Writing Tip: Excavating

I've heard four differently famous creative people talk about writing as excavating. Stephen King -- master of the horror, macabre, and popular literature. Donald Miller -- Anne Lamott with christian testosterone. It's a concept discussed in the mind-bendingly good Inception. And just last night I heard Andrew Stanton, director/writer of Finding Nemo, Wall-E, and more, talk about it.

Writing isn't just about creating. When you think of writing as "making it up" it's a loss. You are limiting yourself to your voice and your thoughts. But true writing (and art) comes from discovering a truth that already exists - excavating a dinosaur bone.

It's hard to explain, I think. The truth of the matter is that you find a story, in yourself. The story already exists - you are simply excavating it. You are uncovering a fossil system and putting it back together - creating the best dinosaur you can. And sometimes, you have to have the courage to realize that the dinosaur you thought you had isn't the dinosaur you do have. Too many people and writers try to force their story into the dinosaur they want - and it's a poor showing.

This is true of not just stories we're writing, but stories we're living. Sometimes, you have to realize that what you have been living isn't the best story you could be. Sometimes, you have to have the courage to change your story.

Because I think I lied earlier - You don't find the story in you.

You are found in the story.

Inception Review

If you haven't seen Inception, don't worry about reading this review. There's not really a twist to ruin and I won't go into depths of the story...

I'll make this quick - go see Inception. It's an amazing film. Very exquisitely layered, it rewards multiple viewings and discussion. Christopher Nolan has become one of my favorite directors - from the ironically unforgettable Memento, to the mind bending Prestige, and through the two best made Batman films, I haven't seen anything by him yet I haven't liked. I'm putting Insomnia on my netflix queue now simply because he was the director.

Gosh, I don't even know how to begin with Inception. It's a really cool story in and of itself - a heist film set in a dreamworld. But some of the concepts take it beyond being just a heist film...

I loved it. It's just amazing. Go see it.

Minor Spoilerish Discussion:

For those of you who have seen it: How do you interpret the end? Here's my theory : perhaps the entire film is an "inception" to Cobb in the same way they were "incepting" Fisher.

Random Thoughts: Being Known

I think one of the scariest things in my life is being known.

It’s very difficult for me. I score a 3 on the enneagram test, which means that I tend to wear a face when I’m with people. I tend to wear whatever face is going to be most well received. This means that I make a very good salesman or performer.

This also means that it’s very hard for me to let down those masks. It’s hard for me to let people see who I really am and what really matters to me; I think in some ways this is a result of my parents. My experiences growing up taught me that if I communicated what did matter to me, then I would learn that it didn’t matter to the person I was communicating with.

So it scares me when people know me before I want them to. My wife does this all the time. It use to terrify me when we were dating – she would say something flippantly, and it would cut to through every façade and mask I had built.

And I took some of that thought process, how terrifying it can be to be known, and started to apply it to God. God had to risk everything that He had, in a sense, to love us. For an omnipotent being, the only possible loss is that of rejection by another being with will. And for an omniscient being, God must have known it would happen. But God still chose to risk and love us anyway.

For me, that means that I must choose to risk and love anyway. It’s easy enough when it comes to my wife (well, most days anyway). But it’s more difficult when it comes to the people who have hurt me in the past – friends, enemies, family. Perhaps especially family.

So that’s my challenge, to you, for today. Look at your life – who is it most risky to love? Who has the most potential to let you down? How will you love them anyway?

Mashup: The Decision and Evangelism

Authors note: Mashup is a new series here at Thoughts on Life... The point of the series is to take something and view it was an allegory for something else. Mashups are intended to be funny and perhaps thought provoking. Today, we'll talk about Lebron James and Christianity.

The biggest news story in the last week was undoubtedly (for better or worse) "The Decision" - where would Lebron James, NBA superstar, sign? He had a few options. Cleveland was his hometown but a perennial disappointment. The New York Knicks offered everything they thought they could (including more money than anyone else). And finally, the Miami Heat gave Lebron a chance to play with his buddies.

In this allegory, Cleveland are the fundamentalists, the strong-arm conservatives, the type of people who believe that the King James is the Authorized Version, and any deviation from their expectation (of the King James Bible) is a sin. People who leave fundamentalism might be thought of as "narcissistic" or as exhibiting "cowardly behavior."

We also have the Knicks to consider. They're playing the part of the modern church - seeker sensitive. The Knicks tried to be all emcompassing and meet every one of Lebron's needs. They were showering him with money and promises of being a "global icon." They were willing to bend over backwards and sink their team for three or four years in order to afford Lebron. The Knicks would have done anything to see Lebron join them.

And of course, Miami. Miami's premise was simple - we'll let you play with two of your good friends.

Long story short, Lebron chose Miami to play with Wade and Bosh. So in this example, a person chose relationships over money, fame, loyalty, and possibly (it remains to be seen) championships.

Admittedly, this allegory breaks down if you expand it. When you start considering James's selfishness, the Chicago Bulls, and secret pacts made in communist China, the allegory doesn't work. Still, interesting to think about, eh?

Importance

I really like the cloud that appears at the bottom of the right column on this blog.

What the cloud is is a ordering of what I've tagged different posts to be about. So anytime I wrote a post about choices or abortion and tagged that I did, it is referenced in the cloud. The more often I refer to something, the larger the link to that tag becomes.

So here are some of the largest tags:

Random Thoughts

Movies

Reviews

Somebody Smarter Said

Hey Neat-O

The last two are long running "series." Random Thoughts is just thought - random musings. Two of them - including the predominate heavyweight "Reviews" refer mostly to movies.

Why is that I spend so much time musing on movies? Even my most recent series "Signs" was headlined by movie quotes.

I think it's because in some ways movies can say things that are true even when they are a fictional enterprise. Books can do this too; but books are entirely a visual medium. Movies are increasingly multisensual - stimulating vision and hearing and even olfactory and taste senses.

There are true aspects to movies. Sometimes I wonder if I could ever get involved with moviemaking. I read a book recently and all I could think about was how cool of a movie it would make - how I would frame the shots for maximum suspense, what sort of music, how to avoid being cliche...

I wrote a screenplay once. It was four pages long and was a love story told between different types of IHOP syrups. I won an award at school, and briefly thought about continuing down that path. But I never did. You can found the original video on my facebook page (I believe the youtube page has had the audio track removed for copyright violations).

I just recently created my first animated film. It's below, and I entered it into the Million Miles Short Film Contest. Didn't win, but I didn't really try.

I guess what I'm wondering and rambling on about is whether I should continue this path. It could end up with me winning an academy award someday, or perhaps I'll create dumb little skitvideos for church use.

I have no idea what this post was going to be, and this is what it is. Strange world.

Signs: "Is it possible there are no coincidences?"

I catch a lot of flak for my favorite movies. I list my favorite three movies, in no particular order, as Jaws, Lord of the Rings, and Signs. Most people understand Lord of the Rings; a few people smile at Jaws; and everyone says "What the Heck" when I say Signs.

But I really love that movie. It's terrifying but it's also thoughtful and inspiring. If you never seen it, put it on your netflix queue. Rent it from Blockbuster. It's a great story.

This movie is why I named this little blog series "Signs." I hope you've enjoyed the thoughts and I hope that they've stimulated you to think about life and God and luck in new and different ways. To end this little series, I thought it was appropriate to end with this quote, from one of the best moments of Signs. It sums it up - we have a choice between Group number 1 and Group number 2. Which group are you in?

"People break down into two groups. When they experience something lucky, group number one sees it as more than luck, more than coincidence. They see it as a sign, evidence, that there is someone up there, watching out for them. Group number two sees it as just pure luck. Just a happy turn of chance. I'm sure the people in group number two are looking at those fourteen lights in a very suspicious way. For them, the situation is a fifty-fifty. Could be bad, could be good. But deep down, they feel that whatever happens, they're on their own. And that fills them with fear. Yeah, there are those people. But there's a whole lot of people in group number one. When they see those fourteen lights, they're looking at a miracle. And deep down, they feel that whatever's going to happen, there will be someone there to help them. And that fills them with hope. See what you have to ask yourself is what kind of person are you? Are you the kind that sees signs, that sees miracles? Or do you believe that people just get lucky? Or, look at the question this way: Is it possible that there are no coincidences?"

Signs: "There are other forces at work in this world besides the will of evil."

So how do we reconcile some of what I've talked about with the Biblical presentation of God?

How can we use quantum physics to learn about Jesus?

Let's start by talking about Dimensions.

You and I operate in three and a half dimensions. We can move forward/backward and left/right and up/down. Obviously, there are constraints in that - we are bound by gravity and by the objects surrounding us. But we exert limited control over three dimensions.

We also experience a fourth dimension - time. Time is different because we exert no control over it. It happens to us.

Superstring theory posits that there may be as many as 11 dimensions. That means there are seven other dimensions that we do not experience. This is pretty impossible to wrap our heads around - scientists can't even begin to imagine what a new dimension is like. Let's try an exercise to imagine the difference.

Take your everyday world and subtract one dimension, width. You can still move forward and backwards, you can still jump up and down, but you can't move left or right. In fact, you have no concept of left and right. Everything is flat. You are Mario, before the N64. Your world is flat; it could balance on a razor blade.

How could Mario-You and Real3D-You interact? You have width; which means that Mario-You would never be able to see all of you. Mario-You would only be able to experience the tiniest sliver of your person at a time - they could see a razor's width of you at a time. It's like the old joke about 3 blind beggars feeling an elephant, but to an even greater extreme.

If you interacted with a 2 dimensional character, you would, for all intents and purposes, be a god to them. They could never harm you because they can barely interact with you. They could never really know you. You would have to become a 2 dimensional figure to interact and to be really known.

So that's the experience we have when we subtract a single dimension. Imagine adding seven. What if God operates in 11 dimensions? We could never really interact with God. He would be ultimately powerful and beyond our plane of understanding.

Read Hyperion by Dan Simmons to understand just how powerful you would be if you simply had control over the fourth dimension, time. That power, used for evil, would be catastrophic.

So my thought is that God operates in 11 dimensions (with the 11th dimension being perhaps Love?). And to interact and be fully known, he took on a persona of 3 dimensions...

As a being that is beyond our understanding, God created this world - in the same sort of way, perhaps, that we've created Mario and Minesweeper. And he built in certain mechanisms that work on a dimension that we don't understand.

One of those mechanisms is that of Affirmations, which we already discussed. I'm sure there are others.

This post is probably the most speculative of any in this series so far. It's entirely what I think. What do you think of my crackpot ideas?

Tune in Monday for a wrap up of the series.