More that Unites Us

 

You’ll be in trouble if you get caught.

And not the usual kind of trouble that you can apologise for, pay a penance, and seek forgiveness.

Oh no, it’s bigger than that.

You can take a chance, of course, that you will never be caught.

If you hide it well enough, if you disguise it cleverly enough, there’s a good chance that the truth will never be revealed.

Yes, and there goes another pig at thirty thousand feet.

See it?

No, my point exactly.

The problem is, stories and their characters must be completely and utterly believable.

And whether we are aware of it or not, we draw everything from the world around us, then use that wealth of knowledge and experience to create, in our own unique way, the world of our fiction.

And its characters.

Are we conscious of the traits that we choose for them?  Sometimes.  Deliberate choice of certain character idiosyncrasies can help to populate our fictional worlds with a broader range of people, and expand the stories that can be told.

What about the rest?  How much do we depend on our own abilities to build a character from the complexities of our own subconscious?  That’s trickier to answer, and I can only speak for myself but I rely on that quite a great deal.

I sometimes feel like a massive sponge

No, not yellow and full of holes.

Honestly.

It’s like everyone and everything around me gets drawn in, soaked up, and kept for when it is really needed.  Then just give it a good squeeze to release a conglomeration of experiences and people into one, unique individual.

A character ready to be chucked in at the deep end.

Thing is though, no matter how individual we think our characters are, they all bear some relation to the people around us.

Those with the strongest influence will get drawn in the deepest, and get pushed out the most during the creation process.

Makes sense.

Problem is, how do you hide it?

How do you prevent the person you have drawn on from recognising themselves in the world you have created?

I’m not entirely sure that you can.

Or rather, I’m not sure that you can stop someone else from recognising the person you have drawn on.

How many of us would recognise ourselves in a fictional context?

How many of us are that self-aware?

And if they catch you, oh boy are you in trouble.

Claiming the writing is fictional works only if the characters are not recognisable as real people.

And if you work with the people you have drawn from, oh boy, oh boy.

You will have to see them every day and withstand the torture of their presence while they denounce your work and at the same time demand a share of the profit.

There is another way.

You can deliberately make them a part of your work.

And they can help.

I’ve tried it with my most recent book and it came about purely by chance.

During the editing process of the previous book, I was incredibly grateful for the help of one particular reader, and offered her the usual rewards.

Wine, a meal out, night with a male escort.

Kidding.

A meal out on my salary?

Anyway, she said she didn’t want any of those things.

What she really wanted, more than anything else, was to be a character in the next book.

I was surprised.

I offered more wine.

She said no, she wanted to be a character.

Fine, I said, good guy or bad guy?

Bad guy, of course.  I want to be a killer hooker.

At which point I quite naturally had a good laugh, and so did she.

But it was what she wanted, it wasn’t going to cost me anything, and opened up the next book to a whole new storyline I might never have considered.

Turned out that the character sketch she wrote was rather similar to one I had already been working on, and I combined the two.

Now I’m sure you’re thinking that she made all sorts of demands with regard to her character, on how she wanted to look mostly, but surprisingly she didn’t.

The only thing she wanted her character to have, was revenge on the one person who had hurt her the most.  The father who had abandoned her.

I understood.

Of the many people who had hurt me in my own life, there weren’t many on whom I wanted revenge, but my own father had done the same as hers, and it naturally struck a chord.

It would seem we are not so individual after all.

In the wealth and realms of human experience, there are only so many hurts that can be pushed upon us.

Our unique experiences are in fact shared one.

Rather than dividing us, there are more that unite us.

Time Will Allow

 

The general consensus seems to be Hot.

What do you mean, what am I talking about?

Revenge, of course.

All those I've spoken to are much more of a mind to strike while Hot, rather than dish up Cold.

You could plan for years to get your own back on someone, and then when your plan is finally ready, they have gone.  Nowhere to be found.  Or if you’re really unlucky, already dead.

Nope, I think it’s best to act while you can.

What?  No, not me.

Did you really think I was planning revenge of my own?

Of course not, I was speaking for those whom I represent.

My characters, of course.  They get put through the emotional wringer and get to act upon what they feel.

They get the means and the opportunity to act on their dark motives, to take the revenge they feel is so richly deserved by those who have wronged them.

Which is a very freeing thing for them to be able to do, and for us to read about.

If they choose, they can trap the source of their revenge and take them to a deep dark place, to be tortured and held captive.

They can do all the things to them that they have dreamt of doing.

They can hurt, they can maim, they can kill.

Up to a point.

And here's the rub.

The world they inhabit has rules.

The rules of cause and effect.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  Very smart man said that once, in between apples, and they are few and far between.  Smart men, I mean.

The rule of cause and effect is forever present.

And it does not let them have their own way for long, without the consequences coming to hunt them down.

So for those who choose to capture and torture the object of their vengeance, we know that there will be a consequence.

We do not know what it will be, but it must be equal to the pain they have caused.

It feels like a giant cycle, with everyone causing each other pain throughout time, linked back to the very first people.

And who knows why the first tormentor struck out.

Who was it that put upon them?

I have an idea that they might have done it to themselves, and decided it was someone else’s fault, so began the circle of punishment and justice.

Taken to extremes, this is where you find the mafia.

It is expected, even honourable, to have your revenge or your ‘justice’ on someone who has wronged you or a member of your family.

But they know just as everyone does that there is a consequence.

A price to be paid for having that vengeance.

And woe betide those who do not pay it.

It seems like a never-ending spiral of pain and vengeance, with no hope of reprieve.

But there is another way.

There are ways of getting justice without resorting to violence, without feeling the need to exact bloody vengeance on those who have wronged us, even if we think it will make us feel better.

Or make the characters feel better.

There is a right kind of justice that keeps them this side of the line, the one they occasionally step across to take the action they feel they must, and then come back across to accept the consequences.

I suppose in the end its down to the moral sensibilities of the writer, the creator of these people in this world.

Do I enforce my moralities onto those whom I create, or do I have only the power to control where they start from, not where they end up?

Do they reflect sides of who I am and what I believe, or purely mix-matched amalgamations of everything I have seen, heard and experienced?

Questions for further and much deeper thought.

When time will allow.

Hot or Cold?

 

So, did you find the button yet?

What do you mean, what button?

The one you press to make everything all right, to make the world a happier and more joyful place to be.

No, I’m not talking about that button, smutty.   

Honestly, one thing on your mind these days.  Although that is a good one to press…

But I’m getting sidetracked into thinking with a smirk.

No, the button I spoke about last week, the switch that turns the emotions off, or the bad ones at least.

All in the mind, or so they tell me.

I’m sure that’s right.  Although when the pain is so intense that the body drops to the floor from the leaden weight of sadness, I’m struggling to believe it.  Actually in that state it’s a struggle to even think.

Okay, so how do you put the thoughts of sadness and pain out of your mind when it inhabits the whole of your body.

The only solution that works so far is to indulge it, experience it in its fullness, give it the space it deserves to let itself out, and then close the door behind it.

Shut.

And locked.

Perhaps there is no button.

Thinking bigger, it has to be a door.

One that gets closed on the thoughts and those emotions causing the pain and the sadness to hurt and devastate.

That makes a little more sense.

If the emotions are so big that a switch isn’t going to turn them off, then pushing them all out the door and closing it behind them makes perfect sense.

That’s when it’s all in the mind.

But when the thoughts return to build up again this side of the closed and locked door, regenerating themselves into the deep pool of pain and sadness you know far, far too well, they can become a comfortable place to be.

Crazy, right?

Only to those who have never felt it.

Not to those who have hollowed themselves out of the pain and sadness, who have let it all go only to find there is nothing left to fill the void.

Drinking doesn’t work.

Eating comfort food doesn’t work.

The only thing left big enough and all consuming enough to fill the giant void where the pain and sadness was is … well, fresh pain and sadness.

Either that, or denial.

Denial that the one who has hurt you and caused this pain and sadness will not do it to you again.   

And again.   

And again.

So you forgive them because the love you feel for them is a warm and comforting place to be, and you deny to yourself that it will only end the same way again, returning you in pain and sadness.  And that you might like it there.

Because who on earth would like it there?

So what do you do?

This is where the strength to fill up the void with something other than pain and sadness and denial comes in.

And you have it, you know.

We all do.

We just forget that it is there because the emotions are overwhelming the body and the mind.  But with enough release of pain and sadness, with enough reminders that there are other people out there going through the same thing as you, and how you overcame it the last time, you remember.

You remember your strength.

You see that even though the hurt caused may have initially come from someone else, the repetitive way you have tortured yourself with that knowledge has been yours.

And yours alone.

And therefore under your control.

You can choose to let go of the pain and sadness.

You can release all the feelings that are hurting you, and bring some new ones in instead.

You can choose peace.

You can choose love.

You can choose joy.

Or you can choose revenge.

Ahh, the dish best served to your own liking.

Which leaves me with one final question for you.

Do you like it Hot or Cold?

The Choice of Sacrifice

How do you turn off pain?

Yes, I know how that sounds, but bear with me on this.

It’s a question undercover police officers are asked of themselves whenever they have to enter the dark and dangerous realms of undercover work.

It sounds impossible, doesn’t it?

Well it does to me, but then I’ve never been good at dealing with pain of any kind.

And that whole thing about women having a higher pain threshold than men is, as far as I am concerned, utter bull-crap.

I don’t think we have a higher threshold for pain.

We just know how to combine our many and varied painkillers for the most effective result.

Or maybe that’s just me.

Anyway, the more stories I read about officers who live and work undercover, the more I come to admire their tolerance for pain, and not just the physical pain they might have to endure as part of the role they must play for months, sometimes years on end.

It’s the emotional pain.

Being cut off from the love of family and friends, from the love of husbands and wives and children.  It has to be one of the hardest pains to endure.

So why, one wonders, would someone choose to put themselves through that?

Why would they put themselves in a position where they have to not only cut themselves off from the people who love them, but cut off their emotions for those people to the extent that they would have no reaction towards them if they saw them in the street.

So how do you turn off the pain?

I guess that ability is stronger in some than in others, which is why they are able to do the job.

Some former undercover officers talk about compartmentalising themselves and their feelings, of shutting them away in a box that cannot be opened unless they are back at home.

Then as long as they fully believe in the role that they are playing, whatever that happens to be, they can choose to feel or not to feel however they want.

They can choose to show their emotions to the people who love them, or they can choose to shut them off completely, to become someone else, and to effectively infiltrate whichever group it is that they have been tasked to.

Some of them even spoke of it like being a switch.

In switching between different roles in their lives, they are able to turn their emotions on and off at will.

Which is impressive.

I know a great many people who would pay dearly for the ability to do that.

Who wouldn’t?

When life becomes too painful, all you have to do is turn off the switch to your emotions and you will feel no pain at all.

How incredibly freeing would that be?

No more frustrated anger at annoying people, no more sadness when a loved one leaves you, no more crying over a broken heart.

Because it sucks to be in pain.

Everyone knows this.

When you’re wading through a particularly painful time in your life it can feel like you never want to feel anything ever again, that you would do whatever was asked of you, if only someone would come along and take the pain away.

Sometimes it’s more than we can bear.

And I know it’s the strength of our emotions, good and bad, that makes us who we are, that makes us human.

It just sucks.

And if you’re someone who believes in a reason for everything, it can be the kind of thing that has you questioning the powers that be.

But I’m digressing.

And if you’re sensing that there’s another ‘but’ here, you would be right.

Because no emotions means no emotions.

Of either kind.

No joy at the sight of a loved one coming to greet you at the end of a long hard day, no laughter at a shared joke, no peace at being held in their arms.

 The point, if there is one, is that we are human. 

I don’t envy the undercover officers.

They must be cut off from family and friends, relying purely on themselves to get into the dangerous situation they have been chosen for, living within it for as long as necessary, and then getting themselves safely out again.

Their stories are so full of bravado on the face of it, doing what they have to do in order to complete their assignment.  But underneath I can’t help but see and feel the pain and loneliness they have to go through.

It is their choice, of course, something that they feel they were born to do.

But I’m glad it’s not my profession of choice.

If, indeed, we get to choose what we do at all.

And their choice to do this work is what forces them to make that awful decision between living as an undercover officer and cutting themselves off from the love of their family and friends, or living a normal life.

For all that they achieve in the work they do, I for one am glad that they are doing it.

And that they made the choice of sacrifice.