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reenkawah. i'm such a basketcase. but, wibbling aside, i don't know how to express what are basically semi-spiritual (not religious at all, just....) viewpoints without sounding like a milquetoast sentimental fool. at a certain point, when i'm talking about possibilities rather than necessarily realities, i forget how to be entirely rational, and i don't know if i have to be. when i say "redemption", people snap to some sort of christian ideal, and i don't mean that at all. when i say you don't have to be trapped by who you are, i don't mean you could become a saint. just because i struggle with the ideas of good and evil, doesn't mean i accept them in the first place.
this song. i want to see more viewpoints like that. i want to see love as being a revelation about yourself. not going anywhere, but merely acknowledging the madness and the need to let go of illusions. any two people i write in love-- but especially if i see them as laboring under illusion-- is it too much to want to break it? is that sentimental of me? just because i don't have the answers, do i need to accept the ones that other people think are inevitably sewn into the fabric of "reality"?
now, okay. see, i'm taking two philosophy courses this semester. take pity on me. you might say that there are places enlightenment and seeking a deeper truth shouldn't penetrate. i don't believe it. i see this idea of being a death eater, of being bound to an ideology, of being born and bred to be a certain way (savior or follower, destroyer or redeemer-- and note, riddle thinks of himself as a redeemer even as he destroys)-- i see it there as a challenge, as something that exists to be challenged. it's like-- i can never separate my desire to write about heretics, to write about non-conformism. now, you can write about that by writing about conformists, true. but i think that's too narrow. i want to write about being both. i want to write/read about draco opening his eyes. and not becoming good. and not becoming great. and not even becoming palatable.
this are so much more complicated than that. if you forget about fiction, and think about real people, you realize that. you realize that even merely -realizing- who you are, where you are-- even realizing what choices you are making-- letting that touch you-- even that self-awareness is already more than most people attain. i'm tired of black and white. i'm tired of people using the Mark as the be-all-and-end-all. i'm tired of the simplistic morality inherent in so many stories.
all i want is an approach towards self-realization-- i don't need its attainment. if anything, that's beyond the scope of most stories set within a year or two. all i want is an opening up of these characters-- seeing where you could take them, seeing where they could take you. i'm not about to claim there are any easy answers, but i think 99% of h/d stories anyway (my field of relative expertise), whether they're in-character or not, imply them.
you know what's funny?![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
verdant05 recently said that she wants to see a serious dealing with Issues in fanfic, and i rather scoffed and said, "oh, that's asking too much," sort of. heh. and here i am, implying (even if unsuccessfully) paradoxes that stumped famous philosophers. but it's not about answers, anyway. that's what i'm saying. it's not about answers. it's about questions.
i wonder if there's such a thing as being too upbeat. well, obviously there is. i don't know if i am. i get called an optimist-- as if i believe in some sort of higher order, as if i think things just -have- to work out, in the end. i don't. i just think triumph-- transcendence-- is always within one's grasp, merely a change in perspective. i think stories are most effective when they show us possibilities, rather than only limitations.
i think love can transcend tragedy. i think you can die without regrets. i think you can attain a sort of peace with darkness, merely by looking at it without flinching. a sort of belief in the invisible, in the intangible-- a belief in the strength of one's spirit-- is required here. a metaphor that keeps occurring to me is the vision of someone standing on the edge of a cliff, or a really tall building. and then they smile, looking blissful, and tumble, arms out-spread. and that moment of free-fall-- i think that moment is life itself.
it occurs to me that this is a classic tarot card image, and perhaps that's why it's so powerful to me. an interesting idea, i think, is to write harry/draco using the traditional deck. there are very heavy resonances there, i think, in terms of symbolic structures. first of all, that image makes me think strongly of The Fool. another strong h/d image (to me) is The Hanged Man, rooted as it is in contradiction and paradox, in the inexpressible, victory by surrender. The Magician. The Devil (obviously). The Lovers (especially since there's the strong duality between `the devil' and `the lovers'-- in one, you have the angel standing over the lovers, in the other you have the devil). Two of Swords. Wheel of Fortune. and also, i think, The Tower - downfall and revelation. falling. whereas `the fool' stands at the precipice, `the tower' is where it all tumbles down. ...
laughing through the tears. accepting the limitations of knowledge. believing in yourself even though you fail, and you will fail again, and again, and again. there's the connection, there-- love is also free-fall. everything tells you you will die, and pain is imminent. the wind rushing around you, there's a feeling of freedom, and exhilaration, and fear. i think it's your own decision, whether you fly or fall. i think it's a question of perspective, a direction of consciousness, a question of Will.
fatalseafood's post about harry & draco's (lack of) prospects is certainly not the first of its kind, and won't be the last. we are who we are. we can't change. war is war. who we were determines who we will be. we are trapped by our definitions, we are not at leisure to challenge what appears to be destiny. we may struggle, we may passionately desire, we may hate or we may love, but we may not change.
i don't think my reply really touched upon enough points. there is so much to say-- and yet almost nothing i can say. hope isn't something i can prove. the power of one's will-- a person's inherent ability to change-- the strength hidden inside us-- these things you have to either experience or believe in. i believe in change because if i didn't, the world would be a prison.
i'm not blind. i can see the pain, the suffering, the tragedy all around me, the seeming inevitability of it, the way people -don't- change, the way the same mistakes get made over and over. in a way, i think it is only in stories, only within imagination that anyone's ever found "the solution". war, pain, anger, fear-- they have no solution. the past is the past, and we are who we are, and love alone won't change that, yes. i think it is merely an axiom-- saying love is endless, hope is endless. and yet, it is the only way i can think of, the only solution that seems to work in my mind.
the fic i'm writing right now for the armchair challenge, is holding me up because i'm trying to deal with this huge theme of personal change, of choices. there are so many stories that either sweeten or darken everything. and yet the truth-- the multitude of possibilities for truth-- is so much more frightening, so much more vast. life is so uninteresting unless you really believe in free will. there needs to be this possibility of change-- that one day-- you can wake up and decide to take a different path. and you won't be a different person. you will still be the same person. but your actions could change-- your attitudes could change. there are many stories about this. and it is not "just love" that can save you-- love alone can't do much. what's needed is a realization of -need-, and a hope for oneself, a leap of the imagination.
maybe i simply can't believe in or desire a love that simply can't inspire you, a sort of impotent, pale imitation of emotion. if this love is impotent, if it is merely there to tease you with things you can't have, won't ever acquire the courage to attain, why bother? if we are who we are, and love is merely decorative, why bother writing about it? if at the end of the day, you are going to leave your characters where they started, why did they make the journey in the first place?
am i just talking in circles, spouting some sort of new-agey mumbo-jumbo? that's what my ex would've said. truth is, i've been in love, and it changed me, but it hadn't changed them. they remained in their shell. things only change you if you let them, a lot of the time. there's a vulnerability involved here, and a willingness to take the leap.
and wah, i'm thinking of `love under will' a lot right now (dunno if that's obvious or not), and `leap before you look', which was the quote for the last chapter of luw. *sigh* disintegration goes so hand-in-hand with completion, and danger is merely the feeling you get when the possibilities suddenly cease to be predictable and you begin to get the idea of freedom. need is only the first step. the interesting thing is, though, that as a writer, you also have to let go, to let the possibilities multiply. you can't afford to cling to your certainties, to the safe places where you think you understand how things work. it is when it begins to be painful to imagine, and unlikely, and possibly insane, that i believe you start really getting at the heart of things.
i probably made like, no sense. *sigh* just-- nothing is hopeless, most especially not love. is it really being a raging optimist to merely claim this inherent flexibility in the universe? there's no such thing as an immovable destiny. there's no such thing as inevitability in emotion. you could never convince me that there's only one valid path for someone's life to take. on the other hand, if your character doesn't find hope, doesn't change-- they're as good as dead. a static emotion, a static self is a self in the process of disintegration. even if draco -does- turn to the dark side, becomes a death eater (which i don't think he will, but no matter)-- he could stop. snape stopped. you could always just-- stop. and even though you can't really -turn around-, you could always-- take the side road. somehow.
~~
oh. andfyrie's lucius pic is... wow. i actually like it ><
EDIT - gah.antenora can do no wrong. her latest h/d ficlet simply -owns- me. waahhhh.
this song. i want to see more viewpoints like that. i want to see love as being a revelation about yourself. not going anywhere, but merely acknowledging the madness and the need to let go of illusions. any two people i write in love-- but especially if i see them as laboring under illusion-- is it too much to want to break it? is that sentimental of me? just because i don't have the answers, do i need to accept the ones that other people think are inevitably sewn into the fabric of "reality"?
now, okay. see, i'm taking two philosophy courses this semester. take pity on me. you might say that there are places enlightenment and seeking a deeper truth shouldn't penetrate. i don't believe it. i see this idea of being a death eater, of being bound to an ideology, of being born and bred to be a certain way (savior or follower, destroyer or redeemer-- and note, riddle thinks of himself as a redeemer even as he destroys)-- i see it there as a challenge, as something that exists to be challenged. it's like-- i can never separate my desire to write about heretics, to write about non-conformism. now, you can write about that by writing about conformists, true. but i think that's too narrow. i want to write about being both. i want to write/read about draco opening his eyes. and not becoming good. and not becoming great. and not even becoming palatable.
this are so much more complicated than that. if you forget about fiction, and think about real people, you realize that. you realize that even merely -realizing- who you are, where you are-- even realizing what choices you are making-- letting that touch you-- even that self-awareness is already more than most people attain. i'm tired of black and white. i'm tired of people using the Mark as the be-all-and-end-all. i'm tired of the simplistic morality inherent in so many stories.
all i want is an approach towards self-realization-- i don't need its attainment. if anything, that's beyond the scope of most stories set within a year or two. all i want is an opening up of these characters-- seeing where you could take them, seeing where they could take you. i'm not about to claim there are any easy answers, but i think 99% of h/d stories anyway (my field of relative expertise), whether they're in-character or not, imply them.
you know what's funny?
verdant05 recently said that she wants to see a serious dealing with Issues in fanfic, and i rather scoffed and said, "oh, that's asking too much," sort of. heh. and here i am, implying (even if unsuccessfully) paradoxes that stumped famous philosophers. but it's not about answers, anyway. that's what i'm saying. it's not about answers. it's about questions.i wonder if there's such a thing as being too upbeat. well, obviously there is. i don't know if i am. i get called an optimist-- as if i believe in some sort of higher order, as if i think things just -have- to work out, in the end. i don't. i just think triumph-- transcendence-- is always within one's grasp, merely a change in perspective. i think stories are most effective when they show us possibilities, rather than only limitations.
i think love can transcend tragedy. i think you can die without regrets. i think you can attain a sort of peace with darkness, merely by looking at it without flinching. a sort of belief in the invisible, in the intangible-- a belief in the strength of one's spirit-- is required here. a metaphor that keeps occurring to me is the vision of someone standing on the edge of a cliff, or a really tall building. and then they smile, looking blissful, and tumble, arms out-spread. and that moment of free-fall-- i think that moment is life itself.
it occurs to me that this is a classic tarot card image, and perhaps that's why it's so powerful to me. an interesting idea, i think, is to write harry/draco using the traditional deck. there are very heavy resonances there, i think, in terms of symbolic structures. first of all, that image makes me think strongly of The Fool. another strong h/d image (to me) is The Hanged Man, rooted as it is in contradiction and paradox, in the inexpressible, victory by surrender. The Magician. The Devil (obviously). The Lovers (especially since there's the strong duality between `the devil' and `the lovers'-- in one, you have the angel standing over the lovers, in the other you have the devil). Two of Swords. Wheel of Fortune. and also, i think, The Tower - downfall and revelation. falling. whereas `the fool' stands at the precipice, `the tower' is where it all tumbles down. ...
laughing through the tears. accepting the limitations of knowledge. believing in yourself even though you fail, and you will fail again, and again, and again. there's the connection, there-- love is also free-fall. everything tells you you will die, and pain is imminent. the wind rushing around you, there's a feeling of freedom, and exhilaration, and fear. i think it's your own decision, whether you fly or fall. i think it's a question of perspective, a direction of consciousness, a question of Will.
fatalseafood's post about harry & draco's (lack of) prospects is certainly not the first of its kind, and won't be the last. we are who we are. we can't change. war is war. who we were determines who we will be. we are trapped by our definitions, we are not at leisure to challenge what appears to be destiny. we may struggle, we may passionately desire, we may hate or we may love, but we may not change.i don't think my reply really touched upon enough points. there is so much to say-- and yet almost nothing i can say. hope isn't something i can prove. the power of one's will-- a person's inherent ability to change-- the strength hidden inside us-- these things you have to either experience or believe in. i believe in change because if i didn't, the world would be a prison.
i'm not blind. i can see the pain, the suffering, the tragedy all around me, the seeming inevitability of it, the way people -don't- change, the way the same mistakes get made over and over. in a way, i think it is only in stories, only within imagination that anyone's ever found "the solution". war, pain, anger, fear-- they have no solution. the past is the past, and we are who we are, and love alone won't change that, yes. i think it is merely an axiom-- saying love is endless, hope is endless. and yet, it is the only way i can think of, the only solution that seems to work in my mind.
the fic i'm writing right now for the armchair challenge, is holding me up because i'm trying to deal with this huge theme of personal change, of choices. there are so many stories that either sweeten or darken everything. and yet the truth-- the multitude of possibilities for truth-- is so much more frightening, so much more vast. life is so uninteresting unless you really believe in free will. there needs to be this possibility of change-- that one day-- you can wake up and decide to take a different path. and you won't be a different person. you will still be the same person. but your actions could change-- your attitudes could change. there are many stories about this. and it is not "just love" that can save you-- love alone can't do much. what's needed is a realization of -need-, and a hope for oneself, a leap of the imagination.
maybe i simply can't believe in or desire a love that simply can't inspire you, a sort of impotent, pale imitation of emotion. if this love is impotent, if it is merely there to tease you with things you can't have, won't ever acquire the courage to attain, why bother? if we are who we are, and love is merely decorative, why bother writing about it? if at the end of the day, you are going to leave your characters where they started, why did they make the journey in the first place?
am i just talking in circles, spouting some sort of new-agey mumbo-jumbo? that's what my ex would've said. truth is, i've been in love, and it changed me, but it hadn't changed them. they remained in their shell. things only change you if you let them, a lot of the time. there's a vulnerability involved here, and a willingness to take the leap.
and wah, i'm thinking of `love under will' a lot right now (dunno if that's obvious or not), and `leap before you look', which was the quote for the last chapter of luw. *sigh* disintegration goes so hand-in-hand with completion, and danger is merely the feeling you get when the possibilities suddenly cease to be predictable and you begin to get the idea of freedom. need is only the first step. the interesting thing is, though, that as a writer, you also have to let go, to let the possibilities multiply. you can't afford to cling to your certainties, to the safe places where you think you understand how things work. it is when it begins to be painful to imagine, and unlikely, and possibly insane, that i believe you start really getting at the heart of things.
i probably made like, no sense. *sigh* just-- nothing is hopeless, most especially not love. is it really being a raging optimist to merely claim this inherent flexibility in the universe? there's no such thing as an immovable destiny. there's no such thing as inevitability in emotion. you could never convince me that there's only one valid path for someone's life to take. on the other hand, if your character doesn't find hope, doesn't change-- they're as good as dead. a static emotion, a static self is a self in the process of disintegration. even if draco -does- turn to the dark side, becomes a death eater (which i don't think he will, but no matter)-- he could stop. snape stopped. you could always just-- stop. and even though you can't really -turn around-, you could always-- take the side road. somehow.
~~
oh. and
fyrie's lucius pic is... wow. i actually like it ><EDIT - gah.
antenora can do no wrong. her latest h/d ficlet simply -owns- me. waahhhh.
