a scene with a girl (who ends up to be the girl) and the protagonist.  The girl (Kitai), who was the only one of her people and culture in a large city of foreigners, felt very alone, very out of place. The Protagonist (Tavi), is a young man without magic in a world centered around the use of magic; and feels very alone and out of place. In the scene, they comfort each other, and realize that the only place they won’t be outcasts is with each other. It was a really touching scene, and yeah. It made me tear up.
    But why? Why was it such a touching scene?
    Because we’ve all felt alone and out of place in our lives. We’ve all felt like outcasts at one point or another. It’s something we can relate to.
    And I have a feeling it was something that Mr. Jimbo related to very strongly as well. That’s what made that scene so poignant.  He put his heart (or at least a little bit of it) into that scene. And I, as the reader, felt that, and connected with that.
    But it’s a little hard to connect with the powerful king of a large country, who orchestrates the destruction of the enemy that is threatening to annihilate all of his world-- with the use of lots and lots of magic.
That’s where Butcher slaughtered is story. He took the humanity out of it, and then it just became words connected in sentences, and paragraphs, and chapters, and then books.
You have no heart? You have no story.
And that is the bottom line.
    Does that mean that you have to write every single line with tears winking out of the corners of your eyelids, revealing your heart’s deepest secrets with poorly-veiled names like Tonica Mocral? (Hey. That has a ring to it, actually.) Of course not!! You don’t lay your heart bare every few minutes in real life, do you? No.
    But in the moment when everything is crushing down upon you, you lose it. When your friend drives a knife in your back, you bawl. When someone whom you love dies, you don’t go frolic in the daisy field.
Life imitates art, they say, but art should also imitate Life.
   

About Writing (Part 1).

I’m not sure I really have a right to write about writing (hardy har har). I mean, I am only 18 years old. But then again, age hardly limits opinions, though it often reduces the truth in them. So! I shall continue with my rambling about writing because I can. And because I really want to write something but I can’t write anything big, because I’m really supposed to be writing about how I feel about three stories I read for writing. Yeeeah. I’m not too thrilled about that. 
    I mean really? I’m not a person who shares their “feelings” about something, let alone on command. That’s like having breakfast with someone, and in the middle of it saying “drop and give me 20 push-ups!”. You could certainly do so (well; I could do at least ten real ones), but to do it just seems completely forced and out of place. Which! Brings me to my first point.
    I cannot speak for anyone else, but I do not think that good stories are the ones which are built and forced to fit around a few key characters, and their lives, surroundings, and events are custom-made to make an emotional journey for the reader. This bugs the sticky tar out of me.
    Let me explain. And let me use an example of Twilight. I know, I know, many maaaaany people love twilight, and I certainly understand why-- it gives people a doorway into a perfect life that is quite exciting to think of belonging to. But anywho. 
 Okay. Take Twilight. You have a girl who moves to a kind of foreign city (she hasn’t lived there in years) to live with her kind of foreign father. She’s previously from Arizona. Sounds pretty good, right?
But where are all her friends from Arizona?
You’d think that with the way all the popular kids in Forks flock around the  flouncing fair foreigner, she’d have felt the feelings of forlornness from fleeing from her former fields of friends. (Yeah. I need a life.)
But nay! You soon find out that she prefers books to the pesky punks who try to pander to her preferences in the persnickety place called high school. (On second thought, I do have a life.)
    Never once are any friends called or involved from her old abode in ardent Arizona. (Okay, “ardent” is pushing it a bit.) And as the story unfolds, it gets better! She finds out that a uniquely attractive man (vampire) who is a mind reader, is uniquely attracted to her, an unreadable enigma with vampire crack for blood.
    I could go into the dozens of examples in which the story of Bella (which just happens to mean beautiful, even though Bella herself thinks she’s rather plain, even though everyone else unfailingly tells her she’s gorgeous) is shown to be just that: the story of Bella.
    Now, perhaps I’m being a bit unfair. Meyers does throw in some history about the vampires, and werewolves, and all that jazz (which I did find interesting and probably the best part of the series; yes, I’ve read all four books. In 3 weeks. Okay, I guess I don’t have a life). But all the Volturi’s rules and history comes to naught when it comes to Bella and renesmee (*shudder*). No one (important to Bella’s complete and total happiness) dies in the entire series, when by all logicality  they all should have died.  Now, I’m not saying that Meyers should have done a Shakespeare (or in this day and age, a “Rowling”) or anything of the sort, but really? Telling someone you’re going to kill them and then not following through is suspenseful only so many times.
    I didn’t mean to turn this into a Twilight rant. I really didn’t. But it’s such a perfect example of so many literary failings, like continuity, context, and being true to characters’ attributes. But anyhow, I’m moving on.
    Worlds/surroundings/settings tailor-made to a certain individual is not the mark of a genius, but in my opinion is the mark of laziness. There’s a reason why Tolkien spent a lifetime working on Middle Earth (though it would be more accurate to say Ëa); it’s because he never was just telling the story of Frodo and Aragorn, or of little Bilbo Baggins. He was telling the story of a world.  (He never finished telling the story, either; though really, you can never tell the whole story of a world.)
    I am a complete, unashamed, ridiculously ardent (it works well there!) fan of Tolkien. I was watching videos of fans meeting Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez today (it’s better not to ask why), and I found  myself thinking, “Wow, the way these people are acting is ridiculous. They’re crying, screaming, and acting like idiots just because they met another human being who just happens to be famous.” Well…. I’m a bit of a hypocrite, because I just realized that if I met J.R.R. Tolkien in the flesh (it’d be a bit hard to do right now), I would definitely burst into tears, or something equally ridiculous.
    Why? Because he and I are kindred spirits (that’s what I tell myself to help me sleep at night).  But no, really, it seems like almost every quote of his I run into resonates with me. Except the one about pipes and smoking jackets. that one’s a little out of my er, league.
    You see, Tolkien didn’t just make stories. He made cultures. He made languages, civilizations, histories, futures, and everything connected to those things. And that just makes me (g)eek out.
    Just like Frank Herbert. And George Lucas (though he got other people to pitch in on his world making). I think that’s why I have such a high respect for the great fantasy writers: because they don’t just create stories, they create tapestries, and pick a few bright threads to contrast and stand out from the rest.
    Well. I’ve now procrastinated a lot for my writing assignment. I supposed it’s time to start writing about how I really feel. :P But I’ll definitely finish this. Even if it kills me. Now… If Twilight fan girls come and hunt me down for saying such dreadful, honest things… well. I want orange roses at my funeral.