Writing Again

I’ve mentioned the Dust collection before. It’s my experimental science fiction collection that I have been using to explore writing methods.

One of my goals for it once upon a time was to get it to the point where it would be worth publishing.

I think I’m going to take some time to do a few more short stories for it and also update some of the older ones to fit into the continuity and post them here, since I don’t use the Wattpad account I posted them on anymore.

I’m open to criticism or feedback on these. Many are writing exercises, so they’re not exactly intended to be perfect, merely test my ability to do certain things.

God as Provider Against Fear

One of the things that has been a repeated source of God-centered conviction in my life is my own struggles with anxieties and fears of what lies in store for my future.

I have no doubt that many of these fears constitute a spiritual weakness of mine, a failure to appreciate what I have been given and a blindness to the charity of Providence. Although I deserve nothing, I fear that my comforts and worldly position will be lost, when in reality these are the least of my treasures.

Foremost among all fears is the fear of death. Other than fears of inadequacy and questions of our own identity, nothing can drive us more than the question of what will happen once we die.

God gives us eternal life because God provides the tools to resist any fears. We can overcome anything with the right help, and God will provide for our needs. It’s not that we should focus on the concept of eternal life because of what it offers us; having an eternity with God is pointless if you don’t have a now with God.

The role of eternal life is to give believers a reminder that we have a relationship with God through Christ that cannot be ended by any worldly force. It is only by choice, by the intentional rejection of God, that we can lose our salvation.

The degree to which one has to act in violation of godly principles to lose salvation is unclear. God is love and forgiveness, even when it is not deserved. Merely sinning is therefore likely insufficient to jeopardize salvation, but a lifestyle of depravity illustrates priorities that lie outside God’s kingdom, and it would be foolish to live in such a way that virtues extolled by God and the saints are lacking and expect to have one’s name in the Book of Life.

Paul’s famous musings on this matter in Romans come to mind:

“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?”
*Romans 6:1, NASB*

One of the things that I’ve noticed in my faith walk is that many of my fellow believers worry about their salvation; this is not necessarily always wrong, but I think that it overlooks the main point of life.

God wants us to succeed, but to do so in accordance with His will.

We may not appreciate those successes, since they do not always follow the paths that we want to follow. However, this development leads us to improved character, and from there we find ourselves bettered by God’s plan, so long as we follow the direction of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

When we are following God, we are earning our salvation; even though we will have moments of worldly weakness, we can strive to work toward our goals. An analogy for this is the notion of industry: not everyone can be successful, but people who strive for it are much more likely to do so.

Certainty can come in the form of an industrious pursuit of God.

If we do this, we will not automatically enjoy worldly success. This is a common heresy that has spread throughout the modern church, especially in America. However, as we follow faithfully we deepen our relationship with God, the loving Father, who will reward us with an eternal connection to Him. We also learn right principles of action from the virtues that come from that relationship with God, like self-control, being a good neighbor, and loyalty.

While these are not enough on their own to ensure worldly success, they are things that are important to have to avoid bringing destruction down upon oneself.

God’s support for us is found in both boldness and tranquility. We need fear nothing, for we are His children and servants. Through our service we can shine the light of the divine in the world, and while we may never have wealth or worldly success we can count on the auspices of God and trust that we will never be tested beyond what we can bear by the trials of the world. These difficulties do not come from God, and with the omnipotent Creator at our side not even death can take our hope.

Dream big and follow boldly.

Music for Today: Tobias Lilja’s “There Is No Other”

Since I’ve been writing about classical music here from time to time, now it’s time to go and ruin that by choosing entirely different sorts of music.

One of the more interesting musicians that I’ve found in my various musical dalliances is Tobias Lilja. He has an interesting mix between electronic, industrial, and just plain weird styles that I find incredibly appealing, not the least because of the incredibly deep layers of sound and the mix between dichotomous harmonic and heavily distorted/natural and synthetic sounds.

I find that the music that Lilja makes is both compelling and primal. It succeeds in running the gamut from highly intense to the surprisingly somber, and in his Medicine Sings Triptych he manages to create a driving, almost hypnotic experience with both incredibly intense elements and at times serene and wistful lyrics and instrumentation.

The particular song that I find myself revisiting most often, however, is “There Is No Other”. This was the song that I discovered Tobias Lilja from, in the form of a trailer for the roleplaying game Degenesis, which I’m including below.

However, I think the real strength of “There Is No Other” comes in the way that it showcases a mixture of intensity and sort of mystical, surreal tone. It opens one’s mind to wander, but also drives one forward, almost triggering a physiological response to the intensity of the effects.

You can find the original song on Spotify or on SoundCloud. Lilja also made a special mix for Degenesis, a tabletop roleplaying game, which can be found on SoundCloud, and another remix is available at his BandCamp page.

I think that listening to and comparing the different versions is very interesting as a highlight for the different ways that Lilja can use the same elements with different dressings to create an engaging listening experience.

Diet Milestones (Again)

One of the things that I worry about as I diet is that I could forget the reasons why I went on a diet in the first place and what the weight loss has brought me.

Just this week, I had two things happen to me that I hope to remember if I ever get the temptation to ease up and fall off the wagon.

First, I was stretching out one of my legs and I reached down to grab my ankle/calf region and felt nothing but muscle and bone. Admittedly, I never had a whole lot of fat around my ankles, but feeling that as opposed to having the little wiggling and jiggling I was used to was really sort of a “I did it!” moment.

The other thing that happened to me is that I was getting ready in the morning and I put on a belt (I typically wear business casual attire, with my shirt untucked: needing a belt at all is simply a consequence of losing enough weight that my old pants don’t fit me as well anymore), only to find that I was adjusting it to the smallest possible size.

The particular belt I had is one that I got just a few weeks into my diet, when I discovered that I had already become too small for my other belts.

I guess I’m going to need to replace it soon.

I’ve been a little put off recently by the lack of any visible weight loss, especially in my belly area, but apparently I’m still dropping some pounds, and that’s a good feeling.

Separation

After seeing his name on the list, he was almost relieved when the black car arrived at the far end of the street. At least he had a few moments left.

He turned to his wife. He could tell by the look in her eyes that she’d wait for him, but he wasn’t coming back. He bent over and kissed her forehead, trying to ignore the quivering of her thin nervous lips. They would put on a brave show for each other.

The only way that they would leave her alone is if he was there to meet the car as it pulled up. He drew in a slow, lingering breath and cursed himself in his own mind, wishing that he’d made different choices in his life. He ran his fingers through the dark tresses of her hair, falling as elegantly as ever like a funeral veil.

He could hear the motor pick up a little, the tires plowing a fresh path through the freshly fallen snow. If they had to go into the other house, they had been very efficient with their time.

He grabbed his coat from the hook, shrugging it over his shoulders. She said nothing, standing frozen in stillness. It was time to go, and he looked away, reaching for the door.

He could swear he heard a sob as he stepped out into the chill of the winter night.

Trying to Write a Character with Meaning

I’ve been trying to keep on top of writing recently, and while I’ve been fairly bad about actually writing anything fictional (at least on purpose), I’ve been doing some musing about why a lot of the stories that I’m coming up with the seeds for turn out to be non-starters.

Continue reading “Trying to Write a Character with Meaning”

You Should Know: China’s Gulags

“When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

A lot of people don’t have a good grasp on China. With the changes in its relationship and public branding, it’s easy to forget that it’s still a totalitarian Communist regime, not all so different from the Soviet Union with the exception of the fact that its market liberalization has saved it from economic ruin (though, perhaps, not entirely).

However, what a lot of people aren’t aware of is that China is perhaps the greatest human rights abuser in the world. Between its treatment of the Falun Gong and other religious and ethnic minorities, it’s no secret that rights in China go as far as the state permits them to.

However–and this should not surprise the astute reader–China goes beyond mere crimes against handfuls of citizens, and has turned portions of one of its provinces into gulags worthy of the Soviet era.

Why is this happening, and why isn’t it all over the news? The Chinese government has been regularly imprisoning its Muslim Uighur population, and it would likely be a surprise to the average citizen of the world.

The only answers can–and must–be cynical ones. The simple truth is this: our society doesn’t want to change, even if it’s necessary for evils to be ended. China exports cheap, relatively-well made consumer goods and other “necessities” of the modern age, and the cost of any significant action would be the loss of these comforts.

Even more cynically, it could be said that we don’t care because it’s outside our cozy daily lives. The atrocities of China are not blood on our hands, after all. We are not the ones building the fences, pulling the triggers, manning the crematoriums.

We are not Uighurs, but we are human. Every one of us must be conscious of the fact that with every dealing we have with China, we are being part of the machine that promotes what now appears to be heading toward not mere suppression and brainwashing but outright ethnic cleansing and genocide.

I’m not advocating military action against China, or anything like that. I believe such a thing would do more harm than good. However, we must be unflinching and unyielding in doing what we can to raise awareness. Our dependence on Chinese products is a major source of the problem; so long as we are chained by our dependency, we cannot stand up to the evils that we are facilitating.

One way to do this is by limiting our use of Chinese products. While this is likely difficult, as there may be no easy way to guarantee that products have not been fabricated at least partly in China, despite labeling, having even a little vigilance can help to choose alternatives to Chinese-made products that can limit the financial resources of its tyrannical regime.

I’ve also written to my Congressional representatives on this matter, and I suggest that each reader go to their government officials and demand an answer from them. We are permitting the worst evils of the 20th century to be repeated in the 21st century. Demand accountability.

Freedom through Responsibility

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about Pearson’s personality archetypes, particularly the Sage, which is at odds with some of the other stuff I’m writing about and requires a different approach, so I can’t get these thoughts out without really going into this separately.

One of the interesting things about the Sage is that they’re often associated with a lot of somber, rules-oriented thoughts, but many of the heroic examples of the Sage are going to be characters that enjoy their lives quite a bit. They’re not Puritans–or at least not Arthur Miller’s unhappy, scheming Puritans–but rather they’ve discovered freedom that is deeper than mere anarchic desire.

To the wise Sage, true freedom comes through responsibility, through recognizing the path that leads away from evil (however one wants to define evil; I’m a big fan of the simplified “infliction of deliberate harm” method as a short-hand), and through following the rules required to do what is right.

In a sense, the Sage who isn’t a total flaming wreck recognizes that there are rules that they need to follow, but that these rules serve an end. With that knowledge in mind, they can do something that is more potent than just going after perfect adherence to the rules that govern them.

The reason why this is important is that a mature Sage discovers the freedom to do what they need to do without having it consume them. They know what costs actually reside beneath the surface of their actions, and they can take responsibility for them. They make informed decisions that provide them with a brighter outlook for tomorrow than what was had for today.

This is part of living a happy, fulfilled life, and it is only possible when one finds meaning, or purpose. Victor Frankl, the famous psychologist and Holocaust survivor, notes that many of his patients made a tremendous recovery from devastating depression or anxiety when they were able to find a sense of purpose.

The Sage can find that purpose, and they hunt for the way to fulfill the role they must take on.

When they do this, they are freed from doubt, uncertainty, and all matter of trivial privations. They face challenges that are worth overcoming, and never created by their own mistaken actions.

However, without that core, there is nothing to guide life, and no reason to do anything other than live in the moment. It is responsibility, to society, to others, even to ourselves, that gives us hope.

This responsibility can’t be handed down from above, like the disastrous totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century attempted to do. Like over-sweetened foods, the efforts of these ideologies to control their prisoners often revolved around the notion of purpose–that the individual’s responsibility lies in the collective.

But it is only a small fraction of people, if any, who can find purpose for themselves in the machinations of such a regime. Real purpose is found through introspection, exploration, learning.

Too often we see people living lives of chaos. Their goals are unset, their purpose unclear. Devoid of responsibility they embrace only oblivion. This may provide some momentary satisfaction, but it never compares to the products of finding and accepting a purpose.

Likewise, it is important to remember that purpose is about finding something outside of the self. While self-improvement can be a valid route to purpose (for instance, I find that my current attempts to lose weight have a high amount of meaning in my life), it is not enough in and of itself. My weight loss is meaningful to me because it gives me an ability to pursue my other sources of purpose–writing, God, teaching–rather than as an end of itself.

To bring us back to the topic of the Sage, we can consider this: if you have purpose, but no rules to live by, you will be no more likely to achieve your goals than someone with no rules. Small challenges can be overcome by instinct; otherwise our species would have died out a long time ago.

Meaningful challenges–the ones that give us a reason to exist–require us to embrace the wisdom that comes with accepting our limitations. That includes knowing when to subordinate our judgment about what is right and wrong, which can become corrupted by our desires, to established codes (I’m religious, so you can take a wild guess as to how I do this), and also acknowledging the limitations of our perceptions.

However, the Sage goes beyond this: you do not just embrace the limits, but also what they allow you to do. It’s about recognizing the merits of the rules, which also allows you to find whether or not the rule itself has value. It’s very easy to know the consequences of the rules, and what the rules present, but when you can point to a rule and say what it does for you, it will be more effective.

A Great Deal on “The One Ring”

Any Lord of the Rings fans who are also tabletop roleplayers might appreciate the fact that Humble Bundle currently has a substantial offering from the One Ring product line for $15.

This is half off of its regular price on DriveThruRPG, and includes a whole bunch of stuff. If you just want the core rulebook to test it out, you can find it for a paltry $1.

My review (of a slightly older edition, though I believe it’s still the same mechanics) is duplicated below:

The One Ring lives up to its impressive source works; providing an epic amount of quality and more in a game that is built to work with the feel of Middle Earth.
Everything about this game feels right; the art, the writing, and the mechanics blend together into a marvelous product that feels very much like the original books by Tolkien. The game takes very few liberties with the setting, and feels very much like picking up one of the original stories in terms of how play and characters work; I personally saw a major relationship between The Children of Húrin and this work, at least in terms of how the adventuring bands work, though the same link goes for any of Tolkien’s tales.
Anyway, I will say that this is one of the best fantasy games out there, and as a fan of Tolkien I’d throw my support behind it 100% as a top-notch and accurate game which sticks true to the feel of Tolkien’s work.
The closest thing to a gripe I have with this is the gimmicky Feat Die, which has a potential to roll a Gandalf or Sauron rune, but it makes the game flow quicker and adds interest, so I’ll concede that it’s actually good (especially given that you can use a standard d12 and just modify the results slightly).
Quick Summary: Content: 5/5 (A great look at Tolkien’s world and making adventures within it; it’s built well) Art/Typesetting: 5/5 (I’d say that this is one of the highest quality games I’ve ever seen in terms of design) Writing: 5/5 (I’ve never had a gripe with Cubicle 7’s quality, so I see no reason to start now) Awesome Factor: 5/5 (I’m biased because I’m a Tolkien fanboy, but this gets it right!) Interest: 4/5 (Not perhaps the most interesting part of Tolkien’s sagas, but a good one) Maturity: 10+ (There’s not really anything in here I see that warrants a content rating, other than heroic violence) Value: 5/5 (You get a lot in this pack; the Loremaster’s and Adventurer’s Guides, and two maps [one for each], so the asking price is great)

Review of The One Ring: Adventures over the Edge of the Wild (2011 Edition)

Alternatively, I’m buying it myself, so you can take that as a ringing endorsement if you want.

Music for Today: Arvo Pärt’s Symphony #4

Today’s music that really spoke to me was Pärt’s Symphony #4. It’s a great piece that really shows off Pärt’s minimalist style.

I’m pretty sure I’ve written about Pärt before, but he’s one of my favorite composers, and certainly my favorite contemporary composer.

What I really enjoy about his work is the way that he can send one’s mind off in contemplation without relying on forceful compositions. Sometimes somber, sometimes uplifting, Symphony #4’s restraint comes in spite of its incredible power.

With a master composing music, there is no need for bombastic showmanship. I am not trying to say that these things cannot be good (after all, I love a good Tchaikovsky piece when I can get one), but rather that the slow, deliberate movements and restrained use of complex harmonies that forms the core of Pärt’s distinctive style can be incredibly intense in ways that would surprise those used to some of the more “meaty” composers out there.

You can listen to the symphony on Spotify and on YouTube.