»
Main Forums
»
Passions in Prose
»
True Story: The Most Profound Moment
| Passions in Prose |
|
True Story: The Most Profound Moment |
|
|
fractal007 Senior Member
since 2000-06-01
Posts 1958 |
Now we must turn our attention to the workings of the Attrendian mind in the fourty-second century. Attrendian civilization, and indeed all of civilization on the planet Pryna, was coming out of a long lapse into a philosophy now commonly known as desoism. Desoism postulates that the self is the origin of all that exists. The self is the source of your friends and your enemies, your highest pleasures and your deepest sadnesses. You must understand that I am not discussing here a simple subjective view of the world. No, I am describing an entire ontological framework for viewing the world: There is no world and all that "exists" is a product of your consciousness. To learn astronomy, for example, is to unlock some long-hidden part of your consciousness. To meet me is to re-discover a long-repressed memory. It should be noted that waiting to take a G1 exit test has to be the most annoying and demoralizing thing I have ever experienced. Seated beside me will be my stepmother, as we wait there in the waiting-room, if that's what you could call it. She'll natter on about what it was like when she took her first test, she'll try to get me to stop thinking about how worried I am. I'll not be able to sit for more than five minutes and so I'll walk to relieve the tension. 'Jonathan,' that soft and disciplined voice will say, 'they won't take you standing,' and then she'll come up with some foolish reason for it. Maybe she'll tell me about the virtues of politeness, the need not to disturb others, the requirement that one fit in with what the rest of society is doing... In the end she'll look at me with those stern eyes, through a face drooping with fat from so many failed diets, and tell me to sit down. And I will obey, feeling the ever-rising resentment that I must submit to so fat and pathetic a woman who isn't my mother but wants desperately to call me her son whenever she gets the chance. I stopped reading. For the most part, I could not really understand the words or the subject-matter. I was, you will recall, only eight years of age. But as I grew older, the relationship between Jonathan and his step mother intrigued me ever more. But it is not just the issue with Jonathan's step mother that has kept me coming back to the strange text. No, it is Jonathan's obsession with worlds no one else could see. He was so certain they existed that he wrote definitive articles on them within the pages of his diary -- articles about all manner of subjects. He wanted Steve to carry on the legacy that his father had created. You see, when he was in college, Steve's dad was considered an excelent scholar. The girls wanted to be with him, and the guys called him the thinker of rueful air. Dad was a loner and he was an extrovert. He knew that when he married mom they'd have a son who would finish the empire he had started. Yes, it's all coming back to me now! "Dad!" Steve said. "I can't do this anymore, I have to go my own way. I can't just follow your footsteps." And how oh it stung and it was the most profound thing in the entirety of this true story. "But son," and now it was Dad's turn to cry. "You are my last best hope!" They were both in tears now, Dad's shreddies now forgotten and Steve's fish at home in the waters. "I'm not an atheist!" I was once told that when Charles Darwin's father told his son to enter the priesthood so he could carry on his biology, he said 'you don't even have to believe in God! A lot of priests don't.' And something like that is what Dad said to Steve just then: "Son, you don't have to be. A lot of atheists really aren't. They do it to be cool." "But I know so many cool Christians, like Frank and Suzie!" It was true. Steve really had friends. He wasn't a lonely recluse. The only problem was that he didn't have enough to be considered cool. "Oh Steve!" Father said, imploringly as a man who gives letters about the girls we liked, about the ideas we hated. Sometimes now I wish I hadn't even met you, I wonder if you're still out there. Kevin, I don't know if you'll receive this, and my time is dwindling to nothing. In all seriousness, I can't stop worrying about you. But hey, you know me, I've always been worried about you. I have to leave now. Remember the German bus driver who used to say that? She had so much sorrow in her voice. I guess she had to add that tinge to make sure we'd know what she meant. Kevin remember to keep defining the properties of organisms like the vicious Wilgar of Northern Cape, or the Internecivus Raptus that haunted the airducts at night. But like any philosophy in decline, desoism was being questioned increasingly by the average Attrendian on the street. One need only look to the diary of the young Christopher Michaelson to see that this was the case. I think that for now, however, we will set Michaelson aside, and return to the relationship this desoism had to story. Story in Attrendia, during the forty-second century was a replacement for the desoistic outlook on the world. It took an imaginary world that was outside and it defiantly created it inside. To discover parts of yourself now was to discover story. To learn of the world outside of yourself now was to be liberated from tyranny. Any idiot can see that the result is true. -- argumentum ad idiotum Me! |
||
| © Copyright 2006 fractal007 - All Rights Reserved | |||
|
pen&paper Senior Member
since 2006-06-06
Posts 513 |
i actually liked this. let me tell you why. To me it seems as though you posted a lot from different things and it also seems as though at some point they would all come together to make sense. It looks like a puzzle. Is it? |
||
|
Philmont Member
since 2004-01-10
Posts 61 |
I think the story is weird. I like what the one girl said about it before. It's like reading something by a schizophranic. Hey, I was thinking this kind of story is something that lots of people can write together. It's pretty easy to see what you're doing. You're just kinda stitching many stories together but making it so when you go from story to story the sentence sounds like it's still one sentence. Anyway, I haven't posted around this forum for a while. Good to see weird stuff like this. |
||
|
fractal007 Senior Member
since 2000-06-01
Posts 1958 |
Hm.. I think this line of posts is creating some confusion. Puzzle? Not quite. Schizophrenic? No. The story is intended to be a series of stories seemingly unrelated but presented interlocking. So I'm experimenting with having different stories play off against each other as though they were part of the same story. However, each colour/font represents a completely different universe in which events unfold independent of how events are unfolding in the other universes (or font colours, lol). I hope you all like the story so far. It has been rather challenging to put together, but I think it is working well. Philmont, I like the idea of doing this type of story in partnership. I believe that Allan Riverwood (I think he has a new name now) did a partnered haiku poem once. You might like to talk to him, actually, as I believe you might find more of a sympathetic ear for your philosophies. Any idiot can see that the result is true. |
||
|
merlynh Member
since 1999-09-26
Posts 411deer park, wa |
“If I am walking with two other men, each of them I will serve as my teacher. I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself.”—Confucius What I find to the expression of confusion others write I see I need to correct also in what I try and express. The many years I’ve spent reading wise and great writers never teach me as much; they only make me feel the lack of their experience. Yet in what the lesser tries to express I see the small parts that are of the greatness of the others. To this demise I see much in what you expressed has much greatness. |
||
|
|
⇧ top of page ⇧ |
|
| All times are ET (US). All dates are in Year-Month-Day format. | ||
