Narrative Failures
Dec. 9th, 2012 08:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
howeverbriefFor some reason, entries like "Seeking Stasis" are very hard to write. Then again, I've had a lot of trouble writing in general lately, not only because I don't make enough time to do it but also because my emotions have become increasingly difficult to untangle. I don't think the latter is anything new, just something I haven't been forcing breakthroughs in for quite some time. Aside from the usual complaints and excuses about my own lack of motivation, I think a large part of this stems from my natural tendency towards creating narratives.
Even though I've been away from school for a long time (and entirely out of practice in terms of real writing), I still yearn to tell stories. I take something happening in my life, and in putting pen to paper, I want to make something cohesive for other people to read. Well, maybe not even that, considering I don't spend a great deal of time considering my potential audience anymore. (Sorry, readers. It's a dumb internet journal, after all.) Maybe this exercise is more about thinking that if I can give a coherent introduction, explanation, and conclusion to a certain topic, I'll be able to put it to bed in my own mind once and for all. Maybe in the writing, I feel I'll be able to voice the lessons I've learned and put them to actual use rather than forgetting them as soon as they're out of sight, as per usual.
The problem is life doesn't really work that way. Sometimes happenings don't fit a particular story model. Sometimes your otherwise perfectly credible narrative is interrupted by a completely nonsensical distraction you have to deal with in order to keep moving forward. Sometimes you don't know you're in the middle of a greater plot, the outcome to be realized far in the future, and you'll have no idea what the point of it is until long after it's already gone. Sometimes a disaster appears out of nowhere and ruins everything in its wake, paying no mind to what you expected to happen, and you learn absolutely nothing from the experience. Sometimes there is no story. Sometimes you just can't help that.
Even understanding that as a concept, it is difficult to talk about where I've been and where I'd like to be going sometimes, probably because I want there to be a point to what happened. I want to have firm reasons for what I chose to do, even the stupid mistakes, and how I arrived at this stage in my life. I want an overarching explanation for the person I am and the life I have.
It's only when I try to write some of this down that I am struck again by the fact that I don't have all those answers. No matter how closely I weave these ideas together, I can't hold on to everything or store away lessons from all my experiences. No matter how hard I try to jam all of this into a cohesive narrative, some of it will never make sense.
And that's the sort of thing you just have to accept somehow-- the never-ending stories that take up way too much time and wind up being the most frustrating and dissatisfying parts of all existence. Somehow, we keep going anyway.
BUT in case you don't want to read all that, here's a clip from Adventure Time that sums it up instead.
Even though I've been away from school for a long time (and entirely out of practice in terms of real writing), I still yearn to tell stories. I take something happening in my life, and in putting pen to paper, I want to make something cohesive for other people to read. Well, maybe not even that, considering I don't spend a great deal of time considering my potential audience anymore. (Sorry, readers. It's a dumb internet journal, after all.) Maybe this exercise is more about thinking that if I can give a coherent introduction, explanation, and conclusion to a certain topic, I'll be able to put it to bed in my own mind once and for all. Maybe in the writing, I feel I'll be able to voice the lessons I've learned and put them to actual use rather than forgetting them as soon as they're out of sight, as per usual.
The problem is life doesn't really work that way. Sometimes happenings don't fit a particular story model. Sometimes your otherwise perfectly credible narrative is interrupted by a completely nonsensical distraction you have to deal with in order to keep moving forward. Sometimes you don't know you're in the middle of a greater plot, the outcome to be realized far in the future, and you'll have no idea what the point of it is until long after it's already gone. Sometimes a disaster appears out of nowhere and ruins everything in its wake, paying no mind to what you expected to happen, and you learn absolutely nothing from the experience. Sometimes there is no story. Sometimes you just can't help that.
Even understanding that as a concept, it is difficult to talk about where I've been and where I'd like to be going sometimes, probably because I want there to be a point to what happened. I want to have firm reasons for what I chose to do, even the stupid mistakes, and how I arrived at this stage in my life. I want an overarching explanation for the person I am and the life I have.
It's only when I try to write some of this down that I am struck again by the fact that I don't have all those answers. No matter how closely I weave these ideas together, I can't hold on to everything or store away lessons from all my experiences. No matter how hard I try to jam all of this into a cohesive narrative, some of it will never make sense.
And that's the sort of thing you just have to accept somehow-- the never-ending stories that take up way too much time and wind up being the most frustrating and dissatisfying parts of all existence. Somehow, we keep going anyway.
BUT in case you don't want to read all that, here's a clip from Adventure Time that sums it up instead.
