God from the Machine

Though I am a writer, I do not spend much of my time ruminating on literary devices.  I have better things to do with my time, like clean my floors, tool around on Pinterest, or write my own literary matters.  But I do have a literary mind, and so sometimes I find odd things floating around in my head.  These odd things usually appear in my blog posts.  (By the way, I just lost the Game—see my post from last week.) 

Today’s item is deus ex machina, literally “god from the machine”, a literary device that doesn’t usually get a very good rap.  Deus ex machina is a plot device, used by authors to get characters out of an impossible situation.  It was first used in Greek drama: the hero would be in deep and stinky shit, and all would be lost—but lo!  One or more of the gods were cranked onto the stage, using his/her/their great power to solve the problem with little to no effort.  Modern examples are less obvious, but some that have been cited to me (spoilers ahead) include the sudden appearance of Scotty in “Star Trek: Into Darkness” to rescue the endangered Enterprise at the last second, as well as Tolkien’s eagles, a failsafe that Gandalf uses throughout the books to pull him and his company out of emergencies.  Now, these days, people like to think themselves independent from the gods, but even back in the days of the Greeks this was frowned upon as a method to end a story.  If a problem is solved by the gods, what good is the hero?  Is a hero really a hero if he or she has to be rescued?

Honestly, I would argue yes.  Maybe as children we want our heroes to be infallible, but as adults we start to see ourselves as the heroes—perhaps “protagonists” is the better word—of our own stories, and suddenly things aren’t so black and white.  Stories for mature readers have a lot of gray areas.  The villains have redeeming features and reasons for their villainy, while the heroes have deep flaws and dark secrets.  And yes, these heroes do sometimes fail.  In those moments, they do need someone to rescue them, and I find this to be perfectly acceptable.

Don’t mistake me—it still is very wrong for an author to make a hero incapable of rescuing him- or herself.  These heroes aren’t worth the title.  But if somewhere along the way, the hero stumbles and falls and has to be rescued, I would argue that this is all right, even desirable, so long as it isn’t the end of the tale.  The hero must then learn from mistakes made and find the way to the ending, where she or he will be responsible for the ultimate result.  To me, that is a very realistic path.  After all, as any successful person can tell, it’s our failures that teach us the most about ourselves and about how to succeed.

Photo from http://literature.wikia.com/wiki/Deus_ex_machina

2013 in Retrospect

January—This month was mostly quiet, coming back to my Foxhole to hole up after the holidays.  My only venture out of my daily life was a trip I took to Boston in the middle of the month.  I had no real reason to go when I did, and don’t ask me why I thought it would be a good idea to drive to Boston in January.  I just did.  I drove up with a good friend of mine, a full-day trip that was full of bathroom stops and singing loudly along with good music (lots of Disney songs).  My final destination was my aunt and uncle’s house, where I sent my friend on to her destination of Vermont and settled in for a few days.  I didn’t see much of the city: my concern was catching up with family and friends I hadn’t seen in a long time.  I even had the chance to visit with my sister, down from Albany.  It was nice, not only to see them all, but to assert my independence with my first long trip planned completely by myself.

February—I learned that working in a restaurant on Valentine’s Day week is not a good place to be.  I still feel tired just thinking about it.  Otherwise, nothing very remarkable happened this month, just work and friends and general living of life.

March—As in 2012, music was my primary focus in this month.  I had written a series of songs for my previous voice teacher to perform in April, and we met several times to rehearse.  They were based on a series of poems by Douglas Florian, all about bugs.  Cheerful, funny, and sometimes poignant, they were wonderful little pieces which I highly recommend, and I had a great time writing them.

April—The performance of the songs meant the end of one project—to which I got excellent feedback—and the beginning of another.  I worked for a good while on the soundtrack for a short film my friend Molly was working on.  This meant my first encounter with the electronic side of music—measuring the time periods of music, recording and editing sounds, and fitting music to images.  It was eye-opening, but more importantly, it led to a deep and lasting friendship that I treasure.  Molly and I also became members of a writing group which has since disbanded, but we still share stories about disagreeable characters and new plot twists, which is a joy to me.

May and June—I said goodbye to some wonderful connections, now if not lost, at least weakened.  The Hollins choir, the music department in general, and certain friends who were involved in these and once involved in my life—all of these were newly strange to me, and it made for a pensive anniversary of my graduation.  Still, I made new connections, too.  At the end of April I had become an official member of my church, and in May I began to take a more active role, accepting the temporary role of pianist.  This would be a source of both stress and joy in my life for weeks following.

July—I remember this month primarily by the bright red in my bankbook, but it was certainly worth it.  First on my list of extra expenses was my trip with Molly to the 48-Hour Film Festival in Richmond.  I joined the team as resident composer, which left me mostly on the sidelines as we worked to write, film, and edit a 5-7 minute film in two days.  There was not much sleeping on that weekend, and what sleep we got was in strange places—I remember the second night I slept across the top of a king-sized bed with at least five other acquaintances sleeping in with me.  But it was a blast, and we did very well, even if we didn’t win anything.  Later that month, I took a trip to Virginia Beach with my friends.  We did not actually spend very much time on the beach, but we did have a lot of fun.  The end of July, however, brought more pain than just the negative figures in my financial records.  During the last weekend of the month, my gran had a stroke and passed away. 

August and September—Family filled my mind this month, as I worried about my mother and my grandfather in equal measure.  My grandparents had been married for sixty-five years, and my grandfather’s entire life had been Gran.  He had taken care of her, helped her through her last days as speech and memory got harder and harder.  And the circumstances of my gran’s death had left my mother feeling distraught and guilty.  I worried for both of them, and for good reason, because the struggles weren’t over.  Only six weeks after my gran died, my grandfather followed him, and where we had thought we’d be holding a memorial for one, suddenly we were remembering them both.  Rest in peace, Ian and Stella.  I’m glad that now you’re together again.

October—My own life returned to the fore this month as I moved out of my beloved Foxhole into a new apartment with my friend Kathryn.  We did much exploring in the area and finally settled on a two-bedroom in the same complex I had been living with, but in a different building and now on the second floor.  The result has been delightful.  We not only have our own bedrooms, but a cozy sitting room with a lovely view out onto a private, wooded hill, and a small den which we have turned into a library.  The two of us work well together, both quiet, writerly figures who tolerate and even participate in one another’s weirdness.  We have dubbed our home Tookbank, in honor of our hobbit-like qualities, and enjoy it very much.  I’m very lucky to always have excellent roommates.

November—Settling into the new place occupied my mind for most of this month, as it takes a while for a new home to feel familiar.  I developed a ritual of waking up, getting a cup of tea, and sitting down in the library—it’s so lovely to say it—sitting down in the library to read for a while.  I wasn’t always sitting with my feet up, though.  Once again I participated in National Novel Writing Month, taking on a huge project which was probably a little too much for me, given the amount of research and work that would be required.  But with help and inspiration from my fellow NaNo writers, I managed to make the goal, and a new novel is well underway.  As if I didn’t have enough to do, I also continued my composing, working on a song for the Hollins choir based on a poem by a professor there.  It was great fun to work with Professor Larsen and Dr. Wahl, the choir director, on a project.  I have learned a real appreciation for collaboration this year.

December—Once again I wrangled four days off for Christmas, this time finding it a long expanse rather than a constraint as I had the year before.  Having become one of the senior workers at Ruby’s, I had fair choice of my schedule, and I have been very grateful for that privilege.  The first Christmas without my grandparents was very hard, especially as Christmas was Gran’s birthday.  It did make it clear to me, however, that my mother is healing, that however slowly, she will come to terms with their loss.  It is the nature of parents to leave their children behind, and with any luck those children will have people surrounding them to carry them forward, as my mother does.  We are all very lucky to have what we have.  Of course, this was hard to remember when my computer crashed at the end of the month, which is the reason I have not posted in the past few weeks.  But with the purchase of a new desktop computer (George III, aka Saint George), I am here again, and I say again: I am very lucky.

Happy New Year to all!  2013 was hard, one of the first years where I truly had to face loss.  That loss taught me about myself, about the way I handle grief and how I move on.  Looking back through my calendar, I was struck by the little moments that I haven’t mentioned here—lunches and dinners with my friends, trips to the movies, spring cleaning, nights of vodka and ice cream and mornings of tea parties.  These are the things which brighten my life, which move my days along through the larger meanings.  I am grateful for the little things, and I move into 2014 with a quieter heart, looking forward to many more little moments in the future.

Do Not Read This Post Unless You're Willing to Play

If you do not want to be captured for life, do not read this post, because I am going to talk about the Game. 

The Game is something you play forever, whether you want to or not, because once you know, you’re playing.  The Game is a mystery.  The universal rule is this: you are not allowed to think about the Game.  If you do, you’ve lost.  Once you’ve lost, you must announce your failure to everyone surrounding you, whereupon they are then rewarded for their temporary victory with half an hour in which they may think about the Game.  (My roommate just lost, so I have approximately twenty-seven minutes left.)  Sometimes the regulations of announcement and “victory” are different, but the first rule remains the same: if you’re thinking about it, you’ve lost.  Ergo, all of you have lost the Game.  Sorry.

I’ve explained this obscure concept many times, and frequently I’ve gotten very strange looks.  “But what is it?” people ask me.  “What game are you talking about?”  In the past, I’ve never been able to really answer.  I simply fell back on the fun of the mystery, grinning and saying, “That’s the point.”

But today, in trying to explain it yet again, it occurred to me that there is more to the Game than the mystery of it.  The Game, you see, is a struggle against your own thoughts.  We don’t understand how our thoughts work, and we can’t control which direction they take.  Memories will spring up at random, stirred by the most ethereal of connections.  For example, the picture on my calendar makes me think of Ireland, which makes me think of twisting my ankle, which makes me think of the girl at work who sprained hers, which makes me think of glasses, which somehow makes me think of Sherlock Holmes.  I can explain all but that last one--it just jumped into my head.  The Game brings that lack of control to our attention.  It reveals that it’s a losing battle we’re fighting.  It is a perfect example of how little we actually know about consciousness and thought.  No one wins the Game.  No one can even really get out of it.

The fact that it’s called the Game, however, rather than the Fight or something similar, encourages me.  Regardless of the fact that we are stuck inside our heads, and regardless that it sometimes gets really messy in there, it can still be fun.  The things that spring out of our subconscious don't have to be monsters.  We don’t control our thoughts, but we aren’t controlled by them, either.  And who knows?  Maybe as time goes by, we’ll continue to learn our own selves, and we’ll figure out how to direct our thoughts more efficiently.  Then, just maybe, there will be those who can win the Game of consciousness.