Revoltin' Developments

OK, so nothing actually revolting has occurred. in fact it is quite the opposite. I just can't resist using that as a title. My life seems to be fairly on track. I made that grand romantic gesture to get quasi-girlfriend back and while it did succeed and I was supposed to be calling her and talking to her, I realized that she is myself reflected in black tinted glass. I was seeing through a glass, darkly, what my own life could become. My very own satanic muse. And although she says she tries to be a good person, I believe she doesn't. She tries to live by societal rules to keep up her appearance. It felt just like old times. I was my bleak self again. The very night I was supposed to last call her was the night Jess spoke to me.

If Quasi-girl is my dark muse, Jess is my bright muse. And they are as different as night and day.

How does one man find 2 gold medals like this?

However, if I was to go back and try again with quasi-girl I would be absolutely dead to the world. When I'm with her I can only write on the most tragic things, the most violent things, and I feel apathy for all and empathy for none. If ever I was most likely to take a life, it was with her, relishing the bloodshed together. And I don't dispute that she made an impact on me as a person and on my development as an artist. It just wasn't good. Ethically, morally, in the ways that matter at the end of the day.

With Jess it's exactly the opposite. We both suffer fools, bemoan the side effects of our fellow humans and the seeming teeming pot of subhumans.

But I'm not wrong anymore. I'm not violent unless I am righteous. I'm not evil unless fighting off something worse. I'm not bleak unless affronted with real bleakness in life.

And most unlike everything else, I can work. I got 2 pages done just today.

I finally have a counterpart.

No new scars to report, no new meds, no new drama attacking my life, and no, I'm not going to end this entry with a zing, with some kind of clever punchline.

This is no joke.

This is me, bereft of mourning, abounding with blithe.

I have a blog groupie!

Her name is Jess and she's sweet, and beautiful, and smart, and I'm going to see her soon. Huzzah!

Periodic check in

My main readers are either under the weather, in the hospital, or soon to be gone, but a blog serves the purpose as a self-reflective as much as a public forum if not more. So here we go again.

My birthday was satisfying. I turned 20 this year. A pointless age of no great legal implications. Still old enough to be charged as an adult and easily drafted into service, but still not quite ready for hard liquor it would seem, eh? Soon after my birthday I came down with an infection in my lymphatic system and was attacked by infectious mononucleosis. You can read more about it at your local library. Or on wikipedia if you're lazy. It decked me out pretty well I must concede and I am only now coming back to my senses. I've gained a few pounds from my lethargy as my doctor said I would. I'm still not really able to do too much physical work so lots of exercise and dieting is still out of the question, much to the dismay of my self esteem. I suppose I'll just have to lean on my comrades like I usually do, much as I hate having to redistribute my weight.

Being exhausted and mostly horizontal has given me the opportunity to read some books I'd put on the back burner as well as watch some films I've been putting off watching. I even got some work on my book done amazingly enough. The subject of literature is where I'll be going today.

It makes for a compelling hero and/or protagonist when they have some sort of defining element of tragedy in the history of their character.

But, what sort of man does it make?

I've just finished reading the breakout novel by Dave Eggers A Heartbreaking work of staggering Genius and these are the nagging gnawing questions I'm left with. When one thinks of the character of Batman they do so with the knowledge of his tragedy in mind. His insane mission is granted a quasi-mystical validity and importance by it. This tragedy that has befallen him has tainted his life and haunts him continually.

This author loses both of his parents and of course expects this clout and sincerity instantaneously granted to him. Although technically a memoir and roughly based on a true story it is still a novel with particular things it is trying to say. The tragedy is not what the character's lives are about, but rather it is a tale of personal growth in the wake of such things; living day to day in a world of seemingly random tragedy. Both parents lost so suddenly, in such proximity to each other, and yet what does the character of the author do? He is not made more mature or somehow wiser by this.

Is the book a tale of human imperfection? A close look at the imperfection that is human nature at its core even in the wake of defining tragedies that in comics and pulp films allow for a lowly creature to be catapulted into the spotlight and cemented to the right side of ethical dilemmas? If this book was written as a work of fiction I would praise it as a wonderful piece outlining the ways mankind can display such beauty as we struggle to exist and carry on in a world where no amount of loss can make you a better person, even if it rips out most of your sanity. But it's semi-autobiographical, and I find myself pitying the author, competent as he is, as a fool who learned seemingly nothing from repeated error.

My quarrel is not with the book's manic-depressive prose or self-obsessed rambling. I find these features a profoundly humanizing element to a story told in a very detached way. The problem I have is with the author himself. It makes the reader sympathetic to a fault and it's not what it could have been. I felt closer to the protagonist during the Frisbee scenes than at any other point in the novel. These self-discovery moments (which this book is essentially one long one) work best when they have some sort of epiphany in them. Eggers tries long and hard to do what is best, but he doesn't seem to actually better himself in any way over time. He merely becomes more pathetic as a stagnant example of wasted youthful excitement in futile efforts mirroring the "revolutionary" acts every new generation has done for 50 years.

This could have been a great novel to inspire the young of today towards prosperity, but if anything, it will inspire them to keep the status quo.