Writing is a strange endeavor. It's sort of an exercise in how to make friends (literally, for those of us who would craft fiction) and influence people. The work of creating characters, full worlds in which they live and act, and of course the tales that bind them maddens the mind of many a writer. Some have trouble shouldering the pressure of all that hangs on their every word choice and turn of phrase. Sadly, that is part of the paradox of the human mind.
People carry the desire within them to be in command of their own destiny, of the elements of their world. People relish the power to make choices. At the same time, many shy away from such positions of power and authority, unable to bear the weighty mantle of such responsibility. No matter the circumstances, even the earliest record of man indicates simultaneous drives to control and to abdicate responsibility for things beyond control to unseen higher powers. With no evidence, stories were created. Faith was created, explaining mysteries of lightning, thunder, fire, earthquakes...it's as though we have an inherent fear, some of us, of being the master. We don't want to be alone in the dark, no one watching over us. We want desperately to grow up, but still to entrust our well-being to unseen parents. It makes us feel better.
Writers write, but how many will attempt to remove themselves from the pilot's seat, claiming that their characters write themselves or act of their own accord? How many claim their stories write themselves? Even cast in a role of absolute authority, as a writer or an artist bringing absolutely anything into existence from nothing, many refuse to accept it. Was it divine inspiration? Did the devil make them do it?
Who's to say who's right? Maybe our ancestors were guided by ancient aliens or divine beings and were taught at the dawn of creation that we aren't alone in the dark and beings far greater than our meager ability to understand do indeed watch us from above. Maybe we're just striving to be like them.
Whatever the answer, worldbuilding is heavy work. I know it keeps my brain busy, learning all the details and making sure they fit together. On some level, it's almost addictive. And it never seems to get simpler no matter how many planes/dimensions/worlds I let myself get sucked into populating...and then depopulating. I'm also pretty confident that, even though I don't know how all the connections are made in that brain to create what's created, what I write won't write itself. I also know I'm not going to wait for a note from a divine messenger, especially one I've created. For good or ill, it's all on me.
I'd better get back to work.
Today is a Tuesday, so it seemed fitting that I ruminate on tough guys. I deliberated waiting till Thursday and hammering this one out with Thor, but he’s a very popular fellow. Instead I settled on a less well-known tough guy to work with, but still worthy of getting his own day. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, Tuesday was named for Tiw. The Greeks had Ares and the Norse had Tiw. Tiw was a Norse god of war, but he wasn't an ass about it like some. In fact, the unyielding nobility that has served as Tiw’s claim to fame only serves to bear him out as a tough guy.
You see, way back when in Asgard, the gods tried to live together in a state of mutual cooperativeness. To foster peace and harmony among them, these warrior gods had made a deal not to kill off each others’ children. Unfortunately, this later came to include the children of Odin’s adopted son Loki. Loki had proven himself to be troublesome enough over the years, but wow did he ever have some weird kids. I always thought Hera should’ve given up on popping out little ones, but Loki definitely should’ve taken a vow of abstinence. His offspring weren’t just bizarre, they were prophesied to be key players in Ragnarok, the twilight of the gods. No pressure.
Loki’s daughter, Hela, was cold and grim and stood nine feet tall. They put her in as top dog of Nifelheim. Cold and gloomy, meet cold and gloomy. This place had everything it needed to give Hades a run. Another kid was the Midgard serpent, encircling all of Earth and lying in wait for the end of things. Last was Fenris, a gargantuan wolf who would bite the moon in half during the final clash between good and evil.
Fenris was of such staggering strength that his power worried the other Asgardians, but that pesky pact they’d made forced them to get creative. So they attempted to chain mighty Fenris…many times. Boisterous competitions being what they were in Asgard, Fenris showing off his power to shatter every chain and binding brought to test him became a great game, albeit a frustrating one for those who would have the massive wolf under control.
It was time to get serious. That meant putting the dwarves to work on the problem. Brokk and Eitri had become known as masters of creating wondrous things (these were the guys who’d made Thor’s hammer Mjolnir and Odin’s favorite magical items, after all), so it’s amazing that they hadn’t consulted them sooner. Thinking out of the box, the clever dwarves created a fine golden cord worthy of Wonder Woman herself. This creation was made of immaterial things that could not be broken, whispers and ideas whose essences dwarf magic was able to combine into what they hoped would be a single unbreakable object even Fenris couldn’t break.
The next gathering of the “Let’s Bone the Wolf” club had a different feel to it. Even though they tried to play it cool, let’s face it, a lot of gods are better at arrogance than they are at keeping a good poker face. No surprise then that Fenris got to feeling a little suspicious about the latest game of “Bet you a mead you can’t break this.” To put Fenris at ease, like a sucker, the closest thing he had to a friend agreed to let the wolf hold his hand in his mouth as collateral. Noble Tiw (thought I’d forgotten about him, huh?) calmly allowed Fenris’ teeth to take their hold. When the golden cord was fastened around Fenris’ neck and the free end anchored to a mountain, the test began. Together they all learned that those little dwarves were some kind of mad geniuses. Fenris could not break the cord and the gods wouldn’t release him, so Tiw lost his hand.
Now, did the one-handed war god complain and moan about his loss? Did he curse Fenris or the other Asgardians who allowed him to lose his hand without even an attempt at negotiation? No, he did not. Why not? Tough guy.
Tough guys do what needs doing.
Tough guys don’t make excuses even when failure occurs.
Tough guys persevere, taking the extra steps, going further than those who don’t know what it means to be a tough guy.
Tough guys don’t cry over physical pain. Women may have said, for a little while, that they liked men who cry, but I think they’ve largely gotten over that. What they came to realize was that they sort of liked “sensitive” men who could share their feelings. They seem to have largely tired of “sensitive” men, though. They cry too much. Plus, the communication that’s involved in sharing feelings is cumbersome. Men and women communicate differently. We say the same things differently from each other and we have different body languages. Also, men talk less. And, like it or not, there are different expectations for men than for women. Women can cry over physical pain without having it held against them. Men can “open up” about their feelings, but tough guys don’t do things by half-measures so don’t expect much. To a tough guy, “opening up” for a “good cry” doesn’t accomplish anything worthwhile. He doesn’t understand it so he isn’t likely to do it unless someone’s died or “Old Yeller” is playing.
There's more to the job than just having a Y chromosome. If you want to be a tough guy, you've got a lot of work to do and none of it involves whining. Guys who cry over physical pain better not have hit puberty yet because such an activity will interfere with being perceived as a man. It will certainly remove any perception of being a tough guy. John McLain didn’t cry as he limped along with glass in his foot and neither should any other tough guy. Whether it’s a bullet in the leg or cutting off his own arm, the tough guy remains composed. He is a role model and anything less is unacceptable.
Men, be warned: cry in front of your partner over physical pain and your status will be downgraded. You may even be replaced. No joke. Suck it up and walk it off.
If you want to be a tough guy, step up to your responsibilities. That may mean extra hours at work, extra jobs, doing more around the house…Whatever it takes, it’s going to mean doing more even when no one else understands it.
If you’re going to be a tough guy, you’ll see where you’re needed. You’ll look for opportunities and you’ll get things done.
Awhile back, I was talking with my wife about health care. She related to me someone's proposal to nationalize America's medical care. I suppose this is an issue that's just not going to go away. It's certainly not the first time I've heard it and I doubt it will be the last. The federal government isn't supposed to be involved in this and doesn't have a track record that shows it'll be able to run such a program to our benefit. This isn't to say it can't be done. Many countries have excellent healthcare programs that are nationalized and their people are very happy with them. They do not live in our country. We have a government that once took control of a brothel (through the IRS) and mismanaged it out of business. I can't even begin to fathom the depths of ineptness required to mismanage running a brothel. That alone should make enough of my point, since medical care is supposed to be for the benefit of those receiving care, nationalizing it isn't likely to put it into the best hands.
Our federal government has an instruction book that defines how it's supposed to work. It's called the Constitution. It's the law of the land, but it gets ignored a lot. That's not the way the system is supposed to work. You don't sit down to a board game, play around the rules that everyone's agreed to and expect it to work right. If you don't like it, find another game. Oooh, listen to me, sounding all radical and conservative simultaneously. Face it, we have a lot of rule-breaking politicians in the game. Many seem to want to get into it just to see how much they can cheat the system.
Anyway, with our government being run that way (don't act like it's a surprise), the people who keep getting into it try to meddle in ever more areas outside the set boundaries. With more meddling comes more mess (classic red tape, price increases) and less of people taking care of their own affairs. Unfortunately, people receiving "free" stuff (actually, the stuff of others that's been legislated away from them in a Marxist redistribution of wealth), is one of the great lures of a governmentally run program. Under such relentless socialistic assaults, personal responsibility is very nearly dead. Once the ball gets rolling, people just keep asking the government to do more and more for them. "Somebody should do something!" "There oughta be a law!" Personally, I feel like we have plenty of laws already. I don't get up in the morning and phone a politician to ask how to get through my day. I wouldn't even ask one to hold my wallet for me, let alone housesit. I'm sure not going to ask them to babysit.
One of the ongoing battles involves the efforts to use legislation to protect children from internet and television content. The danger of tarnished innocence is just a click away they tell us, whether it's from a remote control or a mouse. These cries always smack of hyperbole to me and make my eyes roll of their own volition. Whether the dangerous content is on your TV or on your computer, the safeguard is a simple one. Follow: it's your television and your computer. What shows up on them is up to you. You have the right to make those choices. These are rights that have been fought for and it is of criminally tragic proportion to give them up without as much of a fight. If you don't like what's on, change the channel or turn the thing off, but never never ever abdicate your authority away to a bunch of people who can't even handle the things they're already assigned to do.
Likewise, the law and the nature of Freedom saddles you with the burden of making decisions for your children. Anyone attempting to change that should make any responsible adult spew forth bile like a geyser from the depths of his enraged innards. They're your kids watching whatever on your stuff in your home. Should a bunch of strangers you wouldn't let babysit really be responsible for what you can watch? No. The solution is (write this down) that you pay attention to what your kids are doing and watching. No, you don't get to cop out and tell me you're too busy. I pay attention to what my kids are watching on TV, whether we're watching something together or not. I know what's in their video games and sometimes play them with them. They ask for permission to use the computer and are subject to having their shoulders peeked over frequently and randomly.
Blame my parents. Yes, both my parents worked in demanding careers, but I still managed to have home-cooked, balanced meals so often that I barely remember the times it didn't happen. More impressively, that low-incidence of take-out meals occurred even with great New York pizza and Chinese food being readily available. With such dedication came parents who knew what my favorite TV shows were, what music I liked and sometimes even watched Saturday morning cartoons with me. We were also known to actually talk with each other and they encouraged me to read and...Well, the point is, be in control, don't hand it away. Exercise self-discipline and taking charge of your home will be easy.
We have all the local cable channels available and high-speed internet. External media product is piped into our home daily and the only nakedness I see on a regular basis is my wife's. How is this possible? My choice. I click and click and click, yet I don't find myself accidentally staring at hours of erotica. Neither do the kids. Trust me on this. I don't sleep much, so I know. Maybe Congress is keeping me awake with all the noise they make. If only there were some way to keep those government guys under control. There oughta be a law.
