Here’s something to think about: Why is it that the same people seem to get hit over and over and over again…while other people seem to traipse blithely through life with little more than the occasional hiccup? What’s the difference? You’ll find people with every kind of background in various situations with different outcomes, and wonder, why did they get that pattern of life experience, and not me?
And what does it mean?
Why do some people seem to lived blessed lives, and other seem damned?
As an admittedly amateur writer, I’ve got a habit of sorting people into character archetypes…easily recognizable generalizations that resonate with enough people’s experience to work as a sort of short-cut to character establishment.
I’ve broken the blessed and the damned into three general types each…not because there is really only three kinds of each…but because three is THE number for this sort of thing, and because frankly it’s better for brevity and coherence if I do.
One is the “Life is what you make of it” model, and I’ve met a few people like this. You won’t hear about anything horrible from them. They will smile, talk about the weather, their kids, how their tomatoes are growing, and you will spend years in their company believing that they’ve never seen anything more disturbing than Chuck E. Cheese dancing at their kid’s birthday party (which is, admittedly, quite disturbing enough, thank you).
But then one day, after you have known them for five, six, seven years, gotten to know their friends from high school or college, or cousins or whatever, you find out that they were horribly abused, or one of their parents murdered the other, or they were kidnapped and held hostage for a week, maybe they have a rare genetic disorder that causes them numerous unpleasant health problems, or whatever…and when you ask about it, they smile sadly, and say something like “There’s so much good in life, I just try to live that.” Or “That really has nothing to do with me. I didn’t do anything to make that happen. It was terrible, but it’s over and I don’t have to be part of it.”
You might think they’re faking it, or repressing…except nothing in their manner and life suggests that. They just have an ability to stay balanced and focused on the positive, and things that they can control…like their response to things. They also have a unique ability to view things as they are…in practical ways that tell them when they need to be involved in something, and when they can safely take a pass.
They kept their heads, kept their footing, kept their perspective, and made their own luck by looking forward and steering an effective course.
The difference between them and the rest of us is that the story they tell themselves is more constructive than the stories we usually tell ourselves. Most people seem to take on blame, shame, responsibility, or fear that is neither deserved nor appropriate.
I was once peripherally involved in a conversation between the notable writer David Gerrold and some other people I had just met, and don’t really know. (What?!? You’ve never heard of him? Are you serious? Does Land of the Lost ring a bell? The Trouble with Tribbles episode of Star Trek? You should read his War against the Chtorr series.).
Anyway, in this conversation, Mr. Gerrold asserted that our experience of life comes down to the stories that we choose to tell ourselves about the stuff that happens to and around us. Maybe. That philosophy seems to have worked for him, and a few others I’ve encountered. I envy them. Truly I do, and if I could be them I would. In a heartbeat. But I would not, as Mr. Gerrold suggested, pursue that through Landmark Forum training. It just sounds kind of creepy to me. If I ever make it into this state of grace, it will have to be via some other path.
Another type is the person who really, honestly, has never had anything bad happen to them. They were born to a fairly healthy, happy, well-adjusted family. They had just enough religion, but not too much. They had just enough education, just the right balance of mischief and straight-and-narrow to not mess them up either way. They made the right friends, pledged the right fraternity, found a good job and held it until they retired, and spend the days of their golden years on the beach or the golf course. They will probably die peacefully in their sleep with the knowledge of a full life well lived. God bless them. I know it makes me a bad, mean, bitter person, but some days I resent the hell out of them…other days, when the higher angels of my nature are in full ascendance, I am happy for them. Lord knows…it’s good to know that some people won the lottery.
The third type of blessed are the denial types. No matter how horrible and hard things get…no matter how apart the seams are coming…they cling to the idea that things could be worse. Things will get better. Just keep on keeping on, and eventually we’ll walk out of the woods. They’re walking in circles, but you’ll never convince them of that. They’ll come to you time after time after time for a little money to tide them over, or get them launched on the newest idea that is going to get them over the hump. They always have a plan and they always have a sunny outlook, and they never stop, God help them. They just never ever stop. They are the proverbial kids that, when given a big box of horse poop, with start digging around in it, just sure that there’s a pony in there somewhere. I admire their attitude, but can’t help wonder if trading two-parts positive attitude for one-parts reality check wouldn’t be a good trade. Still, they are never unhappy and never discouraged, which is more than you can say for many people who are much, much smarter and talented and still haven’t gotten anywhere either.
While I can feel admiration for their ability to stay positive, and I’m happy they are happy, it always makes me a little sad for them. Which I know is silly. Would I rather they exchange their delusion for misery?
No, not really. I’m not even certain that they are the ones that are delusional. After all, stories like theirs work out every day all around the world. Who am I to say the fiftieth or five hundredth or five thousandth time around the block won’t be their big score? I don’t see it, but they do, and I somehow feel the need to just leave well enough alone.
Symmetry demands that I now give my observations on the damned.
The first group I have a special fondness for. I’ve been one of them, and I’m not so sure I’ve crawled out of the category completely. These people are the ones who told themselves the bad story, and lo and behold, they keep putting their foot into the same shit over and over again. A couple of bad things happened to them right out of the gate…before they had that little thing called perspective. They told themselves that it was all their fault (maybe they had a little encouragement from others who felt more comfortable with the blame resting elsewhere). They told themselves that they were bad, or flawed, or cursed, and then spent the next however long basing all of their actions on that assumption, and seeking out every possible way of proving it true.
Strangely enough, bad stuff kept happening to them. Funny how chasing stuff usually leads to catching it. No, they didn’t really want the bad stuff to happen, but at the same time, having it happen is reassuring. Your place in the world is confirmed. It might be a really crappy place, but it’s yours. After all, being cursed is a kind of special…isn’t it?
If this seems warped and a little sick to you, your probably one of the three kinds of blessed, and let me tell you, these people think you’re all kinds of grade “A” stupid and delusional. So save your pity and your advice. They will not listen to you. They know the truth.
The truth (according to them) is, everything bad that happened to them or near them is because of them. They don’t know how, or why or anything like that. They just know it. There’s no such thing as random chance. The universe has it out for them, and they are going to spend every breath right down to the last one trying to fuck with the universe (or God, or whatever) as much as the universe has fucked with them. Don’t tell them it’s not personal. Everything is personal. If you are one of the people that hurt them, and you probably are on some level, you did it on purpose just to screw with them and their little lives. It couldn’t be that you were careless or thoughtless, or just too wrapped up in your own suffering to be careful not to add to someone else’s. Hell, it couldn’t even be that you are just a random worthless shit-head who would have done the same thing to someone else if you had turned left instead of right. Look for payback sometime soon, because you just became part of the universal conspiracy.
The second kind of damned never had a chance. They were born people of small talents, if any. Their family was maybe a little screwed up, maybe a lot screwed up, but it doesn’t matter, because they don’t really have what it takes to overcome either. The best education they could get was inadequate, and the neighborhood they were in was one of those dead zones like Flint or Oakland or any other place you hear about lucky, talented people escaping. The odds are stacked so high against them, they don’t even notice it. They do what they must and what they can to get along in the world as it is as best they can, and the tide takes them pretty much wherever it wants to…usually through one string of calamities after another.
The number three damned really get me. I’ve known a few of them in my time, and boy do they have stories of how they were wronged and cheated out of a happy life. Sometimes there really is terrible stuff in their past. Often, it’s just the normal indignities of the average person’s life that they have to recount. It’s not their fault that things are so horrible; that’s just the way life is. It’s hard. It’s hopeless, and there’s nothing you can do about it. It will always be this way, so why even try? Every little bump in the road is a trauma. Every little set-back is the basis for drama. Every obstacle is insurmountable. They feel alone, helpless, unloved and uncared for. They feel stuck. It might appear to you that their loved ones and friends have been carrying them through everything, but they don’t see it. They are helpless, hopeless, endless, but above all, blameless victims of random chance. They have no choice, no power, no options.
Now…here’s the fun part…at any time, for almost any reason…one of these types of people can become another.
…and that’s where the stories are.
No matter who you are, if you stay where you were at the beginning all the way through the end, it doesn’t matter how much stuff happens to you, or how big it is…if you don’t move or change, you don’t have a story. All you’ve got is a string of anecdotes.
A story is a journey from one place to another. Here in America, we prefer stories that move us from a bad place to a good place…from being one of the damned to being one of the blessed, for instance, but good stories can bring us “backwards” as well.
The fact that George Lucas has done everything he can to ruin the story notwithstanding, (As my friend Tony Bruno says, “how can ANYONE POSSIBLY think “you’re not like sand” passes for romantic dialogue?!”) the slip of Anakin Skywalker from innocent, helpless, charming slave boy to Evil, Powerful, Scary Darth Vadar is a compelling story. One I will even brave the indignities of the speech-impaired bi-pedal rasta lizard to see the end of.
Whoever the person, whatever the journey, whatever the catalyst for the journey, the journey must happen. It must make sense, and the person must come through it intact in their essence, but with a significantly altered reality.
The meaning, the point, the whole STORY takes place in the journey. The character is incidental without it. The events are incidental without it. Heck, even the quality of the story-telling is incidental to the journey it's self.
So, what's your story? What story did you tell yourself to get you where you are, and what's going to be the start of the next one?