Wondering if I should comment on blogs anymore...

The more I think about it, the more it seems that I'm just as awkward online as I am in real life. I'm a total hermit in real life, maybe I should be online as well - observing, never opining, and just putting fiction and art out there because people seem to accept that.

Man, people can accept some weird art from me, too... I've noticed I can get away with an awful lot when I'm just creating and putting stuff out there without it being a *conversation.*

Not so much in opining, though.  I'm opining here, but this is my little space and few people ever comment. I'm not sure anyone is even reading. 

I've just noticed something with me and the blogs of others when it comes to the commentary.  It seems whenever I try to join a "community" I wind up being the odd person out or sooner or later screwing it up for myself in some way.  I've noticed online, as well as in real life, whenever I feel "too safe" I'll let thoughts spill that I probably shouldn't.  Random thoughts, whatever comes to mind.  Poor impulse control.  No matter how safe and "loved" I feel among any set of people, sooner or later, I fart and I stand alone (to borrow a line from a T-shirt). 

Sometimes, it's just the nature of the community - a lot of online communities and blogs, if they have a large number of people on them, get contentious.  Each community has its own little culture that one must take a while to get to know. 

I stopped posting and even trying to ingratiate myself to the community on one blog I regularly read for instance, because while I enjoy that blog, I found the comments-box atmosphere to be very serious.  It does make sense as the place seems to have a problem with trolls sometimes and discusses intellectual/societal things, but I've found that making a misstep to find myself laid out and have my brain handed to me somehow more painful than the usual online contentions.  I didn't feel particularly "singled out" in regards to that blog, though - the "I will lay you out and show you your brain before you die!" seems to happen to everyone there, even the regulars when they argue with each other. I just found it a high-tension community that requires both brains and emotional toughness to participate in.  (Notice I'm not naming blogs here).  I've always been too soft-hearted to deal with high tension, even if it stimulates the gray matter.  It's just my "I was always an alien there and could never fit in" makes me sad because of the gray matter discussions.  

This post was prompted by what's going on for me right now in another community / single-person blog with a semi-large following that I follow.  The problem I have right now regarding feeling a bit hurt is that I *felt like I was a part of the community there.*  I wasn't just a lurker, I've been following and commenting for quite some time and I've met some budding online buddies there.  The place was kind of like my online "church" in absence of my going to a meatspace church.  I felt a lot of spiritual fulfillment talking to other oddballs-like-me there.  I feel like I've been tip-toeing there for a while, too, though.  I've made a couple of impulsive stupid-crap-off-the-top-of-my-head comments/posts there that have gotten deleted before, and ever since then I've wondered if the blog's owner has been *watching me VERY closely.*  I'm not like his trolls, though - he gets some very nasty trolls that come along to harass and condemn him and people on the blog community. I think he knows I'm not one of those -- but is also mindful that I'm kind of insane.  I probably scare the guy.  (Again, I'm not naming blogs).  

I noticed the last time I posted a comment, (today) it was "under moderation" which usually doesn't happen, comments are usually just trusted and open - I have no idea if it's because the comment area had reached past-200 posts and that's standard or if it's because the threadlet I was in *was* getting off-topic, or if the blog owner decided "Yeah, she's getting insane again, time to watch her."   I might be reading-in with the last bit, but, seeing as I've gotten that feeling from people before, I'm kind of keyed-into it and/or paranoid.

I am very mindful that I am a creature of impulse when it comes to sharing my thoughts and I am very mindful that in regards to most of the human race, I seem to think like an alien.  It's how I've always felt, anyway - just awkward whenever there's a conversation, even online, when I feel freer. There's a danger in that, you know, the freedom of being behind a screen.  It can make a person even more awkward.  After all, here, in text, I do not get the visual cues such as a groan or a withering look. 

I welcome comments on this blog, though - because, well, I post random fiction here and I'd really like feedback on my writing.  Otherwise, I don't know. Maybe I should "lurk moar" wherever I go online.  Maybe I shouldn't expect welcome or community.  Maybe those things are just not for me because I'm just never going to know how to act in regards to communities.

Thrift Stores

Not-fiction again.  Don't worry, I am plodding along on a new story and hoping the parts that are writer's blocked will be chewed away by writer's termites as the story flows.

Today, I was on my way to a doctor's appointment that got delayed.  In making use of the delay, Bob (my guy) and I payed a visit to a thrift store we'd been to before. 

I love second-hand stores.  I really do.  They're the best places for me to get pants for work (which are going to be worn out pretty quickly by me, considering what I do).  It's great to spend five bucks on a pair of jeans than twenty.  One finds funny stuff in thrift stores, too - like jeans that have velvet fuzz all over them.

I also like just looking around thrift-shops for the kitsch, history and nostalgia.  It seems like I'm always finding stuff there that I remember seeing in my grandmother's house.  Some of the stuff is old craft items and things that show the wear of having once been loved.  That's neat, that's real neat. 

And old computer stuff for those who still enjoy using obsolete computers, or are nostalgic for the components thereof... It almost makes me want kids because I could point and say "Oh, this is an old modem" or "This is an electric typewriter, I used to use one to write school reports."

Of course, in the dressing rooms, the are signs everywhere "No Shoplifting / Shoplifters Will Be Prosecuted."  This prompted me to wonder just how pathetic or desperate someone has to be to shoplift from a thrift-shop.  My mind imagined a sad scenario involving people too poor to even afford cheap second-hand goods, but too proud to ask the store's charities for help.  I started thinking back to the year I worked for a KFC and the difference between the guy scrounging in the restaurant dumpster for "bones for his dog" and the destitute couple that came in one time when I was at register who bravely asked if we could spare them a meal.  (Our manager allowed it, if he hadn't, I would have bought something for them out of my own pocket).  

Then, I also thought back to the time when I was a child when my mother worked for a Salvation Army store.  She worked in the drop-off truck sorting out the good from the bad regarding what was to go in the store.  (Some people do try to give actual *junk* to thrift stores, which is why there are people to sort.  Contrary to a popular Weird Al song, Goodwill does not take donations of second-hand underwear).  My mom got little me free toys all the time - on the grounds that "people were tossing this anyway."  I found out later that she wasn't really supposed to do that... Most of the items got re-gifted to SA in the end, anyway, when I grew out of them.   I also remember days when I had no school and my sister couldn't watch me when I'd spend the day with mom at work and I'd spend all day in the back of that truck playing with the toys - regardless of whether or not I took them home.  I guess what I'm saying is that early on, I developed a love for scavenging. 

Most of my clothes were hand-me-downs, anyway, being the youngest child of the family...

Another funny thing is that I didn't realize that "Salvation Army" was religiously-connected until I was a teenager, I think.  I remember as a kid, I thought the "salvation" part was because they salvaged old stuff.  Seriously. 

Er, anyway, for under thirty dollars today, I got a good haul at Impact - four pairs of sturdy pants, a "new" coat and a couple of jewelry-chains to dissect for my jewelry-making.  And a look back through time, back into the distant 1980s and 1990s.  Ooh. *Waggles fingers.*  

Fiction, Heroism, Faith and Dogma

  Fiction, Heroism, Faith and Dogma

This is another of my “defense of the fantasy genre” posts.  Sort of.  Random thoughts, really. 

I just got done watching a rental of the second part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  I never “got into” the Harry Potter fandom and I haven’t even read the books, but I’ve seen and enjoyed the films.  Something really struck me with this one – I really have a “thing” for the idea of heroic sacrifice.  It’s one of the most beautiful things I can see in a fiction (one could argue as such in real life, but real life contains real tragedy). While real life makes me sad, I just eat up this stuff in stories – heroes facing death bravely, sacrifice for the greater good, that kind of thing. 

I’d like to read the books now.  I am struck by the *bitter regret* that I didn’t read the books when they first came out and Harry was staring to get popular. One of the main reasons why I didn’t read them?  The church.  I’m not talking “religion” in general – as people who read me know, I find world religions intensely interesting and am very much into and a supporter of true faith. What I’m talking about is - I used to go to a Southern Baptist church – and actually split time between two of them when my home church split (not due to politics, due to a financial upkeep of the building/land issue).  It was a very nice church family with very good people in it, but many of the people there and the leadership had a lot of viewpoints that were suspicious of certain things.  In fact, I remember being a bit hesitant in sharing my preference for reading and writing in the fantasy genre to people I knew from church, and when I did share it, I’d emphasize how “Narnia-like” my work was.  

It’s kind of funny, I read all the time now on the Internet about people who have to stay “closeted” to their church about their sexuality, or something that they did, serious stuff, and my “closet” (which I didn’t even stay all the way in) was my love of science fiction and fantasy. 

Harry Potter was one of the things people had suspicions about.  When the church split, the pastor of one church even preached an anti-Harry sermon because of all the “pagan influences upon the children.”  I wasn’t in attendance for that sermon due to some life issue or sleeping in that Sunday or something, but I’d heard about it.  

Yet, I remember the church kids being allowed to bring their Gameboys to church (kept them from fidgeting during the adult-sermon) and no one had problems with me drawing dragons and stuff all over the church-bulletins. *Hee.*   And I look back and think “These overprotective parents who wouldn’t let their kids read Harry Potter let them play Pokemon and Zelda games (The Oracle games were out then) – oh, if ONLY THEY KNEW the ‘paganism’ in those!” 

Harry Potter just has magic and wizardry without too much (that I remember seeing from the films) in the ways of a theology – those videogame titles I saw the kids playing and know because I play them myself?  Pokemon have gods – at least I think a mythology was developed for the latter games along those lines, I haven’t kept up with recent games of that series. But – yes, your teenage pokemon trainer character can capture gods if I recall correctly.  The Legend of Zelda series is based upon a mythology full of gods, spirits and a grand Trinity of Goddesses.  

And yet, all these very “pagan” things have much more “Christianity” in them than some of the church-approved books that I’ve read and “Christian” things I’ve seen. (At least, if you, like me, like to define “True Christianity” as something involving a higher calling, striving for goodness, self-sacrifice, love…)   Back when lots of people were reading Harry Potter years ago I was reading…. *makes the “I have met Excalibur face from the anime Soul Eater* … Left Behind.   

I only actually *bought* the first book (I’m thinking of making it into a paper-mache’ art project loaded with symbolism because I can never bring myself to throw *books* away and don’t know what to do with it), and thankfully read the rest of what I read of the series through library-checkouts.  I also, thankfully only read about halfway into the series, to book 8 or something, I can’t recall.

I don’t feel like giving a link to Slacktivist – since people who read me probably know that blog already. If not, look it up.  You really shouldn’t need Slack to tell you how bad LB is, but, really, the blog gives one a nice reminder.  Not only does LB make the apocalypse boring, the characters have a lot of … the authors try to tell us how heroic they are without the characters showing much in the ways of heroism.  As I recall what I’ve read of the books (years ago), the characters really are more about seeing prophecies come to pass than they are in *caring* that the world’s falling apart.  I also seem to remember large portions of the novels being taken up by the characters trying to escape this or that, avoid death even if it meant that lots of other people were going to die because “it’s prophecy!” and the others were just the “unsaved” rabble, anyway. Sort of the opposite of the heroic sacrifice and courageous facing of death I so love.    

I think about those cold, ineffectual “heroes” and compare them to Harry Potter, whom I just saw willing to face down death if it meant the end of the ultimate evil Big Bad and the saving of his friends and the whole entire world.  I even compare them to Link of the Legend of Zelda videogame series (an *intentionally blank* character / series of characters who displays only a very few core personality traits in order to take a backseat to the emotions of the player as an immersive player-character.  Yes, even Mr. Blank Slate has more heroism in his little toe than some other fictional “heroes”) - While Link is, in part, you, the character makes loads of sacrifices and is willing to face down death to save his world.  (And the latest installment of the series, Skyward Sword – has title-character Zelda as a once-goddesses who *gave up her immortality and goddesshood* to become a mortal because that’s what it took to seal the Big Bad in an ancient age). 

I mean… wow.

These “pagan” things which are supposed to be so bad for everyone according to some “church” types have so much more of the “core” lessons of the stories and sermons I’ve heard in churches in them and read in my New Testament than some supposedly “Christian” media.

I know I’m not the only one who sees this.  

Also, it is one of the reasons why I let portions of myself (including ideas I have on faith, life, the universe and everything) color my work as any author’s views will color their work -  but strive not to write anything particularly allegorical or particularly “segregated” or “for a market.”   I want the messages in my fiction to be universal, like the heroism and beauty in all of the fiction I really love. 

Thoughts Focused Skyward

Aplogies for lack of fiction posting lately. I've not only been doing edits on one of my novels, I've also been rather ill and I've been off playing hero in the mystical land of Hyrule.  Yeah, I'm going to be kind of off until I finish "The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword."  I had a marathon session of it today - it was helping me forget my body aches and stomach pain. 

Today, I ran into a cutscene that struck me as weirdly theological.  o_0

I mean, the Legend of Zelda games are secular in nature - they do borrow imagery and ideas from world religions and mythology, but Hyrule and surrouding territories, worlds and eras all have their own gods and demons and so forth, but playing today something struck me as being relatable to some of the theology disscussions I've been in online. Weird, I know. 

If you know anything about gaming, you know the Legend of Zelda series is a very popular series that defined and defines a lot of the tropes of fantasy-adventure videogames.  Not the absolute first - there's an Atari 2600 game called "Adventure" I can recommend to uber-retro gaming geeks who don't mind their protagonist being a (literal) square and can find a working 2600 or the Atari Gallery disc for PS2. (There are places online to play it, too).  Anyway, the Legend of Zelda -- if you've had a Nintendo system, you've probably played at least one of the games of the series - not as ubiqutious as Super Mario Bros., but most would say a lot deeper in storylines.  In any given game, you play a protagonist (officially) named Link who must help/save/rescue a girl named Zelda and keep the world from falling into darkness.  (Some exceptions - Majora's Mask, for example, puts Link in another world that he has to save from a falling moon and Zelda isn't involved except in a flashback).   Diffrent games in the series cover different eras with protagonists that are technically different people (unless you subscribe to "they're reincarnates"). 

There are other things that are common to the series, too, such as the Triforce - which is the cosmic keystone of the series - a set of three golden triangles that form a whole, representing Courage, Wisdom and Power in balance.  Various games in the series have explained them as a sort of residue of the divine - that which was left by the Three Golden Goddesses who created their world/universe. 

Zelda is actually a very religious series - but with its own religion. 

The Triforce, through the series, is something that, if whole, a person can touch and it will shape the world to their wishes.  Technically, it is a neutral entity, granting both good and evil wishes (but it seems like people with evil hearts never have hearts balanced enough to touch it without it fragmenting). 

Anyway, "Skyward Sword" is a "prequel to everything in the series so far" game that attempts to explain parts of the mythology of the land of Hyrule (where the series is set).  The game is mostly about the forging of the Master Sword (the ur-holy weapon of the series mythology).  Today, playing Link, I met up with Zelda during a cutscene that's kind of a spoiler (heard 'round the world in the fandom, so I probably wouldn't spoil anything by explaining it, anyway).  Zelda explained some mythological goings-on and the Triforce and how it has the power to bend reality and shape the world, an then she talked about how "The old gods created a device they could not use to give hope to mortals." 

And I had the thought:  "The gods (Goddesses) of Hyrule purposely left the Triforce in the hands of mortals to shape their own destiny - they themselves cannot use it.  Cool!" 

Which brings me to the theology disscussions I've read and sometimes gotten my dumb self into online.  I've met some people online who's "solution," as it were, to the "problem with pain" - is simply "What are YOU doing to help people?"  In other words, "What are you doing,  mortal, to shape reality?" 

A lot of people in certain circles talk about how in Judeo-Christian thought, God created Free Will and gave it to us to do with as we will (Free Will, after all) and how he cannot interfere with it / does not override it because while he could create a world without pain - it would make us all automotons unable to experience any actual courage, wisdom, power....

Something he himself (or her, herself, it, itself, however you define "God" ) created for mortals to use that he cannot interfere with....     

I'm not trying to get into a theological throw-down here.  Believe or don't believe what you want.  I'm merely saying that I saw a superficial resonance to discussions I see go on back and forth all the time online to the mythology of a videogame.  If I'm saying anything, I'm saying that the people at Nintendo either really do their homework when it comes to crafting mythology for this particular series and/or the writers stumbled upon something profound by accident.  (Probably the latter, or my reading "coolness" into where I want to read "coolness"). 

Or I've been in too many online disscussions about certain things and I'm spending way too much time with a Wiimote in my hand.  *Shrug.*    

Benevolence

Mulling over some things in my mind - from reading forums and blogs and having conversations.... I was struck with this random thought while doing the dishes.  I think I may put it in the mouth of a character someday, but I just wanted to capture it before it was lost and for some strange reason, I thought it was interesting enough to put on the Internet.

"A person is at their best when they are being more benevolent to others than they are to them.  Since we're mere mortals and hopelessly human, even the best of us tends to be very bad at this, but during those rare moments when we are practicing undeserved benevolence, we shine."

Of Monsters and Human Beings

Of Monsters and Human Beings

I got the new Legend of Zelda game as an early Christmas present and have been playing it.  I’m only at the first dungeon-crawl, but so far, Skyward Sword is pretty awesome.  I’m not sure I like the bird-flying so much; it’s hard for me to get a handle on.  Reminds me of the horse in Shadow of the Colossus, actually, and, of course, you have to jump off at just the right angle to hit whatever little sky-island you want to explore.  What I totally love about this game right now is the swordsmanship.  This is my first time playing a Wii (other than in-store displays) and the Motion Plus thing they have on the sword is meant to imitate the swinging of an actual sword.  Come on, Nintendo, keep pressing that technology and one day you will give us the Holosuite.  Watch your Star Trek and be inspired! 

Something interesting happened to me in the game that got me thinking about categorical-thinking.  I was moving Link (protagonist) around, cutting grass and flowers to find money and whoops, my sword hit an innocent butterfly.  It died, sending up a little ghost-graphic.  I didn’t know for sure what I’d hit so I purposefully targeted another butterfly and got the same graphic.  Then I was “I’m killing innocent butterflies! Aaaaw!”  In other games of the series, butterflies are present, but you cannot kill them (to my recollection).  You can get them to land on a stick or on Link if you stand really still… in this game, you can kill the buggers.   I felt remorseful over butterflies when I go and slaughter Keese (evil bats) and Moblins (goblin-beings) without a care at all. 

Of course, the “monster” creatures are always chaotic evil, right?  Not always.  Zelda games have a way of playing with that, having a few members of the “monster” races turn-loyalties. The very first game (8-bit debut title, the game I grew up with) features Moblins hiding in secret caves who will give you money if you promise to keep their help a secret.  Then you go back to slaughter their brethren on the surface who are throwing spears at you.  One of the games featured a Dark World in which some of the monsters had advice for you because they were transformed human beings who’d gotten trapped in the Dark World.  One of the games features a weird little “love affair” between a love-struck little girl and a Moblin who held her captive (one of the mini-quests is a love-letter delivery between them).  A friend who’s beaten Skyward Sword tells me that there’s a “good” monster in this game, too. 

Yet, most of them – I’m gonna have to set my sword to because they’re on the side of evil and want to kill me.  I won’t feel remorse for them like I did the stupid digital butterflies.  Because they’re monsters.

Which brings me to a statement I saw this morning in the Comments section of an article / eulogy I read online… Someone was telling the writer of the article that he needed to “become fully-human.”  It was a categorical attitude more than it was personal. It carried the implication that “all people of a certain stripe are not fully-human.”  I’ve seen this thrown around a lot, “fully-human,” “you need to do this/become like me to become a full human being.” 

It always bothers me – whatever side it comes from. I’ve seen this attitude thrown around by people who generally agree with me in a worldview as well as those who sharply disagree.  It seems like the first thing that some people go to is “the others are not fully-human.”  I find this hard to fathom because I think even people who are total jerks, even people who are brutal dictators and whatnot are human because, well… if you’ve got human DNA and a human brain, you’re a human.  Humans, at times, are beautiful creatures – we create art and go to the moon.  Sometimes, we are supremely messed-up creatures – inventing new ways to *dehumanize* and kill each other.    

Oh, I understand the impulse to label people as not-human.  I used it in one of my novels… I had my protagonists watching the hanging of a killer that one of them caught and when the killer was taunting him from the gallows (seeing how sensitive the boy was, that he was uncomfortable with the country’s idea of justice), the boy shot back “A man is not dying today!”  As I recall portraying it (I need to do a re-read), the kid said this as much to shield his own heart as anything.  (He didn’t like being responsible for a death, even that of a brutal murderer). 

I’ve known old Vietnam veterans who didn’t think of Asian people as full-humans.  “They’re all just gooks,” one of them said to me once when I was trying to explain anime to him in response to a question.  (Doesn’t matter that anime is of a different country… he had a racial category in his head).  I watched a Frontline special once about veterans of the Iraq war and their psychological issues upon returning to civilian life.  One young soldier told an interviewer that the people over there were all “just hadjis” to them, and not even the combatants.  It’s a kind of mentality that people under stress and surrounded by enemies develop to survive – and it seems to stay with some when the danger is over.  I can understand how it develops there.

But I’m dismayed when it develops in civilians that live in peaceful situations in free countries and on the physically-safe Internet rather than in combat-zones.  That “you need to become like me to become a full human being” thing disturbs me on the level of “If you don’t think I’m a full human being, what am I? An animal? An insect? A monster? Something worse?”  It leaves people (often entire categories thereof) open for abuse.  People who spew this garbage may not even realize what they are becoming, because, you know, they’re the ones that are “fully human” in their eyes.  

“Moblins” are easy to set your sword to.  Actual humans – not so much.  

The Graveyard of Dreams

Still going over editing one of my fantasy novels, Malarkey and Belinda.  I've always rather liked this rather depression-fueled passage.  In it, Malarkey the gryphon is given a vision by a mystic character, Merevus, who embodies "the memories of the world."  This scene is all about where most people's aspirations and ambitions wind up: 

-------------------------

Malarkey found himself outside, somewhere.  He bounded through the mist.  His wings felt heavy, their feathers dampened with dew.  He could not take flight.  This was so unlike the other visions Merevus had given him.  Those had been memories of the past, visions of bright sunlight, endless forests, gryphons soaring above deep canyons, the strange, early human explorers and colonists and their great metal birds with “Aers Crossworlds” etched on their sides. 

            In this place, the sky was not bright.  A deep purple brooded over the land.  The world was misty and the landscape was lined with twisted trees.  Markers of wood and stone were everywhere, the memorial markers of a cemetery. 

            Malarkey approached a great tree.  It appeared to be an ancient oak, twisted by decades of growing in the wind, its trunk thick and lumpy.  The gryphon stretched forth his right fore-claw and touched it.  The tree crumbled into gray ash, leaving behind a peculiar skeleton.  Beneath the now fallen ashen bark of the oak was a skeleton like that of an animal.  Bones like stripped bird-wings arched up into the sky as branches.  What remained of the tree’s trunk was a tangle of vertebrae and rib-bones, all colored a dingy gray-white. 

            Malarkey screeched and ran from it.  He’d never seen something quite so terrifying or utterly disturbing in his young life. That tree was so utterly unnatural.  The gryphon sped past gravestones as fast as his feet could carry him.  He wished he could fly.  His shoulders ached intensely whenever he tried to raise his heavy wings. 

            “Where am I?” he asked desperately.  He called into the air.  Everything around him was cold.  The ground was icy and so was the air.  Malarkey did not feel the cold in its full strength.  He was numb to the frigidity, but he knew, somehow, that this place was cold. 

            He caught a glimpse of the lettering on a gravestone.  It read: “A Great Singer of Songs.”  Another stone he ran past read: “Writer.”  Still another read: “Life in the Mountains.”

            “What is this?” Malarkey asked the wind.  “What sort of vision have I landed in? Where am I?”

            The voice of Merevus drifted over him.  “This is the Graveyard of Dreams.” 

            “What?” Malarkey replied. 

            The voice of the Keeper of Memories echoed off the gravestones and the strangely menacing trees, deep and strong.  “Many are the dreams of men and beasts,” it answered.  “Most dreams do not live for long.  Most dreams do not survive.”

            Malarkey slowed down.  He paced about the cemetery.  He was no longer afraid.  Instead, he was filled with an incredible sadness.  He looked over the gravestones and the carvings on the wooden markers.  The inscriptions were many names and they told many stories.

            “So many dreams,” Malarkey sighed, hanging his head.  Most of the dreams in the graveyard were human dreams, but it was clear from the inscriptions that some of them had been the dreams of beasts. 

            “Why are you showing me this, Merevus?”  Malarkey asked.  “This is terrible, seeing all these broken dreams.”

            The voice of Merevus sailed upon the wind again.  “They are not broken, merely unfulfilled.”

            “Still!” Malarkey protested, shouting into the wind that had grown progressively frigid, “Seeing all these dead dreams is terrible!”  I don’t understand your purpose in showing me this!” 

            The reply came slowly.  “Most dreams remain unfulfilled, especially the great ones,” the voice of Merevus intoned.  “You will see many dreams here.  Some are as large as changing the world.  Some are small, mere childhood fancies.  Much like humans and animals, they die for many reasons.  Some dreams die naturally.  They are dreams that remain unfulfilled, but, because a person changes, their desires and hopes change, thus their old dreams are not needed anymore.  Dreams that die naturally are replaced with other dreams.” 

            Merevus’ deep voice continued.  “Then, of course, there are dreams that are killed by the circumstances of the world or by interfering people.  The loss of these dreams can be as painful for their bearer as the loss of a friend by murder.  Then, of course, there are the dreams that are held onto for a long time before they die, dreams that die slow, lingering deaths.  Those that have such dreams, though determined to see them fulfilled, suffer as they watch their dreams fade or stay just beyond reach.  It is little wonder why some people choose to shatter their own dreams through self-destruction, rather than watch those dreams killed slowly by the world.  Still, Malarkey, look around you.”

            “I am looking around me.  Have you given me this vision to tell me to give up on my dreams?  Will I find my dreams in this graveyard?”

            “On the contrary, gryphon,” Merevus said.  “Although most dreams eventually die, they are still valuable and something to be treasured.  Even dreams that remain unfulfilled serve us as we have them.  Even people who never see their dreams come to light have hope while they have and hold onto them.  Dreams are what keep people going, striving, trying.  Sometimes, simply to try is enough, simply to hope.  Even dreams that die serve their bearer while they are alive.  They keep their bearer hoping, trying and alive.  It is not always a tragedy when dreams die, because those dreams gave the person who conceived them hope when they needed it.” 

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Part of Chapter 14 in a book of 20 chapters.