Made Of Stories

I am made of stories.

Most of them are my own stories, in the form of memories, ideas about the world and how it should be navigated, or my beliefs about who I am.

I’m not going to talk about those right now.

But I am also built from other people’s stories or at least the way those stories shape me and my perceptions.

I’m talking about comic books. I’m talking about video games. I’m talking about movies and sports columns and television shows.

I’m don’t mean this symbolically. I have the Decepticon logo from Transformers tattooed on the inside of my right forearm. I am wearing a fake concert t-shirt featuring the Max Rebo Band from Return of the Jedi. These stories are a literal, physical part of the self I present to the world.

A t-shirt and a tattoo. Something I can put on and take off and something that’s a part of me. Shirts and skins.

My stories are like that too.

Let’s talk about shirts first.

*  *  *

I’ve never known a world without the original Star Wars trilogy.

It was so much a part of my life growing up, I have no idea if it’s I actually like it. I know the characters, the lines, but I don’t have an OPINION on it per se. That would be like having an opinion on gravity or weather.

Then again, whether Star Wars is good or not or how much I like it is beside the point.

To me, Star Wars is a community story, which is to say the story itself isn’t as important as its role as a marker of my cultural identity.

The interesting thing about stories in this role is not only is liking them or not beside the point, but also that stories don’t even need to be seen or experienced to engage with them on this level.

For example, a few weeks ago, an episode of the TV show Game of Thrones, one that ends with one of the show‘s major characters being sexually assaulted, is dominating the internet conversation.

The conversation is about the use of rape as a plot device.

I feel like I have to have a public opinion on this Game of Thrones episode even though I haven’t actually seen it (*), and I also feel this opinion says something about the kind of person I am.

In other words, we aren’t talking about the stories. We are using them as jumping off point to publicly identify where we stand on social issues, our cultural identity, or our belief systems.

It‘s a way of saying who you are and which tribe you belong to. The stories themselves are beside the point. My opinion tells other people what kind of person I am.

Star Wars shirts are like that. Over the last few years, I have watched much MUCH more UFC than I have Star Wars. But I would never wear a UFC t-shirt. It’s not because I’m ashamed of watching UFC, but because mixed martial arts does not feel like part of my public identity. It’s not the first thing I want people to know about me.

I don’t wear Star Wars t-shirts because I feel a connection with Han Solo. I wear it so other people know I know Star Wars and we can quote Han Solo line at one another.

But Star Wars is not a part of me. Like the shirt, it’s something I can take off.

Not every story is like that.

*  *  *

There’s another way I engage with stories. It’s more primal, more direct, and harder to explain because as soon as I try to put it into words, I feel as though I’ve put something between me and my experience.

No explanation is required. It hits you or it doesn’t.

In some ways, music is a great example of this. I can write about Queensryche or Vinnie Vincent Invasion all I like. None of those words will ever be able to make you feel what I feel when I listen to them. I can write about how these songs mattered to me, but can never make you feel what I felt when they first touched my life.

Sometimes the personal becomes part of our identity. Skid Row was a big part of my life during the late eighties early nineties. It was personal to me. Now…not so much.  So I consider myself a Skid Row fan even though years pass without me listening to their music and when I do my only connection with the music is sentimental--hey, I remember that song. And these lyrics coming up are ones I used to really like (**).

Sometimes the community prevents me from wanting to make a personal connection with the material. I remember the hype around The Phantom Menace when it came out. I distinctly recall walking into a department store and seeing row and row of Phantom Menace projects--coloring books, action figures, puzzles, posters as far as the eye could see.

And I thought, Nope. I don’t need to see this movie.

I still haven’t.

Sometimes, the fact that there is no community or cultural narrative built up around a show leaves me more space to engage with the material. I can quietly watch it and process it in my own way and not feel any need to Have an Opinion on it.

The Americans is great for this. The show is well-acted, well-written, and non-judgemental, and far from the public consciousness. It shows me the choices the characters make, the consequences of those choices, and how they feel about it all, but it rarely asks me to feel any particular way about it or invite me to draw any conclusions about What it All Means.

In some ways The Americans goes beyond shirts OR skins. It’s neither a part of my community, nor a part of my identity, and thus it manages to transcend both. I relate to it on its terms instead of trying to fit it into my own.

I might be made of stories, but there are other stories out their besides my own.

It’s a joy to be able to see them.

(*) Oddly, in some cases not seeing the source material HELPS. For example, I learned a lot from the Game of Thrones debate. I got a clearer picture about what the people who objected to the scene found objectionable and understood better what the scene‘s defenders were defending.  And I found it significantly easier to see to what others were saying about the show when I wasn’t blinded by my own opinions on the scene.

(**) Who am I kidding? I still enjoy Skid Row’s lyrics, especially the ones off the Slave to the Grind album. Check them out--they’re more evocative than you might think.

Privilege and Karma are like Captain Mal Reynolds: They Do Not Exist...And They Are Also Totally Real

 

I was reading a discussion about privilege on the internet between people who subscribe to that particular theory and people who don't.

It probably comes as no surprise that communication was breaking down.

Talking about privilege, I think, is a lot like talking about the Buddhist concept of karma in that in order to have a productive conversation on the subject, everyone involves has to be able to wrap their head around the paradoxical fact that something can not exist, and at the same time be totally real.

Let's a less political or religious example.

Consider Captain Malcolm Reynolds.

Mal Reynolds doesn't exist. He was never born and never had a childhood. Nothing happened to him between the Firefly TV show and the Serenity movie because there is no 'him' for anything to happen to. He's nothing more than an actor with a different name saying words a writer put together wearing a costume someone in wardrobe designed on a set a production designer built.

At the same time, people have a real experience of Mal. The writers in the writer's room asking "What should Mal do here?" are asking a real question. The tailor measuring Nathan Fillion's inseam for Mal's costume is having a real experience. The worldwide assembly of fans and self-proclaimed Browncoats who were inspired by Mal's "thrillin' heroics" and were broken-hearted by Firefly's untimely cancellation are feeling real feelings and having real experiences.

The THING is not real. The EXPERIENCE is.

Syrio Forel is neither alive nor dead. Nothing happened when Arya fled the scene leaving her Dancing Master facing off with the Kingsguard knight. There is no Arys Oakheart or Syrio or Arya or King's Landing. Words on a page and the images they conjure in our imagination is all there is.

Yet the exeprience of Syiro is absolutely, unequivocally real. We have opinions about him. We have feelings towards him as a character. His existence touches our lives.

Concepts like 'privilege' and 'karma' fall into this same category. They are things that don't exist independently of our ability to experience them. We can't measure them, take pictures of them, or carry them home in a bucket. But we CAN experience them and they do have an effect on us, the people around us, and the world.

We need to understand this contradiction if we're going to have meaningful conversations about these concepts. We also need to embrace it if we're going to work with them effectively.

People who ONLY take the position that they don't exist struggle because their lives and those of the people around them are affected by these ideas. They are cutting themselves off from something that is a reality of human experience. And yet they continue to reject it because they can't see, touch, hear, or smell it like people denying the existence of elephants just because they've never seen one in real life.

People who ONLY take the position that these concepts are real struggle because they start to believe that privilege is something that exists in the world of reality instead of the world of ideas, concepts, and explanations. As a result they burn themselves out. You can't 'smash the patriarchy' or 'exterminate racism' any more than you can 'win the war on drugs' because your opponent does not exist to be fought. It's heartbreaking watching good people exhaust themselves to tears swinging baseball bats at ghosts.

Things don't have to be real to exist.

Things don't have to exist to be real.

Only by making peace with this contradiction can we hope to have meaningful conversations,  take effective actions, and find lasting peace of mind.

"Wierzbowski and Crowe Are Down!": Schrodinger's Water Dancer

WIERZBOWSKI: You know, maybe it's a personal thing, but I only really have one question about Game of Thrones.

CROWE: I bet I know what that question is.

WIERZBOWSKI: Really?

CROWE: Yes, I wrote it down on this piece of paper when you started reading. Would you like to ask the question first, or should I read it?

WIERZBOWSKI: I'm impressed by your presumptuousness. I'd love to hear what you think my question is. After all, we are talking about a single question drawn from five books written over the course of roughly fifteen years, literally thousands of pages of, sprawling characters, convoluted plot developments, unanswered questions, themes of choice vs. predestination, death and life, responsibility and duty, the struggle to match ideals with reality, not to mention some problematic issues with women that--

CROWE: (reading) 'Whatever happened to Syrio Forel?'

WIERZBOWSKI: (long silence) Fuck you.

CROWE: Am I wrong?

WIERZBOWSKI: Fuck you.

CROWE: But am I wrong?

WIERZBOWSKI: No. No, you aren't wrong.

CROWE: It's a fine question. Certainly worthy of discussion. In fact, Syrio's ultimate fate has been the recurring subject of many an online discussion. Frankly, when I first read the passage, I thought he had perished heroically at the hands of Meryn Trant. The only reason we did not see his demise was that Arya, our point-of-view character, had fled the scene. Certainly, there is no evidence that he escaped or was imprisoned.

WIERZBOWSKI: Agreed. Except that there is never any confirmation of his death either. And let's be honest, despite the series' reputation as one where no character is safe, there are far more examples of characters being reported dead and then showing up again than there are main character deaths. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the author's consistent use of such cliffhangers weakens the series as a whole. Between false reports, identities being switched, magical illusions, magical resurrections, and authorial fake-outs mixed with the occasionally legitimate death it becomes impossible to trust what we are reading. Not only that, most of the characters lives seem so fraught with physical, political, and psychological misery that death doesn't seem like such a bad alternative. When A Dance With Dragons climaxed with yet another such event, instead of being shocked breathless or wondering what really happened and what would happen next, my reaction was a combination of emotional numbness towards the character and annoyance at the author. Instead of feeling dramatic, it felt cheap and manipulative.

CROWE: Yes, but it most of the cases you're citing involve major characters. Syrio Forel played an important role, but the former First Sword of Braavos was not an important character in and of himself.

WIERZBOWSKI: Perhaps.

CROWE: Does that depress you?

WIERZBOWSKI: You know it does.

CROWE: Because of your own uncertain fate?

WIERZBOWSKI: Exactly. A scream and a camera going blank. Was I killed? Was I captured and impregnated by the facehuggers? Did I escape only to be killed when the Atmospheric Processing Plant exploded?

CROWE: Maybe you escaped and got clear of the blast. Perhaps you are a lone wanderer on LV-426.You know, walking the earth, meeting  people... getting into adventures. Like Caine from Kung Fu.

WIERZBOWSKI: So I decided to be a bum?

CROWE: Heaven and Earth, Horatio.

WIERZBOWSKI: Given the choice, I would pick Earth.

CROWE: I believe you. I think I would too. But our discussion raises an interesting point.
By ending Syrio's tale the way he did, the author has given himself an out. If he ever needs the character to make a surprise reappearance, the door is open. If he doesn't, the character can continue to rest among the non-living. Until then, he remains Schrodinger's Water Dancer, neither alive nor dead.

WIERZBOWSKI: Bully for the author. On behalf of minor characters everywhere, I would like to voice the opinion that I would have appreciated knowing one way or another.  Even minor characters appreciate closure.

CROWE: No offense, 'Ski, but calling you a 'minor character' is a gross exaggeration of the part you played in the narrative.

WIERZBOWSKI: Fuck you, Crowe. I'm glad you got killed in an explosion.

CROWE: Me too. At least I can rest easy with the satisfaction of knowing what happened to me.

WIERZBOWSKI: Like I said. Fuck you.