a heart, a heart, my kingdom for a heart

2002 was an interesting year.  The first part of it, I spent as a high school sophomore.  I began to focus on the crush that would one day blossom into my exquisite marriage.  I took my first grim steps in the shoes of an advocate as part of my in-class mock trial for the children in Lord of the Flies.  I went to Disney World with my family.  This last may be the dominating factor in my lingering love of the subject of this blog post:

Kingdom Hearts, if you're streets behind, is a video game series created by the Square Enix corporation featuring characters from Final Fantasy games and, much more importantly, Disney movies.  That means you get to go on adventures with Winnie the Pooh, Alice, Aladdin, Ariel, Tarzan, Donald, Goofy, Jack Skellington, Pinocchio, Peter Pan, and Mickey.  Better yet, you do battle with such nefarious fiends as Maleficent, The Queen of Hearts, Hades, Captain Hook, and Ursula!  It's all dreadfully exciting, and fully rendered in pretty 3D graphics that somehow retain the character and feel of the original animation:

I paid close attention to the development of this game, and decided to purchase it as soon as I was able.  Unfortunately for me, I had no money when the game came out; I took my first job as a cashier at Target five months after the game's release!  Be assured that my first paycheck went straight to procuring a PlayStation 2 and this very game.

And oh, what a wonder it turned out to be.  You play as Sora, a character created originally for the series, who loses his home and friends in a cataclysmic event where strange monsters appear and attack everyone.  Cast adrift in a sea of unknown worlds and chosen for no discernible reason by a mysterious sword known as a Keyblade, Sora eventually meets up with Donald and Goofy, who are themselves on a quest to uncover the whereabouts of Mickey, who vanished while researching the very creatures that attacked Sora's home!  Hoping that Donald and Goofy can help him find his friends, Sora joins up with them and together they journey to all sorts of magical places!

In all of these locales, they come across the same strange creatures, the Heartless.  Most of the Heartless look like this:

Very Ghibli.  And roughly the size of a breadbox.

But some present themselves like this:

Less Ghibli, more Alighieri.  And roughly the size of a bread factory.

They run around attacking people, but they don't kill them...oh no.  Instead, they devour the hearts of entire worlds, transforming their entire populations into Heartless like themselves, like a magical Von Neumann machine.  And, as the chosen Wielder of the Keyblade, the responsibility for holding back these foul creatures fell entirely on your shoulders!  A weighty burden.

The game held deeper levels of fascination than the opportunity to visit these fully realized worlds and cavort with their animated inhabitants, however.  There was an entire subsurface metaphysical discussion of the nature of the "heart" to be found, lurking subtly in diary pages left behind by a brilliant scientist of the soul.  He was primarily concerned with the "True Essence" of the heart.  To what extent does Darkness dictate our thoughts, feelings, and actions?  Does every heart contain within it the capacity for Darkness, or is that only introduced from without?  And can Darkness truly corrupt a heart to the point of no return, or is there always some redemption available for those with the will to fight for it?  What is the heart, and how is it connected to, and how is it separate from, the body?  Is anyone entirely good or bad?

His questions strike at the core of issues that philosophers have contemplated for millennia, but he comes nowhere near an answer.  No, the answer is left to be provided by the player, who must brood endlessly over this melancholy topic.  Even now, the title music plays endlessly in my heart, enchanting me with its simple but enduring melody...

I would leave the title screen on for hours while I did my homework, or just sat and thought about the people in my life, and my relation to them; primarily, how strongly I wished that I could fight for them as easily as swinging a blade into an evil villain.  Oh, if only that were all it took to bring happiness to the people I care about!

Some final images that are forever seared into my mind....

A friendly challenge, a rival you like and respect, your closest friend getting lost on his way...

A cautious smile, an earnest promise, an alliance of convenience that grows into true friendship...

A vision of hope, a crystalline shard of the future, worlds uniting for the sake of everything...

The glimmering blade of a hero, an eternal lock opened, a sage at last set free...

A lost love seen everywhere, a tearful reunion, a memory cherished into diamond...

A song, a light, and a smile....

Belief in yourself, the greatest of risks, and the burst of joy when you first take flight...

These are the words that speak to me of Kingdom Hearts.  You may never experience it, and I'd understand why, but I hope I have brought you some small part of the meaning it holds for me.  Try watching the video below, and see if you can taste some of the magic I felt when I first came to know this game.

Just don't walk away.

bad dreams

I don't want to figure prominently in your mythology.  I'd prefer to be a bit player, nothing more than an aside, a footnote in your personal history.  This goes for everyone, and it isn't an attempt to minimize myself or my influence in the lives of others.  Of course I want to be influential!  But when we consider our own life stories, they should come forth as a record of the amazing things we've done, the great decisions we've made, the tentative perfections we achieved.  They shouldn't be a list of other people.  There is no life to be had caroming from one other to another.

I can't tell if distance from my own written works tends to make me more or less objective.  I went back and read many of my daily blog posts from last September, and I was terribly impressed by what I saw.  Things that (at the time) seemed like petty and desperate attempts to draw forth meaning and emotional impact from the most paltry of sources now come across (to me) like well-structured essays that expertly uncover beauty and tragedy in the midst of life's most mundane elements.  Something about that thought makes me angry, both at our natural inability to accurately judge ourselves, and at my failure (so far) to capitalize on my perceived talents more fully.  Ah, well.  All things in time.

What do you want your life story to be?  One antidote to the mundanities of daily life is to pursue a life that isn't so mundane, one full of novelty and adventure.  These lives are difficult and dangerous, but they're out there.  It's all a matter of settling on your priorities.  I'm writing this blog post, right?  It's a step on the road towards my dreams.  What's the last thing you did to move yourself in that direction?

Be careful, though.  Not all dreams are to the good.  Dwell on yours, and the costs, long before you fully commit yourself.  Do not become an AHAB.  Avoid the crooked paths!  Never let yourself become so wrongly convicted as to place the one above the others in the celestial constellations of your fate.  Mythological figures can be both good and bad, and you are the only one who will ever fully exist in your life.  Take care not to drown in a pool of your own remembered vanities.  And remember, above all, that NARCISSUS' was not so much a fable about self-regard as it was a warning against devoting oneself too fully to the appreciation of beauty.  You might stand transfixed by the awesome sights before you, and then you will be tempted to give yourself fully to them.  But there are mightier, worthier things to serve with your attention than your own senses.  Remember to take time not to feel, or you risk losing everything. 

a look into flame

I overslept this morning, and I feel great.  Maybe there's something to this sleep thing...some connection between my mood and whether I'm suffering a somnial deficiency.  Could it be?  But then, what would become of my artistic side...are not the best of artists fueled by pain, misery, and a certain moody nature?

But no, peoples' natures are not something so fungible as that; I absolutely reject the principle behind allowing my physical circumstances such great influence on my mental state.  It doesn't matter if there are brain chemicals that are altering my mood if I consciously recognize and react to counter it.

What is the self, is what I'm getting at.  The sum of your moods and memories and all of it, which do you identify with?  Can I even make a difference by trying to squeeze out a single part -- the physical -- or am I doomed to failure?  Oh, Mark Twain, you knew everything!  Perhaps it was the cosmic cut of his life, so bound to the movement of the comets, that set his mind in such a naturally beneficial arrangement as to give him insight into the true form of existence.  He might stare for long hours into a flame, and see a hurricane within.  Could you do the same?

There is a short story by Roald Dahl which I read long ago and only very recently reread, known as "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar".  That link contains multiple stories, and all are well and good, but only Henry Sugar himself has stuck with me through the years.

The story concerns a fellow who is essentially a trust-fund baby in his late twenties, who spends all his time having fun with his similarly situated friends.  He enjoys partying, drinking, relaxing, and, above all, gambling.  For Dahl states that the chief concern of these adult rich kids is the growth of their wealth, for their great fortunes correspond to great fears that they might awaken one day to find the bank account empty.

Dahl isn't especially unkind to these; he sees them as having had the meaning stripped from their lives by fate, and if they enjoy themselves, then they enjoy themselves.  At least they aren't hurting anyone.  But in this story, he gives one a chance to redeem his pointless life.

Henry Sugar, through a twist of fate, comes across an old account written by a doctor, an interview with an Indian mystic who was able to see with his inner eye.  The mystic describes the training regimen he followed to develop this ability, including staring into the flame of a candle for hours every day, as well as reading cards from the reverse side.  This last especially catches the attention of the gambler Henry Sugar, and he immediately sets out to develop the abilities using the training scheme described in the tale.

Henry locks himself away from the world in absolute pursuit of these magical powers.  For years he does nothing but train laboriously, forcing himself to stare into flames and focus on cards for twelve hours or more each day.  He loses all of his friends and his former party lifestyle fades to a distant memory, but slowly, he comes to be able to see with his eyes closed, and then to see behind things with his eyes open.  And once he has developed the power to read cards, he focuses only on training that, and improves his time to visualization from four minutes to four seconds over the course of several more years.

When he has finally reached a point where he feels truly ready to bilk the casinos for all they're worth, he immediately stops his training and heads straight there.  He finds, over the course of a short evening, that he is easily able to focus and predict the outcome of every last one of the casino's games, to the point that winning is almost too easy.  He wisely avoids winning too much, and takes away a relatively small amount of money, but he comes away from it convinced that he could easily make millions every night.

He goes for a walk, and muses on the fact that something in him has changed.  The other guests at the casino, whom he used to see as his fellows and compatriots, he finds he can no longer relate to at all.  His old self would have been driven, after such a successful night on the town, to go out and celebrate with champagne.  It occurs to him that, in the course of single-mindedly pursuing these powers that would allow him to make all the money in the world, he has lost his great desire for making money.

That was the part of the story that stuck with me the most.  It may be that you dedicate yourself and achieve something great, only to find that the journey has left you with no desire for your initial object.  While this theme is usually used to a tragic end, Dahl gives it a more positive spin, by filling Henry with the desire to use his money to a good end.  He spends the rest of his life traveling the world, bilking casinos all over, and using the money to open world-class orphanages in as many countries as he can.

It's well worth a read.  It's not one of the works Dahl is most famous for, and I only found it because of my tendency to obsessively seek out all the product created by my favorite artists.  But I am glad that I did, because unlike so many of his other creations, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is a true story.

aut vincere aut mori

I was invited to a fantasy football league at work!  I don't really understand this "football" thing, and the fantasy element was completely alien to me, but I was able to name my team and choose a cool logo!

I present to you:

THE NEW SCOTT RODEO

This team of misfits is rarin' to go!  I am pretty sure we are going to score some touchdowns, and maybe a safety or two!

Actually, I'm not a complete ignoramus when it comes to the vicissitudes of that most American of Sports; my friends endeavored gaily to indoctrinate me into the ways of the gridiron last year, and though they mostly failed utterly, I came out of it with a minor understanding of the rules, ways, and means of passing a little oblong ball up and down a grassy plain.

I've got some players, some lines, some measuring tape, and a few guys in convict's outfits I rented from Halloween Adventure.  I am ready to GET THIS GAME UNDERWAY.

After letting the website do most of the drafting for me, because I Do Not Understand That Stuff, I set my sights on trying to figure out what I need to do to win this fantasy football thing.  Lo and behold, the crux of the matter is determining which teams get more "points," which are granted for special "plays" performed by specific "players" which have been "drafted" to that team.  Regardless of actual earthly team allegiance, a player's individual performance (or, maddeningly, a whole team's defensive performance) is the sole measure by which each fantasy team of diversely sourced athletes derives its success or failure.  Specific plays are granted a certain number of points per position based on a variety of factors including yardage and...I don't know.  Probably something else, something very football-y.  Sacks must figure prominently in there somewhere.  Burlap sacks.

With resin.

As I stared at pages and pages of tables, at millions of productive man-hours being poured down a bottomless funnel of fake football, the charts and numbers began to swirl together, and it transformed from a heroic battle of armored warriors into...a bunch of imaginary numbers being calculated over and over again, and forming a pretend outcome.  It was like...well.  I'll let the charts do the talking.

Can you tell which of the above is from fantasy football, and which is from Dungeons & Dragons?  Now, friends, I play Dungeons & Dragons (or games like it) on a weekly basis; I possess a Star Wars lunch bag; I have been known to attend the Renaissance Faire twice in one season.  I, in fact, consider myself a literal scholar of the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series by George R. R. Martin.  Despite all this, I can state with confidence that I have never encountered anything nearly as nerdy as fantasy football and the statistical machinations and analyses that go into its planning and execution.  If I weren't a more tolerant and understanding person, pleased to permit each individual to enjoy whatsoever pastime he chooses, I would be utterly embarrassed for the people who actually look forward to this.

It's true that there isn't anything special or appealing to me about football, fantasy or otherwise.  But I know that people take such great joy in it -- and, knowing that, it's something that I should endeavor to appreciate, as well.  Else how shall I ever claim to understand the swell and throng of humanity, were I not to taste of the same fruits they have?  We are only ever above those who think themselves our betters, and the same goes for everyone.  Enjoy yourselves!

spirit shanty

BEING A STATELY DELINEATION OF ONE MAN'S ABSORPTION INTO THAT BOOK ENTITLED "MOBY-DICK; OR, THE WHALE."

I read it and I am haunted by the shadows of heroes and villains that fall endlessly across history, that stretch infinitely into the human psyche and onwards.  And should humanity ever attain the stars, then so too will we carry these shadows with us into the vast unlimited depths of that second black sea!

I'm not done the book, not by a long shot, but its harpooneer's hook is in me with a vengeance, and the call of the icy waves is strong.  On the drive to work, I find myself scanning the horizon for the telltale spout of the Leviathan; I battle the elements alongside my fellows in our daily scrimmage to make our livelihoods; above all, I listen sharp for the impending thump of the old devil's ivory leg against the plank, the sooner to set myself to business or, better yet, to make myself as scarce as the great white whale which represents his sole object!

But I'm no Ishmael, no; our similarly sanguine stance on the whole of human nature and equivalence of human experience aside, he throws himself against the rocks of life in flight from a pressure I've never known.  He seeks his dissolution with the single-minded furor of one utterly disgusted with a world he claims to enjoy.  On the contrary, I merely await my dissolution with fond patience, looking forward to the chance to lay down my burdens, but not seeking to hasten it in any way.  I have never Gone to Sea.

No, there are other characters with whom I share a resonance much stronger:

[Starbuck,] a staid, steadfast man, whose life for the most part was a telling pantomime of action, and not a tame chapter of words.  Yet, for all his hardy sobriety and fortitude, there were certain qualities in him which at times affected, and in some cases seemed well nigh to overbalance all the rest.  Uncommonly conscientious for a seaman, and endued with a deep natural reverence, the wild watery loneliness of his life did therefore strongly incline him to superstition; but to that sort of superstition, which in some organizations seems rather to spring, somehow, from intelligence than from ignorance.  Outward portents and inward presentiments were his.  And if at times these things bent the welded iron of his soul, much more did his far-away domestic memories of his young Cape wife and child, tend to bend him still more from the original ruggedness of his nature, and open him still further to those latent influences which, in some honest-hearted men, restrain the gush of dare-devil daring, so often evinced by others in the more perilous vicissitudes of the fishery.  "I will have no man in my boat," said Starbuck, "who is not afraid of a whale."  By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.

I have never been much fond of Starbucks, but I think it may be time to make an exception.   There is some value in fear, as pure fearlessness is a fool's indicator; but in too much fear, there is nothing but failure and loss.  For what can you have to lose?  Your comfortable life, your self-respect, your easygoing contentment with the design of the world -- these are all things you have constructed for yourself, things that do not exist, things that can cease to exist through a moment's twist of hard-hearted fate.  Be unlike the busy ant, who sets himself to work only to have his efforts crushed by the indifferent boot of destiny!  Instead, make yourself like that idle grasshopper, who flies easily from one calamity to the other.  And if he should starve for lack of industry, well, the ant wasn't going to live forever.  Someday, we will all starve of something or other; let it not be a lack of nourishment for your soul that does you in.  Go out and contrive to make something of yourself, even if it be nothing more than an end.  Look that Whale in the eye!

providence sickness

I haven't spoken much in this space about dreams.  I've mentioned them obliquely, and you can catch hints and glimpses of their shapes in some of the darker corners of the blog, but as an overt subject?  Nothing.  How can that be?  Dreams are so fundamental, so foundational, such a firm indicator of who we are.

When I started learning Japanese, one of the first things that amazed me was the fact that the Japanese word for dream, 夢 (yume), shares its double meaning with the word 'dream' in English:  it can refer to either the visions we receive at night, or our most powerful goals and ambitions.  I was floored that these two languages which had nothing whatsoever in common in their formation or history, which in fact lacked a common context, had nevertheless arrived at a similar conclusion.  I'm not sure if any other languages share that dual meaning, although I'm sure some must.  It's no surprise that there's something inseparable about the things we see in our sleep and our deepest desires; still, to equate the two linguistically is very powerful.

Of course, English goes a step beyond Japanese in this regard.  There is a verbal difference in how you relate to dreams in Japanese; to see something in your sleep is to see a dream, and to possess a goal is to have a dream.  In English, we have a dream either way.

This next point touches directly on a point I hit a few times in some of my plays; it's the question of "what do I do next?"  I was talking with a friend today and she confessed to me that she's battled a vague, unanticipated sense of dissatisfaction ever since she achieved the greatest goal she had ever set for herself.  After surmounting a seemingly insurmountable obstacle, she's left to wonder what her next goal should be.  I understand that feeling all too well.  I have met every major goal I have set for myself in life, and accomplishing each just made me happy for a little bit before I regressed to looking forward to the next.

Not everyone needs to be driven to extreme goals.  But that's the funny thing about climbing steep hills -- the shallow slopes no longer seem as appealing as they once may have.  After all, you think, I am capable of so much more.  But it's much easier to realize that fact than it is to settle on the next hill you'll climb.

As far back as I can remember, I have been greatly distrustful of things that come too easily.  I remember, when I was six years old, remarking that I would never trust anybody who had absolute, 100% confidence in his own rightness -- such a person was certain to be fooling himself.  That sort of total and complete faith is just too easy to be real, too good to be true.  The same goes for all things that might fall into my lap.  I am compelled to fight for things, or I cannot value them.  Some people say "just sit back and enjoy!"  And it seems that it is possible to do so; that for many, life will provide.  But I reject that simplicity of pleasure, that paucity of experience, that embrace of mediocrity!  No food tastes so sweet as that which you brought into reality through the sheer force of your own will.  Nothing you watch will ever hold a candle to what you do.

If I can identify a dream, if I hold any such, it is this:  to never rest content in what life hands me, and to always push for more.  Let me create ten times what I consume; let me love a hundred times more than I am loved; let me search for all that which lies beyond sight, and connect in darkness with the grasping fingers of all those similarly disposed to myself!  I will stand tall above the greatest mountains, never accept that I can be less, and if I fall, I will do so as satisfied in my own course as I have been all along.

That's a big dream.  It may be unattainable.  But if you must choose a dream that can never be fully satisfied, let it be one as wildly ambitious as possible.  You never know.

begin to begin again

I have made it through!  Thank you for coming along on this little ride into the power of theatre.  I'm sorry about the long stretch of silence; when you work at an academic institution, the end of August is an extraordinarily busy time.  I was also battling a pretty severe cold on top of it, so I really had no time to post these, even though I was writing them all along.

Play #20 - The Limit

Play #21 - Tree of Life

Play #22 - Precipices

Play #23 - Self-Defense

Play #24 - Suspense

Play #25 - Children of Tantalus

Play #26 - It Grows on You

Play #27 - Emotional Rollercoaster

Play #28 - Itinerary

Play #29 - Suburban Bliss

Play #30 - Last Rites

Play #31 - Gold Intentions

So that's it -- 31 Plays in 31 Days.  It was a lot of fun, and I think I learned a fair amount about what goes into writing plays (whether I was able to put that education to use, you'll have to decide!).  Great thanks to my friend Gabrielle for suggesting that I participate!

Now it's September, eternal September, and that means it's time to write a blog post every day.  I felt that last year's effort was moderately successful; successful as a writing exercise, less so as an actual written product.  This year, I'd like to be a bit more out-and-out entertaining.  Having given up on "writing for myself," I'm now writing solidly because I enjoy it, and getting people to read my stuff is a big part of the fun.  That doesn't mean I intend to stop writing if I feel under-read (perish the thought).  I think I've found the distinction I was missing before in "writing for myself."  When I write should be for me.  What I write can be for others.

Matt Zoller Seitz, a film critic for whose writing and opinions I hold tremendous respect and admiration, wrote an article providing advice to young and aspiring critics.  Certainly, my ambition is not to be a Film Critic, in that I don't dream of providing critical analysis on films any more than other subjects; still, I think his tips are excellent in general for anyone who wants to be taken seriously as a writer or a person.

I especially like his tip #9 - "Just write, damn it."  It doesn't seem so complicated when you put it like that.

I don't expect this to be a very poetry-heavy month, as I plan to do a poem every day in October.  But, in the spirit in which this blog was founded, I would like to provide an excerpt from a poem I wrote recently:

I wrote and unwrote with the effort of one
Driven by the endless roaring gulph inside,
Who sought just a moment’s rest from fire.
Having cast the words into the flames, I realized late
That smoke, too, sends a message.

There are four stanzas to that poem, which is titled "A Surfeit of Wishes."  Another line from that poem:

But what ghost cannot fade invisibly?

I suspect that all ghosts possess this power.

I also suspect that I'm going to spend plenty of time this month writing goofy things that are hard to follow and engage with.  And I'm sorry, to a point!  All of these ideas burst out of me in great cascades, and so few of them are fully expressible in such pithy things as words.  Were there a way to hook our brains directly together, to feed the ephemeral insights and spectral epiphanalia into your corteces without such complications as the busywork of language interfering, you might not find me so confoundingly obtuse after all.  As it is, as we are, the work of communication must yet be shackled to this vain and foolhardy mechanism, constructed by each of us for our own use, with little enough regard given to the needs, wants, and realities of others.  What I'm saying is:  please read close.

Things you may expect this month:

• Another letter or so to my dear friend Caius
• Some meditations on the powers and inferences of games
• A frustrated, stream-of-consciousness cry from the abyssal realms to the halls of the infinite
• Complaints about the elusiveness of sleep
• Too little said in too many words
• Things that are not arcs described as arcs
• I will explain what the deal is with Lovecraft
• A narrative explanation of my playwriting process (my own little Adaptation)
• A few book and movie reviews that will make you feel like I think you are inadequate for not loving these things the way I do (I do)
• Probably something I've cooked
• Wit!  Wisdom!  Wanderlust!
• A solo trip to Orlando in which I do not even try to go to a theme park
• Themes of rebirth and self-reliance

Sojourn along with me, my friends, into this dreamworld of magic!