This is a A *Real-Life Story*. From my *actual* life.
Now, you might tend to say that this story is not 'Authored' by anyone, that it is just a lot of stuff, and stuff just sort of happens. A materialist would tend to begin from this basis.
Or, you might tend to say that there is A Devine Plan, from above, or something, and we simply need to submit to that plan, and we might create a dogma according to our hopes, or our belief, even our 'faith'. Our 'faith' that among other things, our "choice", to not have a choice, not so much, is correct, and it therefore must be correct for others, even all others ("all the rest o' y'all"). That is what a religious and/or doctrinist POV sounds like. This is also somewhat deterministic. The story is more or less set.
Or, you might say, 'this all sounds so suspect so far, that, hey, It Don't Mean Doodley', & all bets are off.
Nothing Is True, Everything Is Permitted. That is a nihilistic POV.
And there are other ways of looking at it as well, of course. It might be both stuff and not-stuff, 'something other than stuff', even.
Now, the story.
I am going to frame it, for the sake of the argument I am going to make, as: Some Scenes from a larger Story, seen in terms of, let's say (Because cinema, at its best emulates 'reality', in terms of our identifying emotionally and investing ourselves in the experience, the best.) a screenplay. In a meta sort of sense, a Story about Creating a Story, even.
One of my roomates is a single mother, two children, one boy, one girl. My other roomate's gig is to watch them part time. I am in transition and that's a known quantity.
Oddly enough the kids mother has had trans friends in the past. Her ex is apparently a cross-dresser. That didn't work out. I don't know all the backstory, though.
The boy child, "Rei" is ADHD, and extremely so. He is also very angry with his dad, again, I don't know the backstory, but the kid's pissed.
He is a superbundle of energy, all Force, no direction. His basic thrust is definitely destructive.
And I have appeared on the scene as Material, which Energy is irresistibly attracted to.
So I'm not really liking the destructive thrust, as it is aimed at me a lot of the time.
Ok. That's the plot.
This reaches a sort of critical mass one evening.
I'm tired, and I'm not liking Rei much from all the constant attack.
He comes up to me, I've just gotten back to the house {he is attracted, Energy to Matter, & he's coming at me with Force} and like I said, I'm tired:
(EXT- front steps/DAY, 5 pm-ish)
"Hey, check it out, I'm selling this gun at school for $3." "So, whadya pay fer it, 50cents?" Somehow he gets his nose out of joint. I say I'm sorry.
Me: "Maybe I got the sarcastic 'tude 'cause I'm tired of you being mean to me, I have feelings too, you know."
(But my tone was perhaps tinged with anger, or judgment, or both. He goes ballistic, eventually doing stuff like rolling over my phone's battery charger cord with his roller blades.)
"You little Sh*t!"
(Finally I just disengage, this ain't working.)
CUT TO:
EXT - Dusk (two days have passed).
I'm having a smoke on the front steps.
Rei comes out: "Hey."
Me: "Hey."
The nanny, 'Dace': Rei, it is time for you to get ready for bed.
Rei: I just need two minutes with her.
Dace: You got like two seconds, Dude.
Rei: Two minutes.
Dace: Two minutes, and that's it.
She goes back in.
Rei, to me: I'll be right back
(He's back.) I talked her into four more minutes.
Me: (Laughs) So you negotiated more minutes. Say, isn't it so much better to negotiate to get what you want, than to fight people? That way, both parties are happy, everybody's good, you know?
Rei: I guess so.
Rei is a complete pyromaniac. That's his thing, that's IT for him.
It's a kind of Pure Energy. Most people are not going to deal very well with it, and he's just 7, so, the whole thing could be real trouble, just waiting to happen.
He has played with fire *more or less getting away with it* since, in his words, he was a baby.
This force (like I said, it's a very pure force, primal, elemental.) has to find some direction. It is not a Creative Force yet, it hasn't found enough Material yet to get to that juncture, or to do any real damage yet either. Completely chaotic, needs shaping, otherwise, watch out.
[Why is the character, Me, in this scene, or episode? It appears to have too much coincidence in my estimation, for a super-subtle screenplay, if you want to take that sort of critical tack.
It appears designed, by a certain metric, it's that transparent.]
Rei and I play with fire together, for a good minute. I emphasize of course the potential consequences and ethics, like danger to others, of playing with fire, while also clueing him in on the idea of farts as potential fuel. (Hey, if he's going into pyrotechnics, in the entertainment industry, this sort of thinking is key. Trust me on this.) We're bonding. As it turns out, My Character's backstory is uniquely well suited, to this scene, well qualified to have maximum impact in dramatic terms. See, I enjoy making a sort of pyrotechnics myself, musical pyrotechnics, in the service of that discipline, and I know from too much energy.
CUT TO:
Rei, having used up his book of matches (he'd like to save some, but can't help using them all): I'll be right back
(He comes back with a lighter.)
Check it out!
Me: That's a neat lighter, where'd you get that?
Rei: Heh. I got it from a homeless guy, for fifty cents.
Me: That's a pretty good deal actually.
Rei: Yeah, it is a good deal.
Here, it's yours, I want you to have it. You can fill it up with fuel, see right here, when it runs out.
You could have this lighter the rest of your life, when you're an - an Old Lady!
(NB: Rei has been quite insistent that I am a boy up until this night.)
Me: Thank you, Rei.
Rei: It's a sort of a gift, 'take it to go'.
CUT TO: His mother coming up the street in her car. Mom's Home.
Me: Uh oh, no more talk about fire, now, Rei, 'k?
Rei: Uh yeah, it's DEFINITELY TIME for me to go to bed!
(His mom would Freak Out. She knows the history, but he can hide it well enough by experience, so she's in denial. He's smarter than she is, in this area anyway.)
CUT TO:
INT - Downstairs, my basement office.
Rei comes running in:
I came in the back way, my mom thinks I'm in bed!
Me: Doncha think she's gonna notice?
Rei: Yeah, maybe.
We hang for a moment, he wants some of my chocolate.
Me: No, honey, you know I can't give you that at night. It's time for bed.
Rei: Uh oh, who're those footsteps? She's looking for me, you hear that? Oh sh*t.
Should I go back through the front or the back?
Me: Go through the front, the back way's sneaky, your mom won't be too pissed if you just honestly go in through the front door. You're busted anyway.
Rei: Ok, you're right, I gotta go.
(Now, for the first time since I have been there, there is no fight about "get to bed, now, Rei!", all that noise.)
DISSOLVE TO:
[Now this story, qua story, is pretty nicely designed. It is beautifully constructed, in fact, by my view as a writer. It could easily go both ways, in terms of tragedy vs. comedy.
Is it going to unfold and resolve according to a deterministic or fatalistic scheme?
(It appears to be something other than a bunch of random stuff, if you ask me.)
Is it something else? Is there a dichotomy between 'stuff happens', and 'stuff sort of fits, by design?' (Is this a fluid design, in other words. What is the Nature of this?)
Might it be that the characters are meant to be instructive, to themselves? That they fit, their backstories fit, by some sort of natural law, EG: karma? That, as improvisatory as it feels - it's in *real time* after all - it works in formal terms also. Can the outcome be helped by its participants, through their consciousness of it? By mine, of it, in ethical terms? I think so.]
OK. Now, in terms of a Story about Creative Action, one of the best models I know is from Hindu Mythology.
Vishnu, THE SOLAR, 'The Eternal', lying on causal oceans, in an instant, sees his Shakti, his active principle, the Goddess, and Time Begins. All that rhythm. {Only this happens all of the time. Force + direction = Velocity.}
Energy meets Matter, and the Dance begins.
I think this Myth makes for a good 'best guess' viz a viz a Story of self-actualization, as it refers to creation, and in meta terms, creates a synergy in a feedback loop of self-referentiality.
(And I get to play a part, potentially in myriad ways, in other scenes or episodes.
I have more or less absorbed the story, in meditation. I have integrated with the Story. Meta-physically and physically, you might even say.)
[Ok, as I indicated above, I have framed this according to an argument I want to make:
If you are going to argue that 'Nature has no design, and no need of design', I say that Nature appears quite contrary to such an assumption*. Which resembles a nihilistic POV: Stuff just happens. What, by chance? Randomly? What makes order out of chaos? (I haven't even seen an argument there, just a posture.) (*: it works. Ever worked in, say, a kitchen that wasn't designed? Our stuff has to be designed to work, why would that not have integrity with all the other, Big stuff? And all the smal stuff way down in there at the Planck scale, even below, too. The universe is a pretty complex kitchen. It's working, has been for billions of years, by most available metrics. Whether or not we understand it or measure it right.)
See, the funny part is, I can't tell you the crucial bit that happened in the two days that passed, where Rei's whole rhythm shifted. I didn't 'direct' those. Some collaborator did? Down Here, or Up There? Is that even the right question? IE: Is there a substantial difference? Is there a dichotomy, a duality?
Or does it reside kinda sorta in the middle.]
I have no idea how this stuff works. It does appear to work somehow...
TMW
