The Gods of the Copybook Headings

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Rudyard Kipling

***

Kipling’s editor said this poem contained “age-old, unfashionable wisdom.” We’re ignoring reality in this country, in favor of free stuff and the promises of more free stuff and “fairness.” Our leadership strives day in and day out to legislate in an increasingly complex world. They struggle to make sense of tragic occurences like bombings, shootings, and wars, and to translate that into the laws of the land. But they’ve lost track of the natural laws and the laws of human nature. We’re wondrously flawed, beautifully crafted creatures and consequently so is what we produce.

Art, beauty, philoosphy, love, civilization. All of these efforts are doomed to ultimate failure, and who cares? Obviously not humanity: we’ve been pushing at our boundaries for millenia, working tirelessly to improve our lot. Along the way we’ve perpetrated the greatest of inhumanities on our fellow human creatures, and built marvelously shining glorious edifices. Babylon, Jerusalem, Beijing, Edo, Athens, Sparta, Carthage, Rome, Samarkand, Memphis, Thebes, Venice, Byzant- I mean, Constantin- I mean, Istanbul, Tenochtitlan, London, Madrid, Paris, Kiev, Moscow, Machu Picchu, Delhi, Alexandria, Ur, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago. Cities unnumbered and unnumberable. We’ve touched the very stars, and delved deep beneath the earth and under the waves. We’ve split the atom, and then turned it on each other. None of it is as magnificent as a baby’s first cry, or the first light of a new dawn as the sun shines just over the distant horizon.

And it will all die. Maybe not now, maybe not for centuries. Rome died, Troy died, Samarkand died screaming. I will die, you will die. Our ancestors back to an odd-looking ape who thought walking upright might have something going for it have all died. Death and taxes, and really only the former.

Our leaders have lost their connection to this truth, though most people of the world live with it every minute of every day. My fears are not starvation, rape, violent murder. My fears are that the choices of those we’ve allowed into power are going to bring those horrors upon an innocent generation.

I expect we’ll wade in blood before I die because we’ve collectively turned our back on the nature of our world, and I sorrow.

So the thing, I mean the really REAL thing, is I still don’t really know if this is what I want. This whole writer gig, I mean. I dig lazing about, making up stuff in my head: after about three decades of it, I don’t really know how else to live, to be honest. When I was buried in a hole in the ground serving my country, I did it to pass the time. (also, read a LOT of wikipedia articles. y’know, for sanity) When I was in classes, I did it to pass the time until I went to next classes. For a glorious period, I did it in conjunction with friends in somebody else’s made up world, betting my (character’s) continued existence on the roll of polyhedral plastic. My brain is running all the time, making up little stories. While I’m in the shower, in bed, making breakfast, riding the motorcycle, grocery shopping, talking on the phone, cleaning the house. Especially while I’m writing. I don’t know how not to; I’ve only learned how to work around it. Tune out the bits and pieces fitting together to make scenes, characters, story so I can get something productive done … when the timing’s right, at least. Or wrong, depending on whether I want to write at any given time.

The concern – it’s not a problem, or even a challenge, and it won’t be a fear unless I let it be, dammit – is that most of the writers I know both love (LOVE!!) to write and feel compelled to write. And I don’t really. I imagine I could be fairly content to sit on a mountain top hermitage somewhere, growing my beard and aiming at enlightenment.

Now, don’t get me wrong: it’s not that I don’t like writing. I do. It’s just that most of the time writing is just like any other activity, and my personal inertia is unlikely to let a gentle nudging move me to anything. And writing is hard. It’s also not, but I’m not going to get into that here. I have to turn off the internet, for one, and I like the internet. Great way to not be productive, the internet. I have to get the right background noise going. Could be music, could be silence, but it sure as asterisks isn’t the noise of my neighborhood. Try being creative while two small canids yap incessantly for hours. Go ahead; I’ll wait.

And then, convince my characters to start doing something. Harder than you’d think, after I’ve ignored them for a goodly while. Mostly they stand around like theater newbies the first time in front of the limelights. They stare at me while I try to shoo them back toward each other. Not me, you idiots, I’m just a guy with a recording device. Lots of blank stares and awkward pauses. It’s annoying, and troubling.

Troubling, because should I be able to just sit down and write? I’m a writer. That’s how I introduce myself. And yet, I don’t actually spend that much time recording the crazy stuff that goes on inside my skull. Some days, I’m not even sure I want to.

So what’s the deal? Is this common? Is it a lack of willpower on my part? Too much sanity? I’m still figuring out all of this, but I suspect that this issue – as with most – is a combination of multiple factors. Lack of practice, lack of sand/grit/moxie, too easy a life, skewed self-perception, even indigestion. Dozens more I could probably come up with. I don’t really want to try: I’m not sure I actually want an answer here. With a definitive answer, the solution would be self-apparent, and I’d have absolutely no excuse. Even less than I already have, which is about nil.

About time to exercise the ol’ self-discipline muscle. /whine

Some people I know are working to put on a new steampunk convention in southeast Michigan. They’re good folk who could use some support, which – conveniently enough – you can do here.

I have a concern. I’d call it a problem, but I’m not sure it is, and even if it is, I firmly expect that necessity will – in the next year or so – make a mockery of it. I have free time. Possessing a fairly quick mind, and raised in a middle-class household, I’ve always had a goodly amount of it. I’ve poured it into school, and books. Mostly books. Lately, I’ve been pouring it into writing. Though not as much as I perhaps should. In attempting to get a grasp on the elusive notion of optimal time management, I’ve seen/read/heard that others use hobbies and projects as a sort of creative break from primary creation. I have friends who take acting classes. I have friends who paint miniatures. I have many friends who play games of all sorts: video, tabletop, board, what-have-you. I’ve spent time in exercise (which is really more a matter of bolstering my own sanity than it is a hobby), hiking, bicycling, cooking. I even make jewelry when the idea strikes me. I’ve been known to use power tools in a constructive manner.

Many – indeed, all – of these are healthy pursuits. Within reason. That’s my concern. How do you tell when the peripheral stuff supplants the primary stuff? There are obvious ones, like interventions. “David, sweetheart, you haven’t eaten in three days. You haven’t bathed in a week, and the neighbors are starting to complain about the strange noises late at night and the rolling brown-outs that keep hitting the area. Please, for me, stop the resurrection attempts.”

What about the more subtle stuff? How do you tell when you’re starting down that path? What are the easy first few steps that – had you the foresight – should clue you in to the fact that Force-choking and a basic black wardrobe lay just the other side of the next temper tantrum?

More importantly – and more realistically, fine, partypoopers – how do you tell when you need to set aside the normal stuff and get back to work?

All signs seem to be pointing toward the answer: set a schedule and KEEP IT. I’m bad at that, but I don’t think I have another living option. /sigh

If you haven’t heard, somebody is trying to fund a space elevator. I can’t tell you how exciting this is, especially with private lift vehicles and asteroid mining in the works. We’re close enough to taste, neighbors.

• Nothing is withheld from us which we have conceived to do.
• Do things that have never been done.

I have a friend. A good friend. He does some pretty awesome stuff, just for the fun of it. He’s asked out celebrities, acted in New Zealand and stabilized the head of an accident victim while the car was cut open around him. He does these things because of this. He’s an inspiration to me, and will probably be embarrassed when he reads this.

If you can conceive of a thing, you can find a way to do it. I mentioned Xion a few days ago. This was – and probably still is – a standard piece of science fiction: smart armor. It’s a gel that hardens on impact. Somebody figured out a way to make that work, and it’s awesome.

There are a *REDACTED*-ton of ideas out there that have yet to be done. Up your game, level up, take a level in badass and do something nobody else has done. Ever.

Post Script: Crap. Now I’m going to spend all my useful cycles today thinking up something that hasn’t been done.

A couple of tweets in the last few days have set my mind a churnin’. People – real people, whom I know in a, “hey, great to see you!” kind of way – think of themselves as impostors. At least part of the time. These are people who are making a living doing what they love. Recognizable names. They’re making art, writing for fun and profit, and they feel like they’re on the outside. Some of them have publishing contracts, with solid physical books with their names on them!  Some of them have incorporated! This is real world grittiness stuff, this is.

And these friends deal with feeling like impostors.

I should back up a bit. Until recently, I haven’t ever really feel like I fit in. Pretty much anywhere. Oh, my skills and talents may have made a place for me, but I’ve always had the sense of being an outsider. Even when I was near the top of any particular pecking order, I felt as though I should constantly be asking for permission to participate. Weird, and no doubt unhealthy.

So when I say I’m a writer, there’s always a mental but that shows up. But I’m not a professional. But I’ve never really finished anything. But I don’t have anything besides the reams of words on paper and screen to show for my time. Which really, is pretty huge, when you think about it.

But we don’t, or at least I don’t. That stuff is all practice, trial and error, working of craft. It’s all, “one of these days I’ll get it right.” I firmly expect that should I make multiple bestseller lists, receive countless awards, and burn money to keep me warm in the winter, I’ll still feel like some kind of misfit and outsider. And I wonder how many others like me feel the same way.

Sarah Hoyt’s blog on a regular basis, you should be. Her latest, Of Fists and Noses, is delightful. Unless you’re apt to be offended. Me, I like my liberties and not infringing on my neighbor’s. Weird, no?