Heavy Thoughts

Today is a day of heavy thoughts for me. Nine years ago today we had the terrorist attack which had quite an impact on me because of someone close being near one of the areas hit and was not able to get out of the area for several hours. There has also been some unsettling communication between family members today that has reduced the elevation of my brow a slight bit. Strangely enough I find myself drifting back to my thoughts about literary theory. I have been experimenting with several thing lately and I find it kind of amusing how much is missed by those who read really fast and take things for surface value. I have had kind of a theme going this week about questioning everything and I can't seem to get away from it.

The biggest questions of literary theory that have been on my mind lately are 1. who is the author writing for? and 2. what is the reader expecting from reading? Both of these questions can get very complex and can lead to heavy philosophical questions like is the author responsible for the readers well being and understanding. This opens up a lot of opportunities for me to explore some things that I would never considered otherwise. I have found that I am capable of presenting an convincing argument that I personally do not believe or having any real interest in because I have relieved myself of feeling responsible for the reader for a couple of things I have done. In doing so it has allowed me to add a 2nd level of communication somewhat embedded in the writing which turns out to be an interesting tool.

Misdirecting a reader with some heavy surface level thoughts, for example, allows the author to communicate some things that would typically make the readers mood go in a negative direction. If the author is then able to subtly inject some humor to lighten that mood a little, the reader should be less acutely activated by the piece. A little sugar to offset the taste of the medicine so to speak. This technique can also be used for the author to play pranks on the reader by making several suggestions of one reality only to remove the attachment to the belief that it might exist. This brings us back to the topic of this weeks theme, question information that is given to you.

I have made several disclaimers on this side about the fact that I do not assume responsibility for the accuracy in my comments or that I would even be representing my personal feelings or beliefs in these comments. Do I lie? Not when asked directly my opinion on something. Do I stretch the truth and exaggerate? By all means when I am writing something that I post here it has been "dramatized" for entertainment purposes. Which should make you ask is it for the entertainment of the writer or the reader, that is if you are following the theme of question everything. This authors intentions for the reader are to invoke a deeper thinking process, there is no malice behind any pranks or humor. I am a day dreamer and I hope to be able to take a few people to a similar place briefly.

My obsession with presenting multiple layers of a reality comes from my background in math, physics and engineering. The point of perspective can drastically alter what the observer is witness to. This has led to many false assumptions in science as well as in interpersonal relationships. Example only hearing half of a conversation someone is having on a phone, you only hear what is said by the person you are close to and have to rely on their ability to inform you of what else was said. Even if you later ask the person who was on the other end of the call, you have to rely on that person to relay what was said so there is not clear proof of exactly what was being said. My obsession does have a purpose for which my writings are leading to as time permits, a larger writing project.

I have considered writing a novel, which is something I might so at some point, but have decided that I can not spare the time to get that deep into my thoughts right now since I have other things going on like a job and such. I have also considered writing and educational item that explains the though process needed to solve highly complex problems without having to understand every detail, a guide to systems engineering. While that would be a wonderful time for me to get deeply into "how to" mode I have decided to let that rest a little longer too. That kind of leaves me with what I have been doing lately which is writing short pieces to attempt to evoke an emotion with whoever takes the time to read it. I like to day dream, especially while typing.

My recent trip to visit family allowed me to take part in an interesting conversation. We were sitting at the table going through a few of my dads personal items he left when he passed. There was a little reminder of how much of him is embedded in who I am. My nephew's girlfriend was sitting there with us and I'm not sure where it started but I went into an extended explanation of some kind followed my my mom telling the newest person to the situation that my dad would make up something and it could be so convincing that people would believe it for years and that he actually had no idea about the topic and was just having some fun. Yes I am guilty of this too. It comes from the concept of if a person is not willing to validate what they have been told then they deserve to believe it as it was told. Like I said earlier, there is no malice involved just the recommendation that you should validate what you think from time to time.

I am a huge fan of conspiracy theories because they are so much fun to pretend you believe them sometimes. I really enjoy trying to make a series of coincidences line up to seem like some kind of cosmic miracle. I like reading through the exhaustive efforts some people have gone to in order to propose something with a vague possibility at best. It is all great fun but when it comes to reality I have to laugh at most of these stories and accept them as entertainment. This bring forward the final question for today which has to do with how the reader reacts to something they read.

What if I was really motivated to take action because of something I read only to find out later that is was just somebody making stuff up? This brings us to the most critical of the questioning everything theme. Every person should take a little time to validate the source of their motivations. The more acute the desire for action the more important it is to understand where that desire is coming from, much avoid lynching when possible. My response is that if it is motivation to do something positive it doesn't matter if it was real or made up, use that motivation to do something good. The only way we can control our growth as individuals is to understand where we are and then carefully plan the best direction to proceed and to try not to just let things happen to us because we didn't want to take the time to think about what is going on around us.