A glimmering of thought

Ever since I picked up a fountain pen, I find I've been getting a lot of my writing needs met via said pen. I have a bunch of computer paper that I go ham on. I intermittently write whatever random words come to mind, often alliterative or assonant. I also write random thoughts, journal, and write old-timey fake letters. All on the same page, depending on how the mood hits me. Mostly it's just practice, but I am definitely enjoying myself, and my cursive is improving quite a bit. The letters are often my favorite part, though. I pretend to be someone from like the 1800s or some such, and write the most bizarre situations. I wrote one to Sarah Lee, entailing how well her confectionery was doing, even the rat-based ones. I made reference to her new line inspired by the genius of Jonathan Swift and his Modest Proposal (look it up if you don't know it, it's great). Anyway, having much fun.

I have been absolutely swamped at work this past month. I've been pulling overtime nearly every single day (California does overtime anytime you go over 8 hours in a day, and then resets if you go past 40, wiping out a whole lot of money if you only work a little over 40). Normally this time of year is completely dead and we all have to use our accrued vacation time due to weeks of little-to-no work. Several of us were actually looking forward to it. We're all running a bit ragged and could use the respite of several uneventful weeks. But no, not this year. This year we're slammed right up to Christmas week, and then we come back right after new years. Honestly, at this point, I'd rather have barely any money than more of this damned job. It gets worse and worse, ever more ethically questionable, and with less and less to show for my efforts.

I read an article recently about how only a few decades back, surveys had like an 70-80% contact rate, and a similar rate of completions from that number. When I started doing what I do, we often hovered around 15% contact. Below that was bad, above was decent. Now, we often end up in the mid to low single digits for contact. By contact, we mean someone answering the phone who is either the name listed, or is willing to take it. And then you have to screen out that meager amount with scads of demographic questions. It's an ever more difficult job, made worse by a number of phone companies incorrectly labeling our number as a likely scam. Our polls are often heavily biased and written by a retarded monkey of dubious grammatical training, but not scams. But people are way less likely to pick up the phone when we show up as a potential scam.

Worse, even with overtime, after working at my job for more than 3 years now, and being one of the more seasoned supervisors, I still make less than the starting wage for the likes of In 'n Out and Best Buy. Due to California labor laws, our branch is consistently the costliest to run. We'd have been shut down ages ago if we weren't the best. But I, along with several of the other top people of the place, rather wish it would. This job is soul crushing, and worse, takes so much time and energy that none of us have anything left at the end of the day to look for anything else. Our assistant director didn't used to drink until he started his position. Now he drinks heavily. Smokes like a chimney. I hate the place so much.

There's a slight bit of despair that lingers over us. We all desperately want to get the hell out, but have neither the money nor the opportunity to do so. The job market in this town is garbage. There are three kinds of jobs that have openings, and that's it: nursing, fast food, and retail. Granted, at this point I'm starting to think maybe working In 'n Out would be less stressful and pay better.

I was randomly reading up on the show The Prisoner from back in the 60s, and the open-ended nature of the ending got me to thinking. It made me realize how much more impactful leaving a story open can be. In a sense, it's the catharsis at the end that also lets us down. We both crave for things to be wrapped up, but also crave mystery and the unknown. One of my favorite authors once noted in a book of short stories that in every scary story, it's the dread that's the worse. Jump scares are momentary, but it's when we finally get to see the killer/creature/thing that we are finally relieved. Up until the reveal, it's our own imagination and the gaping unknown that we face. No matter how scary the thing, once we witness it, we are able to acclimate to it.

A few of my favorite movie endings have all been the ones that leave questions. True, some of the most frustrating endings do likewise. Again, that is the dichotomy, or perhaps oxymoron. We both love and hate open ends. More than that, though, is that it allows us to be creative. Think about it; so many of the best fan stories (some of which even become cannon at times) come from those openings. I recall the fic scene during its early years, which in my case centered around the shows Roswell and Smallville, and later some Buffy/Angel. Throughout it all, it was the in-between times that the stories best flourished. Between episodes and between seasons were absolutely the most fertile times, and I am fairly certain it was due to all the loose ends and unanswered questions that spurred many of us to fill in the spaces. Mid-season breaks were often quite fun, as they had those mini-cliffhangers and gave us a few weeks off to stew in all the crazy things they left us with.

Dollars to donuts, fanfic has dwindled a fair amount as binge-watching has increased. It is easy to become immersed in a show, but binging also takes away the chance to really mull over all the little details and fret while waiting for the next episode or season to clear things up. I notice in myself that the better written and cohesive a show is, particularly if it has several seasons under its belt, the harder it is to write stories in that world. Specifically, it's hard to make events go a different way once they're set. There was something about being halfway through a season and thinking of all the ways things could go next. Somewhat of an aside, but not entirely, I think the swiftness of moving immediately from one episode to the next lessens the impact of any one episode. Instead of having to stew, asking the what-ifs, and what-nexts, we just hop to the next one. I noticed it once after rewatching a series on DVD with my mom after having watched it slowly over the years. Some of the more moving and epic moments left much less of an impact as we simply moved on to the next and saw the resolutions immediately.

Returning to my initial train of thought, with the Prisoner, even decades later, just reading about how it ended spurs numerous ideas for potential stories. I wonder how much of the best sci-fi stories leave things open. One of the most memorable movies of my life I experienced as child whilst on a sleepover. It was a cheesy black and white space film about astronauts that go to Mars, a creature crawls aboard, and subsequently picks the crew off one by one. Standard horror trope. Here's the thing: being made so far back, they didn't really have the funds or ability to make the monster, so they didn't. The most they ever showed, as far as I remember, was a bit of a tentacle. All you ever got to experience were the results of the creature. They didn't even show some of the bodies, just described it. To this day, I remember how terrifying it was, never seeing the creature, or even its victims. It resonates to this day, and I guarantee it's because I had only my imagination and the unknown.

Zombie Apocalypse, but my way. Much less with the flesh eating, more along the lines of being so robot-like already, most people just kind of kept going, mindlessly doing the same jobs and whatnot. Also, hunger isn't the only physical need people feel...

Why is it that most of the journals out there that I see are either majority American/British/Aussie, or Russian? You can look at trending words on journal sites, such as this one, and you will only see english and cyrillic. That's it. No kanji, no farsi, no hindi, nothing. Which begs several questions. Do most other countries not journal online? Or are there a lot more country specific ones I don't normally see? I know China has their own version of everything so they can control it, but what about everyone else? I occasionally stumble across japanese sections of the internet in my nerdery, so I know there's definitely more than my little area. But that then begs the other question. Why so many Russians on the english side when they could be on their own? I know Russia basically wants the same control over everything as China, but don't yet have it. Are many people from that whole region (I generalize everything as Russian, but I am aware that many in that part of the world write in cyrillic) doing it as a freedom thing? Is it more sinister? Something completely other?

I do realize that certain cultures, such as mine, are more forward and open with, well, most everything, but that doesn't mean people don't still write and journal. I would love to see the breakdown of stats by culture/country/region and how they go about it. Does this group just never do it, or is it all hidden away? Does that group have way more, but in a place I never see? How much do people in general even do journals anymore? A lot of people basically have video journals anymore. So many questions.

Also, I know that a lot of websites have specific versions for whichever country you are visiting from, ie a bbc.com is going to look different from the bbc.co.uk, which is different from bbc.jp, but now I wonder how much is out there that I'll never see because it's all behind country extensions. Hmm.

Reading so many writing prompts has my mind going off in so many directions the last few days. It's been a while since I've been so creatively-minded. It's nice. But certain prompts get me thinking of plots I've seen before, and how well some of them were instituted. There have been a few prompts about fate/prophecy, some about subverting it. And all I can think about is how the show Angel turned it and used it.

A demon, centuries before, saw a prophecy written in blood about how the son of a vampire (normally an impossibility) would kill him; so naturally, he went around changing all written references to say that the Father (Angel) would kill the son. So when some major mojo goes down and Angel has a child with Darla, Wesley consults the prophecies, worries that it will happen and, along with some other demon meddling, basically betrays everyone in an attempt to keep the child safe. Not only does one of the greatest enemies of Angel end up with the child, he takes it into a hell dimension with himself, raises it as a warrior, and they eventually come back. Eventually, maybe a season later, we find out the entire backstory, and the child, Conner, does indeed end up killing the demon. But wow, the whole twist of using the prophecy to subvert its own meaning and use the heroes to defeat themselves was mind-blowing, and still one of the best I've seen. Damn, but Joss Whedon is excellent at unexpected and painful twists.

Come to think of it, the Mistborn trilogy by Sanderson has a similar editing of ancient texts to make the heroes work against themselves. But, like Oedipus, it is so often the fleeing from fate that causes it to happen. Of course, it raises the question of how things would play out had people not tried.

“Alright, we’ve transited. Let’s get to surveying, shall we?”

“Uh, sir, we’re getting some unusual readings here.”

“Define unusual.”

“...music?”

It was impossible; literally impossible, at least according to every known law of physics. Yet probe after increasingly powerful probe revealed not only were every planet and sun in the system giving off radio waves, but were, in fact, producing music. Not just any music, either. The entire system was resonating in a coordinated orchestral piece. Worse, it was familiar.

“Of course I know it, Johnson! Everyone knows it! What I want to know is why every single bloody body in this system is acting like they’re an orchestra! Why is the sun acting like a bloody percussionist? Why is that moon there giving off wavelengths of a woodwind instrument? How in the hell does a celestial body even emit that?!"

"Sir, there is zero precedent for this. I don't even want to know how many physical laws this breaks. Even the black hole in the center is...I guess, pulsing? I think it's keeping time?"

"Johnson, we are on the other side of bloody universe! And we've stumbled upon a system that is, collectively, producing the entirety of the William Tell Overture in a continual loop! What the hell do you suggest the message back to the top brass ?"

"Send musicians?"

"Funny."

"I certainly thought so, sir."

I started reading writing prompts off of reddit yesterday and I must say, there are some really great ideas for writing. Some of them have definitely sparked a few ideas in me, though others have more made me want to read that story as done by someone else. Like, what are all the places other people can take this thing?

There was a particularly cool one I read today about everyone on earth simultaneously hearing a voice announce that the server was being shut down for good in 2 hours and thanks everyone for playing Human. There were a few cool stories written from it, but it didn't quite cover my own ideas for it, so it could be something I could write about. However, it has since occurred to me that the whole scenario is reminiscent of the Roy game on Rick and Morty. It's a bit tricky to top anything they've done on the show.

I think some of the most intriguing prompts have been about different ways in which humanity would be considered bizarre to the rest of the universe. There was one about what if music were considered dangerous to the rest of the universe and humanity's ability to have, make, and enjoy so much of it made us tremendously scary/dangerous. Them trying to deal with us without letting on our power imbalance makes for further potentials as well. Of course, then I start thinking of bits from Restaurant at the End of the Universe, and potential plots take a very different turn. I love that idea that I've seen puttering about the net, the headcannon where we are akin to space orcs, or that like in the Star Trek type future, we are powerful because we are so very crazy. Like, the reason why we're the only ones to defeat the borg is due to our unpredictability. That terran problems with tech going awry, such as with the holodeck, is because we just have to try things because it's there. Of course, now I just want to go back and reread all those posts on the matter. Basically, the human race is one big Rick and Morty, and the rest of the universe don't know how to deal.

The most amusing part of all this is that I keep writing about writing, rather than simply writing. But hey, it's a start and better than nothing.

As much as I enjoy writing in my journal by hand at night, and though everyone is going small with phones and pads, there yet remains something to be said for the speed and efficacy of a good keyboard, be it on a laptop or desktop. My keyboard may not be the best quality on this laptop, but it is not cramped, and I can write ever so much faster here, as well as edit mistakes. It's much easier to write nearer to the speed at which I think, certainly. I've been hand writing for well over a decade now, but I still don't do so swiftly. I have write as I always have, small, and fairly precise. I always dreaded timed essays in school for that reason. I never could put enough down in the time allotted. Well, that, and I simply hate all essays with a fiery passion. But a good laptop, writing whatever I feel like writing? Terrific.

To be fair, the slower speed of writing by hand does allow my thoughts to coalesce a bit more into something slightly more coherent, though still a bit in the vein of stream of consciousness. I hate writing on phones. They are so imprecise and it's inevitable to make many mistakes, which then take a bit of time to correct. I've always been a stickler for presenting my thoughts and words as I intend them even in texts and messaging. For that reason, I tend to turn off even auto capitalizing and auto word correction on my phone. I want to emphasize what I want to emphasize, and structure my sentence as I want, in order to aptly convey my meaning, particularly when it comes to nuances. Also, most emojis are stupid. A few are useful, but if you have to use them to make yourself properly understood, then you need to learn how to better write. Using them as nuance in a statement, or to punctuate a feeling is a great idea, but otherwise, do we really need to return to hieroglyphics? Also, it's a bit difficult to translate into speech... Not going to go on a rant.

I'm all for brevity of thought and speech, but only if it aptly and truly conveys the entirety of the thought. Words, properly harnessed, can paint the most vivid of pictures all their own, and uses the reader's imagination to fit it all together. Man, now I want to go reread so many books. Also, I return to the thought of how much longer writing by hand takes. Looking at even this amount thus far that I have, it sure would have taken a long-ass time (long ass-time, as xkcd would say) to do by hand. I've slowly worked at, and improved upon, my cursive skills, which were practically non-existent all throughout school, but it is neither very fast, nor nearly as compact as my normal, so I don't often do so. I can barely imagine the days, only a few decades gone, when all children wrote cursive, and all essays and assignments were by hand. I hate essays as it is, and I only ever wrote them once, spell checked them, then turned them in. I wouldn't fancy having to rewrite them numerous times. Though t'would be cool to have a practiced hand at cursive. I slaver over calligraphy done well.

And now my brain is empty. Bed time.

I hung out with a bunch of girls after church this evening. All the usual guys were out, to my fortune. Sort of. Girls tend to talk over you if you don't put yourself out there well enough. At least, these ones do. I've the feeling I'd be more included if I were better friends with them. Regardless, it was very interesting hearing them speak, as the topics almost all included enneagram numbers. Having only vaguely heard of enneagram, it was very bizarre. They're all like, "I'm a 2, but I can build up to 8 energy. And he's a 3 wing 4 with a..." The shorthand for explaining to others one's personality or how others interact was interesting and all, but I was struck by how similar it was listening to non-christians all talking and bringing star signs into the mix.

I hold zero regard for the utter retarded nature of star signs and horoscopes, so it was mildly unnerving to experience the exact same behavior among all these Christian girls. To be fair, I do appreciate the shorthand nature of it, to be able to quickly convey complex ideas simply. However, I did go and look into it all after; took a test and boned up on the descriptions and all that. What I discovered is how completely not helpful it is for me. Given the right situation, anyone can fit into any of the categories. I could very easily see myself fitting in all but one of the categories, and my results were equally across the board. I had two of the exact same amount, in completely unrelated areas, and then most the others were fairly close together too. One has to basically be a one dimensional character to really have the enneagram be of much use.

Honestly, I find the Meyers-Briggs type of characterization to be much more accurate, though even in that I am almost exactly balanced in one of my categories (S/N for those wondering). I wonder at times if it isn't because I've been tempered in my life in such ways as to be very unique, and even I'm not certain how I truly am in some situations. Do you know how odd it is to be both mathematically minded and artistically creative at the same time? To feel some emotions deeply, yet at times to be completely unfazed by the craziest of situations? The one time I tried to join eharmony, I was in the 20% of people who are not classifiable, according to the rejection they sent me after filling out all their questionnaires. Not a great feeling, being too unique for them to even try to connect me with other people.

I've long realized how unique my path through life has been. I am a subset of a subset, a Christian nerd. I love order and rules, but also spontaneous creativity and playfulness. I want orderly chaos.