The Mirror: Gullible's Travels

Three hundred years ago, Jonathan Swift wrote a fantasy novel which his protagonist called a travel diary. He visited five fantastic lands during his travels, describing them in excruciating detail. He also recorded the ill fated journeys which took him to those places. The novel is a traveller's journal which the writer asserts is completely true despite the absurdity and impossibility of those places existing. When he told people back home in England what he had seen and experienced, some people believed him, but only because he presented physical evidence. Some who heard his tall tales might have simply humoured him during his recounts, privately dismissing him as a madman.

We basically only have two sources of knowledge. First, what we have personally experienced involving input from our five senses, six, if you want to go there, Secondly, we have what other people tell us. We might hear or read the knowledge of others. Now without diving into the deep ocean of epistomology, the bottom line is that we accumulate knowledge either from ourselves or from others, and the acceptance of what others tell us depends on authority. In other words, we incorporate other people's knowledge into our own if we trust them. Theories of knowledge are much more complicated than that, but I'm a simple man, and that's how I nutshellize the concept as I understand it.

People often tell us things which contradict our knowledge which means that someone is wrong and someone is right. The local bookshop either sells my book or they don't. Rain is either wet or it's not. This isn't such an issue because most people happily adjust their thinking when confronted with fact. Knowledge is one thing, but experience is a different beast altogether. The biggest challenge we face is when someone tells about something they experienced, something which from our experience we know can't happen. For example, my friend tells me he saw ghost. I've never seen a ghost and I don't believe in them, but I trust my friend. That's when it gets tricky.

When Gulliver told people he lived among the thumb-sized people of Lilliput for two years, they would have thought he was insane, but what about his wife? She who was in effect Gulliver's mistress, because he was married to adventure, and spent most their marriage in foreign lands. What did she think when her husband regaled her with stories of a land inhabited by giants, and another ruled by a race of necromancers?

On Gulliver's final journey, the one which arguably had the greatest impact upon him psychologically - for of course he always managed to maintain his physical health in all these strange, mythical lands - he arrived in a land where horses where at the top of the societal hierarchy. They were the most intelligent, wise and benevolent race Gulliver had ever met. When Gulliver told them about how it was at home ,in England where horses were dumb, subservient beasts, his words were greeted with not only indignation, but disbelief.

I'm not sure if Gulliver's Travels is intended to be read as satire or not, but it sure came across that way to this reader. In any case, many people (tiny and enormous), and horses evidently believed what he was saying. Well, I said as I got to the end of Gulliver's Travels to discover that Gulliver was disgusted by people, even his own wife, when he returned to England, some people will believe anything.

Knowledge must be tested. If you believe everything you hear and read, and one day you write a memoir, you'll have to call it Gullible's Travels.

A Dog's Eye 1: Life can be like a movie

I'm a romantic. If pressed I would say that my favourite genre is romantic comedy, because I like the warmth and fuzziness. I like fairy tales. Who doesn't, right? What's not to like about a happily ever after tale, especially when so many of our own relationships and of those people we know, and hear about, do not have happy endings. That's the main reason films, television shows and books are so popular. Escapism. Vicarious living.

We know, however, that real life is rarely like fiction. Fiction is a highlights package on steroids. It's an exaggerated presentation of life's high and lows. Even in the 'in between times', when there is neither anything terribly exciting or traumatic happening to the characters, there is still a healthy dose or 'larger-than-life' being shown to us. 

Real life is mostly the in between times. It's mundane. Routine. Pretty much the same thing day after day. We appreciate the 'just like the movies' moments because they are rare. And many of us are addicted to fictional entertainment for the same reason: our lives are filled with so much humdrum, or negative, stress and worry inducing stuff that we want to escape.

Last Wednesday, I arrived back in Darwin, sleep deprived, but exhilarated - almost overwhelmed by my own 'just like the movies' moment. For me though it lasted five days. For five days I was living a romantic comedy, with perhaps the only difference being that the complication was very short. From the imaginary game of tennis on the sidewalk to the long farewell at the airport, I felt like I was dreaming.

I still do. Now that we are separated again by distance, I feel strange and a little lost, as though nothing will be quite right until she is once more in my arms. (awww...I told you I was soppy)

When have you had a 'just like the movies' moment? I'd love to hear your stories.

E is for Escape

E is for Escape

“The air was cool and the car quiet as it motored through along a flat stretch of gun barrel straight highway which sliced through a desert. Malee sat in the front seat and in the back, beside Thuza, another young lady, Vietnamese she believed, called Thi. The final member of their little get away gang was an extremely bashful Aghan woman named Anoosheh. The car was being driven by a man Malee called Ken. The destination was unknown to Thuza but she was not afraid. Malee had won her confidence, earned her trust by protecting her during their time at the detention centre. She knew for certain that she would not have escaped the heinous intentions of some of the male inmates.”  From Chapter 10, Ashmore Grief

When life becomes a chore, a debilitating bore or when it throws more challenges at us than we can handle we want to flee. We want to run away from the unpleasantness and drudgery, and escape. Fiction is a great escape. When I read a good novel, I get lost in other people’s problems, and temporarily forget my own. If the author has done their job well, then I care about the characters they have created: I worry about them, I fear for them, I laugh and cry with them. I want to know that they will be all right. I desperately want their troubles to end, their problems to be resolved, their fears to be allayed. I hunger for the happy ending, the fairy tale because it reassures me that love can indeed conquer all. It’s possible.

The delusion is powerful: strong enough to propel us through misery or carry us through tragedy. We must have hope. We must believe.

The reality is that our lives are characterized by suffering, and no matter what form of escapism we choose, or how intensely we will and wish for it to be otherwise, it doesn't change the fact that for most of us our lives are not as we want them to be. Whatever tools we use to anesthetize ourselves; drugs, alcohol, work, books, movies, video gaming, pornography, or sex, are ultimately mere band-aids. We stagger from one disaster to another, holding on to hope and the ephemeral joy which fills the spaces in between.

In my novel, Thuza fled the frying pan of Christmas Island Detention Centre into an unknown fire, on the strength of a promise that her life would be better. Sometimes there is no escape.

What is your favourite form of escapism?

Photo source:

http://thedesigninspiration.com/photos/escapism/

Where do I go from here?

Today I'll experiment with writing a post without a title and without a clear idea of my subject. I usually know exactly what I am going to write about. Something will have occurred to me during the week, or even overnight: a thought, a movie, a book quote, a news item, a conversation might have fueled my imagination. I'm inspired by my experience of the world around me with which I interact, and by how I process and analyze my experiences.

Sometimes this propensity of mine to be over analytical is annoying, like the book reviewer whose critical eye robs them of the pleasure of the words they are reading. Mostly I accept it as part of who I am, and I use it to my advantage. I am intensely curious and this also is a blessing and a curse. My first question, and the only real question of import is why. Why do I do what I do, and say what I say? And why do others behave as they do? What motivates people?

Being a novelist I have the opportunity to explore the human psyche through fictional worlds. To examine and explore human nature, to push characters around, to drag them down or to lift them up, to force them to confront issues and deal with their demons. All the while, I am thinking about their motivation. I am asking why. I think this is the main reason I love writing. 

There is escapism, as there is with reading. There is also the acquisition of knowledge through research, and then there is the actual process itself: putting words together in such a way so as to not only convey your message but to touch your reader. What's not to love about writing. I even like editing and re writing!

Having come to the end, having reached a sufficiency of words, I can now declare this exercise a success. I began with nothing and I made something. The lesson to be learned: neither the beginning or the end of a journey is anywhere near as important as the journey itself.

The Necessity of Lies

In the Ricky Gervais film, The Invention of Lying, nobody in the whole world tells lies. They don't even know what a lie is. There is no word for truth because truth can only be defined in relation to its opposite. There is no trickery, no deception, no falsehood, no pretense and no fiction.

Imagine such a world where advertising is factual and straightforward. The slogan for Pepsi is: when they don't have Coke. Visualize a world where there are no movies other than historical documentaries made by the Lecture film company, and read to camera by serious academic looking types. Think of a world where people are offended, wounded and humiliated on a daily basis because of the dearth of sensitivity and tact. Put yourself in a world where everybody says exactly what's on their mind whenever they want to. Where truth is the only option. Anybody want to live there?

Truth is upheld by most people, in most societies, as a quality of infinite worth. It is to be cherished and treasured, honored and protected. However, there is nowhere on earth like the fictional town in The Invention of Lying where there is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The people there are uncreative, motivated by pure selfishness, and are without hope because there is only absolute truth.

When Ricky Gervais' character lies to his mother about the after life in order to comfort her on her death bed, she dies in peace. Her fear disappears and she fades blissfully into eternity. When news of this lie spreads from the hospital to the whole town and then to the whole world, it's a mind blowing revelation which shows us how desperate people are for hope. They latch on to the lie about a wonderful afterlife and hold it tight because it's a beautiful lie. It gives them hope and makes them happy.

The Invention of Lying is a very funny film, but it is also very profound. A world without lies would be horrible but a world without truth would be equally bad. A can of worms has now been opened. When is a lie okay or even necessary? When is it vital? And if truth is absolute then how can we draw lines of relativity in the sand, and allow everyone to decide for themselves when truth should be used? How can we safely allow the selective application of such a powerful instrument? Is truth a healing balm or a hammer?

Does anyone see a problem here?