Attaining Wisdom

"By three methods, we may learn wisdom: first by reflection, which is noblest; by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the most bitter."

- Confucius, 551-479 BC


To a certain extent, the attainment of wisdom is life's overarching endeavor.  Wisdom in this sense entails understanding: of the world, of oneself, and of the relationships that lie between.  Such understanding can be obtained through pure cogitation, which, as Confucius intimates, is the most elemental approach, as abstraction gives rise to abstraction.  Thought paves the way for comprehension.  The flow from one to the other requires no conversion from one form to another - both are constructs of cognition, built of the same brick and mortar.

Imitation, which involves the close study of the means, or path, by which a result is obtained, focuses on modality - which, if mastered, will yield a functionally equivalent result, independent of whether the actor fully appreciates the means or the end.  Perfect imitation can, potentially, be achieved by sheer rote, and in this way, prove to be the easiest means of attainment.  It entails a transition from process to object, from movement to destination.  A transition occurs from the former to the latter, but it is a natural progression, fluid in its unfurling.

Experience is by far the most immediate method, for it depends on the filter of physicality.  If reflection is a top-down approach to wisdom, experience is bottom-up: it is a latticework of particulars that form a skein of understanding by virtue of their interrelationships.  But each point of the lattice is hard-won, paid for with wages of time, effort, pain, and conflict.  And many such points are required.

Fiction, both the reading and writing of it, shares with life the attainment of wisdom as its ultimate end.  But its function, and the means by which it allows us to attain it, is an interesting hybrid of the three paths considered by Confucius.  Fiction is by its very nature a kind of directed abstraction, of cogitation distilled by the lens of the narrative structure.  Yet the use of that structure is to a certain extent an inevitable pantomime of the processes and modes used by generations of storytellers.  There is room enough for innovation and novelty, but  certain core structures and dictates must be observed - or at least comprehended.  Only by comprehending them can the storyteller then subvert or break them to positive effect.

And yet what is fiction but a simulacrum of experience?  It allows the reader - and even the author - to live countless other lifetimes, sharing in both vicarious joys and sufferings, yet also reaping the points of wisdom plotted by those would-be experiences.  It begins with the forms of abstraction, utilizes the tools of imitation, yet yields the result of experience - which, in the end, is the shared goal of all three paths.

Currently Reading: R. Scott Bakker, The Prince of Nothing Trilogy

An interesting philosophical series of epic fantasy by a Canadian midlist author.  Define influences from Dune and Lord of the Rings (though what fantasy series doesn't borrow something from the latter?), but the milieu is unique and painstakingly detailed.  It lacks the clockwork metaphysical precision of Brandon Sanderson's worlds, but the depth of history, culture, and timeline evokes the kind of complexity and minutiae that marks Tolkien's Middle Earth.  A bit esoteric - and, perhaps, too scholarly - in tone at times, but definitely worth a read.

Presently 1/3 of the way through The Warrior-Prophet, the middle act of the trilogy.  Will delve into deeper analysis when the trilogy is complete.

OSC on the Rules of Writing

"The only real rule is: You can break any rule, as long as you're willing to pay the price." - Orson Scott Card

Post-NaNo

NaNoWriMo 2011 concluded over a week ago, and though I nominally met the word-count goal (even with the intervention of Skyrim), I fell short of my aspirations for a completed draft - or to catalog my progress here on the blog.  Perhaps Stephen King was right when he said that you should write your first draft with the door closed; few people, I think, would be interested in the messy ravings contained therein, and even if some are, I'm not sure I'd want to share them.  But if I tackle NaNo 2012, I'll try to make a go of cataloging my process again next year.

My goal now is to reestablish the biweekly posting schedule for my blogs, and to turn back to the half-penned doujinshi that I had to abandon midstream in November.  I've been studying and practicing to improve my illustration skills, so there may be an inevitable amount of clean up to be done on existing pages before new material starts to flow, but I'm hoping to have the doujin rolled out by the new year.

I'm also looking to complete final revisions on the short story I drafted a couple of days before NaNo 2009, hopefully in time to submit the story to the Writers of the Future contest before this quarter's deadline.  The last time I submitted to WotF was back in 2005, and someone had bothered to write "Send more soon!" on the form rejection letter.  Six years hardly counts as "soon," but I suppose "eventually" is closer to that mark than "never."

Finally, I'll be updating the Natty Words page with a Portfolio section that will offer some samples of my illustration efforts, as soon as I have some fit for display.

NaNoWriMo #05: Background and Milieu Research

With 9 days to go until NaNoWriMo, I've started preparations for this year's project, codenamed (and possibly titled, though the chances of it surviving until the final version are unlikely at best) "Wander."  The premise is one that I used for my first published short story, a historical-fantasy mashup that spans a couple of millennia.  I've tabled this one for more than five years, because I felt I needed to grow a bit as a writer before I could do it justice.  The novel's scope and slightly more literary bent than my usual SF/fantasy modus operandi is one challenge that I think I'm now ready to face; the other is having to mesh the story of my pseudo-historical protagonist with actual events and locales.

One of the things I like the most about SF/fantasy is that the milieu is entirely your own creation; you can draw inspiration from wherever it suits you, and needed have to worry about how things correspond to the real world - except, of course, thematically or by analogy.  It can be a daunting level of freedom for writers who are used to the familiar confines of fiction set in the "real" world (which inevitable evokes only enough real world verisimilitude as the story itself needs), but on the other side of the coin, that freedom can also be something of a crutch.  Being forced to mesh things together with real world timelines, places, events, and people makes for a unique challenge for a speculative fiction writer like me, and the nature of the task requires that some pre-writing research and notetaking be done.

Among the various topics my research has me reading through: the Sengoku Era in Japan; the historical city of Alexandria; European warfare in the Middle Ages; and a question the answer for which continues to elude me - what is the difference between the terms Hebrew, Israelite, and Jew?

Also, some flights of pure fancy that I made over ten years ago also appear to have important milieu-based ramifications on my present line of research.  In the short story, I gave the protagonist the last name "Temani," which at the time I only knew meant "from the south."  My recent research has uncovered that being from "Teman," one of the larger and more characteristic cities of the country of Edom, would strongly predisposition a Jewish character as being one of the Temanim, or Yemenite Jews, a specific subset of Jewish people with a colorful and unique history.  A history which includes an aversion to naming their children after the biblical Ezra, which comes awfully close to the given name of my protagonist, at least as I had named him in the short story.  Whether that means I'll be giving him a different name, or whether that contradiction is a story-worthy complication remains to be seen, but I'll be working out the particulars as I continue my background research and start developing plot outlines.

APAD Follow-Up

I've been putting the principles of Tuesday's APAD revisited post to good use this week, and have about 4 pages left (and a new character to design) for the rough draft of my 30-page debut doujinshi.  The goal is to have it published online before the month's end, and as long as I don't encounter any problems with the manga software I'm using, I think I'm on track to meet that deadline.

If you haven't tried APAD yet on your longterm project, go ahead and give it a go.  Tell me what's holding you back - or, if you've given it a try, how the technique worked for you.

Fictional Tips: A Page A Day (APAD) Revisited

In one of the inaugural posts on the Nexus of Misc blog, I proposed that the three Rs of practicing any skill - including storytelling - are rigor, repetition, and ritualization.  The underlying notion is simple: to become good at something takes more than raw aptitude or inborn talent (though either can make the road a whole lot smoother).  In the end, though, you have to travel that road to get where you want to go.

This can often be easier said than done.  A penchant for procrastination is, I've found, something that almost everyone is born with.  Whether it's a term paper for a class, an article to be published in a scholarly journal, a short story, or an illustration, often times the hardest part about getting work done is getting yourself to sit down and actually plod your way through it.  The good folks at Writing Excuses offered the term "BICHOK" as advice for the itinerant writer: Butt In Chair, Hands On Keyboard.

My approach adapts the same principle to some of the progress benchmarks that writers like Stephen King swear by.  APAD, or a page a day, espouses an incremental approach to completing your creative (or even non-creative) undertaking, by 1) breaking it up into per-day-sized pieces and 2) most importantly, taking on each of those pieces day after day until the work is complete.

My original APAD post was intended as a call to action, but ironically, that post would be the last on the Nexus for almost a year!  Hardly practicing what I preached, as far as blogging goes.  Since then, I've tried to separate the Nexus's overly ambitious topic coverage into more clearly delineated niches, with Fictional Matters inheriting the posts focusing on writing and the creative arts.   I wanted to repeat that call to action, but this time couple it with an overt commitment on my part.  It has been my goal this month to begin providing new content on Fictional Matters, Watches to Wear, and Goods to Buy every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and to continue those scheduled updates into November, even as I take on NaNoWriMo 2011.

If you have large projects to write like a thesis paper or novel, a book or anthology to edit, or (the current occupant of my creative desk space) a comic book to pen, using the principle of APAD can help you to make it more manageable and to position yourself to make steady progress by minimizing the opportunities to procrastinate.  Give APAD a try, and if you do, be sure to tell me how it works for you by leaving a comment below.  Whether it works or fails, I'm interested in learning how it goes!