Wise Words, Parallel Worlds

Sometimes when I am in need of words of encouragement or wisdom I turn to one the many unseen, yet real,  parallel realities that surround us. Here's something I found by a, "...young and promising voice in contemporary social commentary..." in a universe I noticed while pumping gas.

       
Whoever fights with "monsters" should see to it that he or she does not become one                              themselves. And when you gaze long into politics, politics gazes back into you.                             
                             -Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil and Labeling (2017), Aphorism 147


According to his biography he is an only child in that universe, so his legacy is (hopefully) safe.



Be seeing you,

Sam

“But had the walls eyes to pluck out….”

 

Some of you are familiar with our story The Haunting House. Put simply, two men enter a purported haunted house only find out the hard and final way the reports are correct. Thematically I wrote it to try to spur the reader into thinking what it means about the nature of the universe and reality if a haunted house can exist. (Frightening stuff if you carry the logic out fully, but I’ll elaborate more on that in a different post.)

What very few are aware of is that this tale is a small part of a much larger, more serious and scary story I am working into a novel.

Enjoy this tiny sneak peak into the troubled background of The House. They set the tone for the novel.

PIECES OF WHAT THE HOUSE HAS SEEN

MR. & MRS. BRINKERHOFF

Robert Brinkerhoff was a socially awkward, nervous young man who enjoyed the quiet and predictable life of a banker. Ruth was a vivacious flapper from a small Westchester County town drawn to New York City during the Roaring Twenties. The unlikely pair met at a Petting Party that the timid professional was tricked into attending by coworkers. Robert was too shy to talk to any of the women present, which was exactly what caught Ruth’s eye. She found his discomfort charming. She walked straight up to him, said Hello, and stole his heart. They quickly fell in storybook love and spent the next few years in Manhattan before moving Upstate to start a family. They thought it was a stroke of luck to find such a large home at such a low cost, even for Depression Era prices. The real estate broker never mentioned any of the local legends and mysteries surrounding the house. They planned and prepped to spend the rest of theirs days in each other’s arms.

Three weeks later they were both dead.

 

The WARRENDER family

The Warrenders built the house in the mid 1850’s, but they weren’t the first to live on the land. The grounds had a long history, a fact Mrs. Warrender hated. Mr. Warrender in his typical patient manner explained the practicality of tearing down the large, pre-existing colonial and re-using it in the new construction. He also explained with much logic why the old barn should remain untouched. She listened but heard none of it. She clutched a life-long list of hatreds, miscarriages of justice, and perceived slights close to her heart like a rosary. She despised the older and unsophisticated Mr. Warrender. Much can be overlooked for security she told herself again and again during their lavish wedding ceremony some years earlier. She birthed three children who were all taught to call her mother when old enough to speak. The single light in her life was William Abbott, her husband’s handsome business partner. She loved him fiercely, though he never knew nor suspected. His Sundays visits, especially when Mrs. Abbott could not join them, made life tolerable. Then one day Mr. Warrender, Mr. Abbott, and group of local men went hunting for deer in the nearby woods. Mr. Abbott never returned. It was a terrible accident, all the men agreed. Mr. Abbott was careless and walked in front of Mr. Warrender’s rifle at the exact moment he fired. An accident? she thought late that night How? and more importantly Why him? She rolled the question over and over in her mind looking for an answer as her husband lay sobbing in his room next to her’s. A very small, very clever voice answered her. The next day she searched for a title in their library. She had argued against the books (Mr. Warrender insisted the children needed them) but the voice reminded her of a story that made her, silently and for the first time, thank her husband. The book was titled Hamlet. Mr. Warrender was found in the root cellar two months later. Mrs. Warrender dutifully wiped the tears from her children’s eyes at the funeral. The following years were the most peaceful of her life. Then one day the little voice came back. Go away she told it. I don’t need you anymore. It laughed in her ear. At night it crawled into bed with her and reminded her of the list. She ignored it and told herself it wasn’t real. And yet. Doors opened by themselves. Floors creaked. The servants whispered of a dark shape hiding in the library. The voice reminded her it of its good council. It then pointed out how much her two youngest, Charles and Edward, looked, acted, sounded, and even smelled like their father. Mrs. Warrender had to agree. Both were dead within six months. Only her eldest, George, whom she thought looked a bit like William, was left alive. She would make sure nothing happened to him. The year was 1860. 1861 came and her eldest died with the eldest and youngest of a nation torn apart. One day the servants woke to find the front door open and Mrs. Warrender gone. Her body was never found. In time the town folk came to agree poor Mrs. Warrender had succumbed to despair and a broken spirit.

In a way, they were right.

I Mourn the Loss of Evil, Maleficant movie review

I watched Maleficent. If you haven’t watched it then stop reading now. Seriously. Stop because I am about to unload two piles of spoiler filled mad on this movie. The first consists of its merits as a movie. The second consists of the thematic elements that made me want to throw my popcorn at the screen and my head at a wall in a way few movies have lately. I saw this philosophical facepalm days ago and I am still a bit pissed.

Point One to get the boulder rolling. Movie Review. Maleficent is the Sleeping Beauty tale as told from the titular villain’s point of view. Angelina Jolie was, for the most part, very good in this role. She hit her best strides as Maleficent at her villainous peak. She delivered some very good lines and looked the part. Good stuff. She was weakest when Maleficent was the cliché fairy flying about the magic land of blah blah blah. I’m not slamming those parts per se. I went to the movie to see one of my favorite childhood villains, if you get me. The effects were pretty good, as were the creature designs. Sharito Copely as King Stefan was a complete waste of screen time, unless of course he was directed to play a weak predictable abusive cliché psychopath drama-queen with no redeeming qualities at all - opposite of everything King Stefan was in the original Disney telling. He’s the reason Maleficent turned dark and evil in case you missed my subtle hint. Elle Fanning as Aurora wasn’t bad. What at first seems over the top acting makes sense given her character was magically altered as an infant to feel happy all the time. Think about that. She was not the person she was born to be. She was changed by magic into a something not quite human. Perhaps that was for the best considering she was entrusted to the care of three non-humans who lacked of any real idea of how humans work, or seemingly any desire to learn. Aurora mentions in passing a time the fairy trio tried to feed her spiders. Another awesome choice by the aforementioned King, yes?

Where was the Queen, you ask? The woman who carried and birthed Aurora was of no importance to the film or any of the characters. Zip. Zero. None. Forced to lose her only child (at which point she disappears entirely from the film), married to a crazy abusive husband, and doomed to live out her days alone until illness ushers her into the mercifully arms of death off screen. The queen, in my opinion, is the real victim in this tale.

Here’s where the movie started disappointing me. I kept hoping for a sudden twist revealing we were being sold a bill of goods; that the story from Maleficent’s view point was nothing but a lie weaved by the Arch Villainess year after year to devastating effect in her plot to take over Stefan’s kingdom. But no. She spends years caring from afar for a little girl fathered by her abusive first and only love. The caring bit made for a decent redemption vehicle but it was largely unneeded. The child was cursed to die by a very specific age in a very specific way that no power on Earth could stop. Throwing her off a cliff would not have killed her per the very plot event fueling half the movie. But why bring the story itself and logic into the story. If you are looking for the traditional tale brought to life then don’t bother seeing the film. The trailers lie. Per the new standard, they are far more evil than Maleficent ever was. Keep reading.

Point Two. Thematic Elements. What the hell is with reworking villains or monsters into little more than victims lacking coping skills? Can we think of nothing better than taking established tales and giving them the ‘bad is good and good is bad’ Opposite Day treatment? Retelling a story from the view point of the villain can be interesting and thought provoking when done right. It was not done right here, it rarely is. I blame the popularity of John Gardner’s 1971 novel Grendel for a lot of this. Grendel is the Beowulf tale as told by the misunderstood Grendel monster. It drank deep from the well of the late 60’s. It is deeply stacked ’Who am I?’ angst, anti-establishment, and anti-authority wrapped around a vein of existentialism. You can view this yourself in the 2007 film Beowulf. Also an Angelina Jolie film, interestingly enough. Grendel’s attacks on Hrothgar’s hall result largely in part from his sensitive hearing. (Should have called him Grinch, not Grendel.) He’s also the bastard child of the king so there’s the rejected child angle, as well. Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader. “Incrediboy” becomes murderous Syndrome. Jason Voorhees becomes, er, Jason Voorhees. At least Anakin became more likeable.

Evil is birthed from circumstance. No one is truly bad. They are only victims. Perhaps then King Stefan is merely misunderstood. Maybe he has a story justifying his actions. I can only assume something bad must have happened to him in that barn he was living in as an orphaned child. Evil is made, remember. Think about the message that sends. It pushes aside the responsibilities of choice, civility, adaptation, and perseverance from the individual. Reducing villains/monsters and their actions to the status of a misunderstood victim is paramount to declaring the world is evil. Evil because it lets bad things happen that turn people evil against their will or choice from which they are powerless to change. Life is twisted into a blind dealer of injustice (real or perceived) which grants the victim the implied sanction to act in any manner he or she wishes. I was hurt, therefore I can and will hurt others becomes the norm. Watch the news and try to tell me this narrative does not already have roots.

Pruning the concept of evil from the landscape of ideas has another awful side effect. Take away villains and monsters and you take away heroes. Joseph Campbell’s work on the Hero’s Journey is top notch. Please read it! Put simply: the journey is a voluntary transformative event enabling growth in strength and wisdom in order for the hero to overcome an initially stronger and deadlier threat. Removing obstacles and threats removes the need for growth and change. Remember that, because all too often in daily life these challenges are internal. A hero sometimes is that man or woman who fights the monster within themselves. Evil doesn’t always wear a hockey mask. The more often evil is renamed or excused away in all its forms, the less important or necessary it is to fight it. It’s all relative, right? “My behavior isn’t so bad. I’m only human. Who are you to judge me?” Why struggle to bring forth the best in you when society’s bar is set so low becomes the question. On cynical days I wonder if this trend is not on purpose, this lowering of the bar. Evil is easy. Good requires work because you don’t get whatever you want to, like a spoiled two-year old. Humans need examples of great Evil and great Good. They help us learn what to avoid and what to emulate.

Conscious, active, and willing evil is real and no amount of smearing the moral color pallet into a dull grey stain will make it go away. There isn’t always another side of the story. Some humans are simply bad as proven by their actions. And we need to stay alert for them. The majority of us, though, are on a path. We have choices. We can choose right from wrong, good from bad, but only if we know what those words mean and how they shape us.