A Few Things

My protagonist would love this quote. So do I.

"People wonder why we rip on celebrities, when all around there are pages of shit glorifying celebrities like Winona Ryder. And celebrities view themselves as the fucking Mozarts of their time. Even fucking Ray Romano thinks hes an enlightened individual. These people all think they’re enlightened artists and therefore speak for the country. But I haven’t met one celebrity who wasn’t a little bit fucked up. Actors and actresses are the worst, because they’re just fucking monkeys. Half the people in this country could do what they do but for some reason they think their opinion matters." - Matt Stone, co-creator of South Park

This reminds me of an article, Elegant Nonsense, written by Victor Davis Hanson where he reminds us

"Nearly 24 centuries ago, Plato warned not to confuse innate artistic skill with either education or intelligence.

The philosopher worried that the emotional bond we can forge with good actors might also allow these manipulative mimics too much influence in matters in which they were often ignorant."

It is hard to react to these opinionful celebs. Not hard because I don't know what they're saying or who they are or why they are doing it (which, now that I think of it, is all one muddled mess of self-adulation and self reproach). It is hard because I can't experience their rhetoric (that's what it is, please show me a well structured argument) as their sympathizers do. I can't feel someone's emotions reacting to Richard Gere's emotions saying

"If you can see (the terrorists) as a relative who's dangerously sick and we have to give them medicine, and the medicine is love and compassion. There's nothing better."

A logical train of thought, with each premise building upon its predecessor towards an airtight conclusion - that is something my brain can sink into like a fat man in a lazy boy. Now, of course, most arguments are not airtight, but it'd be nice if there was at least the attempt towards honest discourse across ideological lines rather than this complete ignorance of the possible validity of someone else's view.

I can't empathize with it. I don't even know anyone who does, which would be nice; then I could at least try to understand how someone finds these celebrities to be a worthy source of intelligent thought. They're not inundating our society with celebrity fodder for nothing, right? There are people that are impacted by what a celebrity thinks and how a celebrity acts (in real life). It is sad but it is probably true. Let's put it this way, celebrities influence our purchase habits, not limited to entertainment: it can be expanded to include the individual manner in which we express our freedom through consumer decisions, adorning ourselves with that which will be the perfect combination of however we wish to be perceived, a tool to manage day-to-day self esteem levels. For all the confidence people have in their own individual worldview (to the point of belligerent argument), it seems we live in a society that is in constant need of reassurance of its identity, of what their Self should be, and the manner in which they should use their freedom.

A final thought from VDH:

If retired actors and entertainers wish to become politicians — an old tradition, from the empress Theodora to Ronald Reagan, Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarzenegger — let them run for office and endure during a campaign sustained cross-examination from voters. Otherwise their celebrity is used only as a gimmick to give credence to silly rants that if voiced by anyone else would never reach the light of day.

In this regard, we could learn again from the Greeks. They thought the playwrights Sophocles and Euripides were brilliant but not the mere mimics who performed their plays.

We're an appearance-based society and this is yet another manifestation of it. We'll take a superficial truth that wraps us up and tucks us in Any Day. Why do people so easily accept an appearance as Reality? The simplest answer is probably the most correct: It is very convincing. But how does it convince us? Reason is like the security guard that George Costanza gave the rocking chair to in an episode of 'Seinfeld' leaving the store open for robbery. It has fallen asleep, leaving emotions to run amok, unregulated and without a solid standard of value. We can only hope that it will awaken, en masse, before a growing problem metastasizes and leaves us with a few very ugly options.

The Beginning of a Beginning

His lips were pursed as if his smile were a real liability. Where the mouth’s theatrics were successful, the rest of his face failed. His active brows sharply rising with surprise, thought trains chug chugging along, rerouting themselves with a new destination and new tracks to get there. His unnaturally green eyes darting around, devouring his environment, digesting it through the brows to the brain, and passing its uncontainable agreement, questioning, or disgust along to the once stoic mouth. His brown hair was perfectly in place, in stark contrast to the bulk of his life.

When he was younger, before he felt The Weight, Scott had a laugh that was rich with authentic emotion. Many considered him to be the verifiable definition of a “man-child.” Such was his delight in life, even as a young adult. They envied him for this, but genuinely delighted in his presence: He opened up for others a part of the Self severely constrained by modern society. Conversation with Scott was highly interactive, and while people admittedly come into everything (or nearly everything) with preconceived notions, there was a pervasive theme of transcendence. He very rarely felt satisfied with the status quo, his brain would not allow it: too many contingencies unaccounted for, to many questions still left to pose. In others this quality may have manifested itself differently, but in Scott it served to illuminate the absolute earnestness that he brought with him wherever he went.

Scott Fitzgerald Socrates Porter was born to Laura and Thomas Porter on the day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as the 40th President of the United States of America. This has no other real significance save the fact that Scott would grow up to have an aversion to most actors (not acting as such, but actors with whom he came into contact) and at the age of six remarked about President Reagan, “Couldn’t an actor just act and pretend to everyone he is a great person?” Smiling, equal parts sadness and joy for she had an inkling of the future, she had said that the President was no different than anyone else: everyone acts differently than they are and proclaims their own greatness to whoever will listen. At age fourteen, Scott would admonish his mother for such a view. He felt that her judgment was much too harsh and unsympathetic to the human condition.

It would be difficult, as well as pointless, to attempt to discern which parent contributed more with respect to Scotts’ disposition and constitution. For they both held the same philosophy of child-rearing: a Daring Honesty stressing the importance of fact-based knowledge tempered by the fact that a type of stoicism tangential to this is an isolation of Reason to itself, therefore denying the fundamental capacity of human beings to feel Love, to experience Beauty. He came to know these as proper nouns always, causing much angst in his adolescent years.

Laura and Thomas named their son as they did, not out of some grandiose vision for their son’s future. No, they thought it reflected as well as any name could. Really, how much could a name hurt? Or help, for that matter. So, they found it pretty arbitrary and decided to pick two of their favorite historical figures, representing pretty fairly the child-rearing dynamic they wished to cultivate. Whether this was done as a symbolism of sorts, we know not. His parents decided on Scott after coming to the conclusion that Socrates carried with it far more expectations and to have a name like that one should choose it.

Neither parent expected the dramatic turn of events that would follow from all of this, years later.

Towards a Philosophy of Writing and Other Hopes

I see an individual's philosophy of writing as composed, mainly, in two parts. One, the writer's substantive stories - complete with the settings, characters, themes that are expressed. The second half is the infinitely more critical area: the method by which mere ideas morph into art. It is this latter part that I have very little idea how to traverse. I have a lot of experience writing successful non-fiction stemming from my degree in philosophy, but every attempt to flesh out an idea for fiction ends fairly quickly in failure. I lose confidence in my ability to faithfully carry out my intentions - probably because I have no framework to support me when trying times arrive. So, in regard to my method, I have nothing to offer except this generality: if it is anything like the rest of my life's activities, it will be a work-in-progress with an approximate end in the sight but tempered by the knowledge that success doesn't come without adjustment.

Why do I write? Better question: Why do I do anything? (I have very little doubt that this will sound exceedingly arrogant, but I move forward without shame nonetheless) My actions are motivated by the belief that I have a very important, empathetic message that People need to immerse themselves in. (What a self-involved jerk, huh!) Seriously though. While I love beautiful prose (It's damn near my Achilles' Heel!), I'm a theme kinda guy - a "Big Picture" enthusiast, if you will. So, I write to convey meaning - to myself and others - and this is probably why all great authors write. Which by no means is intended to imply that I, as a conveyor of meaning, am even a mediocre writer - much less a great one!

Small-Plasma-in-the-Corner-of-the-Kitchen (Where Wall Meets Ceiling) Goals: To develop a method of consistent, successful writing which, while being a method, also has the flexibility to allow massive deviations from The Plan.

Massive-Anchor-in-the-Sea Goals: To write beautiful, coherent, (Can something be beautiful without being coherent? Probably. Separate arena of discussion though.) prose-laden fiction that reflects ideas of the utmost importance and that People A) empathize with and B) reflect on.