Time Capsules

I have been writing about the same set of characters since I was approximately thirteen years old.  From the age when I first started reading fantasy novels and playing role playing games, I've been enthralled by the idea of detailed, deep imaginary worlds.

It is the case, unfortunately, that in recent years, I seem to have fallen off the literary wagon (if such scribblings could be considered literature), in that these people inhabiting my head have received little of my attention.

As has been noted here, I recently picked up a story that I started a number of years ago.  Perhaps 2004 or so, I can't be sure.  I don't have records of when I started it.  It might be as early as 2002, in some form or another.  Maybe I could find out when I started it if I dug through my old LiveJournal - that's a possibility.

But anyway, I picked this story up again.  It's approximately thirty to forty pages at the moment.  It currently involves, either through direct exposure in writing or implication of plot, around six or seven of these people.

Occasionally I re-read some other, unrelated snippet of story that I found on my hard drive and realize that it fits in this story somewhere.  I just did.

I was just reading through a several page description of some woman - when I started reading I didn't know who it was - sitting in a bar with her feet propped up on the table, writing out a list of pseudo-Latin sounding names: Bellarus, Pandema, Iuridicus, Rheis, Hoares.  She leaves the bar and wanders down the street to an acquaintance's, walks in past his servant, and finds him in his sitting room, entertaining some other woman.

That's all there is to it.  But until I got to the last two sentences describing the second woman, I didn't realize that they are two of the my central characters.  I didn't know who the first was until I found her in the company of the second.

Little things like that make me smile.  I wrote this years ago, and it somehow just fits, and makes me think. Why was she writing out names?  I know what one of those names means, but I hadn't considered the others in the context of my current story.  It's wonderful!  It's like I've written notes to myself, put them in a time capsule, and I'm only now piecing them all together into a coherent letter.

Storytelling

I'm becoming increasingly interested in the idea of storytelling.  I think it's perhaps the most important facet of human society and culture.  The desire to tell and participate in stories is, fundamentally, in almost everything we do.  Why do we take vacations?  Why do we try to become rich and famous?  Why do we try to find mates and have children?  Why do we play games?  Why are we social?  Why do we have art?  What does all this amount to, in the end?  What is the legacy of our existence?

The only meaning we, as humans, are capable of producing beyond spiritual understanding and inner peace (i.e., in a secular sense) is caught up in our ability to amount to something.  A wasted life is one whose story is not worth telling.

So we try to succeed, prosper, be funny, entertain our friends and invent things.  We try to raise our children well so that they'll look back fondly on our guidance.  There aren't many of us who have a legacy in the collective memory of large portions of society itself, but we can at least create positive, lasting experiences in the minds of those we do know.

I listened to an interesting talk on TED the other day regarding the differences between Indian culture and Western culture.  What I'm currently talking about, this need to carve out some sort of legacy, is not to be confused with the Western preoccupation with what I'll call monoincarnation.  This belief structure (again, predominantly Western) is caught up in the belief that our time on Earth is brief, abutted on both ends by either, a) nothing, or b) eternity spent in some sort of spiritual condominium in the sky (or, alternately, deep underground with poor air conditioning).  During this time, we better do a lot of good, and we better do it fast so we can afford, spiritually, a really sweet condo with a killer view of the cloudscape.

I will not presume to claim intimate knowledge of beliefs with which I am not particularly familiar, but the above stands in stark contrast to a world view in which our time on Earth is one of many, and the process of attaining said rockin' pad involves managing one's finances over a series of lifetimes, accruing enlightenment and over the course of a myriad of mortal existences.  In this sort of model, there is certainly pressure to do good, but not necessarily to accomplish all of your good right here right now.  You have a thousand lifetimes, and what you don't do now can be done in your next reincarnation, so enjoy your time, be good, and we'll see you the next time around.

Neither of these two spiritual models are what I'm talking about.

Again, I'm talking about something more secular; the desire to leave society itself in a better, more enlightened state than you left it.  To create something in it worth remembering and perpetuating by those you leave behind.  This has nothing to do with my own salvation, but, rather, with increasing the knowledge and depth of the collective memory of those of us still chilling on the mortal plane.

So, all that said, I like stories.  I find myself, lately, very enthralled with the notion of finding ways to allow humans to tell stories to each other in new and interesting ways.

I think there is potential in crowd sourced, moderated content and ideas.  Evolution takes place through a series of mutations taking place in a controlled, otherwise stable environment.  Evolution, generally, tends towards advancement (at least I can't think of cases of evolution blatantly creating something less prepared to deal with the constraints under which it has been placed).  Sometimes genetic algorithms can produce answers to problems that are otherwise difficult to solve via traditional means.

Collaborative storytelling and world building led by a benevolent, despotic, principle author.  This happens with teams developing video games and movies already, though that is company-sourced content and ideas, rather than crowd-sourced.

I'd like to see it - either of the two - done with novels.

Vegetable stock photos were not used in the making of this ph(o|ilm)

So I went with Misters Daniel, Erik, Jason Mc and Jason K to "Living in a CG World" today at the Museum of Science.  We saw a presentation by Mr. Terrence Masson, a gentleman with an impressive resume in the world of computer graphics for film and games.  It was a good talk!  Lots of interesting tidbits.  Unfortunately, I think he had too many good things to say, and had to leave out a lot in order to stay within the time he had available.

Following the talk, we all walked to Charles MGH (except for Daniel, who biked) and took the T up to Harvard, where we had a lovely dinner at Le's.  Everyone attempted to get some variation on a theme of pho (noodle soup, for the uninitiated).  Unfortunately for me, they were out of vegetable stock.

I ended up with curry tofu.  Booyah!  Now I can use that label again.  It was, as always, delicious.

On the way over, Jason K and I were talking about storytelling as it relates to technology.

That, I think, will need to be in its own post.

Oh, yeah, and work was fine today.