Backyard Dystopia

With Hunger Games and Divergent the popularization of dystopian stories has grown. I think the biggest reason for this is that heroes tend to standout much more in climates where there is more demand. Can you imagine for example the Lord of the Rings story if there wasn’t such pressing need for the heroic journey: the ring wasn’t actually evil and just needed to be returned to a good neighbor just down the street who’s pleased to see that his ring was found and returned?

In my story the dystopia isn’t as distant as those stories. While still a fictional story, Sarah discovers that hidden just under the surface of everyday life things aren’t nearly as pleasant as they pretend to be. The thing I really like about that is that in real life it doesn’t take that much effort to see real suffering that happens all around us. There exists in real life a real dystopia, a need for real heroes. I would like my book to be the kind of book that helps readers to feel inspired to face their problems, become the heroes that a real world needs.

I realize that my book isn’t quite where I wanted it. As I work with my editors on improving that, I hope that those have bought it already are happy to hear that it’s getting even better. One of the first problems that have been pointed out to me is that a little more motivation is needed to convince Sarah to look into the Illuminati and Savants. So I’m adding the following:

Sarah reached absentmindedly under her bed for the box that held pictures of her mother. As she pulled it out and looked at it she remembered why she had hid it away. It was too painful; she couldn’t keep doing this to herself. Though she wanted to keep her mother’s memory, she was afraid the nightmares of her mother’s death would never end.

No, even though it wasn’t a nightmare she had last night, she didn’t want to open the box right now. She knelt down to find a better hiding spot for the box, and started sliding it back under her bed. That was when she noticed a piece of paper poking out of the plastic, flower patterned wrapping. She slowly pulled back out the tin box of pictures.

It looked like it was a note card hidden on the outside of the box. She pulled on the corner, dragging it from under the thin plastic wrapping. It looked like her mother’s handwriting on it. There was a drawing of a pentagram – Sarah’s birthmark. Under the pentagram were the questions, “Why did the Pythagoreans find this symbol so important? Why did so many diverse and unconnected cultures find it important?”

And then later, when she finds that it’s not a note card but rather a piece of paper so warn and tightly folded that it was tough to see that it could be unfolded, she finds another clue that leads her to look into Illuminati and Savants. Thus she and the reader are more carefully lead to the hidden dystopia of my imaginary world.

It’s a conspiracy, I tell you

The term "conspiracy theory," since the mid-1960s it has acquired a somewhat derogatory meaning, implying a paranoid tendency to see the influence of some malign covert agency in events. The term is sometimes used to automatically dismiss claims that are deemed ridiculous, misconceived, paranoid, unfounded, outlandish or irrational. Once the conspiracy is proven, such as the when the United States President Richard Nixon and his aides conspired to cover up Watergate, is usually referred to as something else, such as investigative journalism or historical analysis.

A conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime, or do something harmful, at some time in the future. Perhaps it is because conspiracies are so common that people tend to disregard the term. Or maybe it is because the word harmful can be rationalized away too easily that instead of conspiracy it might be justified as “strategic” positioning.

The fact that smoking isn’t illegal even though it is well known and documented as harmful is one interesting conspiracy. And since the term conspiracy is so obviously fitting in this case, it’s interesting that with all of the government conspiracies attributed to the great hippy era this was probably one of their least concerns. It’s also interesting that this was the era in which “conspiracy theories” had such a large peak and then acquired such derogatory connotation.

I obviously have a vested interest in the regain in popularity of “conspiracy theories” since that might improve sales of my book. So as an interesting side note, my working with others to produce such a book might also be considered a conspiracy. This is interesting in part because, even though secrecy is generally inferred from the term conspiracy, it is actually not an essential part. The only essential part is “harm,” which of course I don’t intend. But if my book were to become so incredibly popular that large numbers of people were to suddenly be unable to do anything other than focus on it and me, this could accidentally cause some harm. – Suddenly mailmen aren’t delivering mail, teachers and students aren’t going to class, and the entire workforce suddenly doesn’t show up to complete their jobs. And I wouldn't really have a hard time or get all that upset if such a thing were to happen. But I think I can justify the problem as also being the solution, because nobody would really notice except for those people who refuse to appreciate my book like everyone else.

So in short, conspiracies are real, but you don’t really need to worry about my conspiracy to bring the world to stop while everyone admires my brilliance.

Crowded and lonely superheroes

I think it's interesting how lonely it can be on Facebook at times. It's not just there. That feeling of loneliness in the midst of a crowed, even a large group of friends, can be particularly poignant. I think that feeling is universal, that we all feel it from time to time, and probably more so in America and western culture then elsewhere. I think that we learn not to share it because it frequently doesn’t help and tends to alienate us from others who might withdraw because of how uncomfortable it makes them feel.

In writing my first novel, I figured that in no point in life is that more particularly true than in high school. I write about a teen age girl that searches for answers surrounding her mother’s suspicious death. And as she feels the weight of high school life, I have one of her older brothers tell her that everyone is crushed by the system churning out people of equivalent abilities. That with so much focus on standardized testing individuality is frequently sacrificed.

I think that sometime the reason we feel so isolated from others is because each of us is so unique that sometimes it’s hard to feel understood. And thus we all suffer, and even in that suffering we are unique – we don’t suffer uniformly and equally, some suffer far more than others.

I find it fun to attribute that suffering to conspiracy. And I think it’s true that many companies advertise to enhance that suffering to sell you that one product that will change it all for you.  And when that product fails there are thousands of others yet to be tried. From diet plans and shampoo to alcohol (sex, drugs, and rock and roll), somehow it’s all advertised to make your life more happy and pleasant.

I think it’s also fun to attribute to that conspiracy the hidden truth that they’re all trying to keep from you – that you don’t need any of that, or even anyone else. You’re happiness is up to you. But in this I think that you do need others. Because I think the truest happiness comes from finding how to use your unique ability to help those around you. If it’s in music, art, poetry, or in making exercise actually fun – I just mention those because it seems like their more frequently lost from schools than math, science, and engineering (which can also be used creatively to limit human suffering, but is rarely taught with that in mind.)

I also think it’s fun to treat the idea that we each have supper human abilities as a secret. Unfortunately I think it’s far too true and we all have a hard time finding out how amazing we really are. I think that as we realize how we can lift and help those around us we unlock some of that supper human within us. There is so much that each of us are capable of, it’s a shame that so much of that remains hidden (a secret, yet to be found).