Flawed

Unless some machine broke the Turing test when I wasn't looking, you are a human being.  Regardless, if you're reading and comprehending this—and could have a conversation with me about it later—you are by definition (at least my definition) a person.  And as a person, especially as a human being, there is one thing you most certainly are.

Flawed.

This shouldn't be news to you.  All people are flawed.  I am a clear-cut example of this.  My unrestrained tendencies are towards nonsensical, bigoted thought and action, when my actions are social at all.  It is only with force of will and, more significantly, the reforging influence of my Heavenly Father that I not a mouldering cesspool of hatred and addiction.

It's inconvenient to be a writer and have a limited perspective, because it is best to tell a story when you know everything that's happening.  That's part of the appeal of world-building.  You have a greater ability to say with all authority what a miscellaneous character is doing and why than if you're writing in the real world where any reader can tell you, "No.  No, someone like that wouldn't do that.  Your story sucks."

All the same, I have a limited perspective, and when I am faced with that I find myself stymied.  I feel like I have nothing good to say because I don't know everything.  That's my perfectionism/fear of making mistakes coming through.  Yesterday I went to go exchange a fuel tank for a gas grill, and I started to take the tank inside.  Because, you know, I had no idea what I was doing, and for some reason in a situation I've never been in before I have a very hard time taking a moment to think out what the most reasonable thing to do is.  It gets harder when I try to take that moment to forcefully realign my scattered cognizance and the people behind the desks are left to stare at me like I'm some crazy person.

Or at least, that's what I feel certain they're doing.  In hindsight they were more likely taking a moment to hold conversation with each other to fight against the doldrums of working in a gas station.  But in the moment the only thing I can think of is how stupid I look, and I can't figure out a way to stop being stupid and get done what I came to get done.  Good thing I had a friend there to tell me what I should do and end the episode before my self-esteem went the way of the emo kid.

Okay, so maybe that last analogy was a bit much.


There is a wise man filling in for my friend over at Culture War Reporters.  This morning he posted about the need for us to be exposed to the graphic violence of wars going on outside our social circles, so that we can confront in a more human manner the full horror of war and not treat it like something that has absolutely no bearing on our lives.


"I don't wanna."  That's what my heart says.  I am repulsed.  I don't want to realize the totality of what's going on in the world outside my box of florid prose.  Why?  Because it scares the hell out of me, that's why.  No, I couldn't have put it milder without failing to get the point across.  I could give other reasons, too, but those are excuses.


There's nothing I can do, short of going over myself as a soldier.  And I will never do that.  I'm describing my visceral reaction, because I don't have a higher argument against service in military.  I don't want to believe wars exist.  I don't want to feel it in the depths of my soul, that place I so strive to keep quiet.


It's more complicated than that, because I believe "there will always be wars and rumors of wars."  Something fundamental about the universe needs to change before men and women will stop killing each other en masse.  I guess it's sort of ironic that a lot of people who think overpopulation is a major problem also completely detest war, because that's one good way to cull the population.


You see that?  That drivel?  That's the terrified spewing of a man who doesn't know what to think in the face of travesty.


And that man is me.


Now, I usually keep all that bottled up and deal with it on my own time, in the privacy of my own inner space, but I wanted to demonstrate the sort of stuff that goes on in my head before I handle it and exert my intellect on all that gross feelings stuff, so that you can know what I mean when I say I'm confronted by my personhood and feel like I don't have anything valuable to say.


Because that guy up there?  He's kinda my least favorite person.


So in short, some people are writing challenging things on their blogs, and I applaud my friend for his wise words.  As for myself, I'm just writing about what's challenging me today.  I don't really have much advice about writing or world-building today, other than to keep in mind that you, too, are a person, and your worldview is limited because you're human.