On Fiction, Perspective, and the Culture Wars

I've been thinking a lot lately about fiction, and how we process it.

A couple weeks ago, some friends and I went to see Fiddler on the Roof (absolutely phenomenal, btw). While chatting at intermission, I mocked myself, declaring that I should have counted how many times I cried in that first act. One friend replied, "I know, the wedding was so sad!" 

Oh. Yeah, didn't cry at the wedding, even though, yes, it was very sad. No, what made me tear up was every moment when someone took the risk of being vulnerable to tell someone they love something important, something that would be horrible if that person took it poorly. (And when someone listened to a loved one saying something difficult, good or bad.)

Watched Captain America: Civil War this week (barely spoilers ahead, only for the general conceit of the film). It was a fantastic movie, and I spent most of it not quite tense but distinctly uncomfortable, concerned--convinced--that one of these beloved characters would do something they'd regret and not be able to take back.

Discussed the movie with three friends. #1 discussed scenes, characters, legitimate concerns presented and imperfect ways they could have been dealt with, etc., with great nuance (as per usual). #2 was extremely annoyed at Tony, could conscience no reason whatsoever to be on Team Iron Man; obviously Cap was right, as always. #3 admittedly isn't a big fan of Cap, and found him completely unsympathetic because he went rogue and didn't try to compromise or communicate, didn't at all see that he didn't have the time or opportunity to do much of either.

These latter two conversations have stayed with me, not because they impact how I think of these loved ones, but because they worry me. If we can't "see the other side" in a fictional problem, how can we possibly hope to navigate thorny real-life problems?

There's just about nothing in this world I hate more than the culture wars. They divide us so harshly, we don't even notice that we're demonizing (or at least patronizing) real people on the other side, people who may or may not have seen the same data, but who came to a different conclusion. We see agenda, we see malice, we see stupidity.

Yes, there is some agenda, some malice, some stupidity, always. But most of the time, the people "on the other side" are real people trying to fix legitimate problems, even if their proposed solution seems to cause more problems.

I should have some kind of conclusion here, but I don't. All I have are misgivings. Kyrie, eleison.

Hey look! I'm back! And feeling a bit like a different Claire

I think I've reached a point in life when I need to blog again. I consume so much of other people's writings -- mostly stories, but a lot of random thoughts and brief articles, too -- I need to start producing some of my own.

Even apart from that, I find myself in ways I never thought I'd be: 

Living in NYC!

This was taken less than 2mi from my home (by not me)

29 and single with no prospects, and more or less settling down nonetheless.

Fighting various small-but-persistent health problems. 

My faith at a different, quieter, hopefully deeper level, at 11.5y and counting of intentional discipleship. 

An extrovert who has grown into the introvert problem of sometimes being suddenly Done With People while still out with people. 

Someone with a fantastic network of friendships rooted in Christ, who yet still struggles with and ponders about loneliness on a fundamental human level. 

A career woman with no interest in a career, who has trouble finding new life goals to set. 

A person unwilling to pick up and move again, because I've done that far too often already, and because it'd require something really good for me to move away from family again.

A reasonably fervent sports fan! Who knows sadly few fellow fans to discuss them with. A surprisingly common attitude among my friends is: "I love that you love sports! I have no interest in them myself, but it'so so unexpected in you, yet it suits you at the same time." That's quite charming, but doesn't help me suss out who to root for to win the AFC this year, besides anyone who's not the Patriots. (I think I'm going for the Chiefs, FWIW. I like Kansas/Kansans.)

Someone who hasn't gotten her shit together enough to send out Christmas cards in at least three years.

Oh yeah, and who has lost nearly all reservations about using coarse language, except of course in particular situations.

Someone who's not only unscandalized but unsurprised by various parish/diocesan/whatever happenings that cause faithful co-workers twice my age to FREAK OUT. I suppose I'm jaded in a certain respect?

Someone whose perspective has changed on a lot of things. Who gladly acknowledges objective right and wrong, but is more worried about an individual's culpability and vulnerabilities.

Someone who has increasingly seen places where the feminists actually get it right, enough so this no longer scares/disturbs her.

Someone who doesn't (can't) attend daily Mass, but prays Matins, Lauds, and Vespers daily.

Someone who's not in any kind of liturgical choir! Seriously, I haven't been out of a choir for more than a couple months since my age was in the single digits.

Enormously more conservative with both physical and verbal affection than in years past. Much preferring to demonstrate the same enormous amounts of love by implementing in life the great maxim of the visual arts: Show, don't tell. (Ok, tell sometimes, but only sometimes, and probably pretty concisely.)

Who watches a LOT of tv! And keeps pretty current on movies, too. So many great stories to watch these days!

Mostly wears hats for the enjoyment of other people, or to be easily identifiable publicly, and rarely for my own sake anymore.

Travels only a moderate amount, no longer flying someplace at least one weekend a month.

Who has recently begun to experience that horrible feeling -- when an acquaintance gets engaged, feeling fundamentally sad or resentful or frustrated, despite desiring to feel happy for her, who is truly delightful, and good for her.

Not only do I accept dates categorically unless the guy is unavailable, creepy, or far too old, but I straight up ask guys out myself when I have moderate interest! A date is just a date. And how else are you supposed to get in a decent conversation with somebody to see if there's any interest there?

Empathy runs especially high for those whose difficult experiences I don't share, whose sensitivities, whose "normal" others often transgress out of misinformation or obliviousness. I try to be aware of my own shortcomings in this regard, but I'm sure I do imperfectly.

Vulnerable is more difficult than it used to be.

I see others, often friends, speak of their job or their hobbies with passion, and am a bit envious. I don't know how to access equivalent passion/excitement in myself.

Thanks to my very-long commute, I read at least 20,000 pages a year. The vast majority of that is fiction, which is simply glorious!

* * *

I mean, plenty of things are still constant. I'm every bit as Catholic as I've ever been! I'm still broke. Still love stories, and love people even more. Still have great fun planning parties and other events in great detail. And unorganized writing turns into disorganized stream-of-consciousness pretty easily.

Heh. And what I intend to be a small note still turns out to be more than twice as long as I'd intended. Some things never change...

On Lovecraft and My Catholic Worldview

A few months ago, I bit the bullet and read my first H.P. Lovecraft story, the novella At the Mountains of Madness. I'd been hearing about Lovecraft for years, and knew he was well-respected by later authors and quite beloved by many, so I figured it was about time.

Bonus points to whoever correctly identifies
the number of eyes on this book cover.

Boy was I wrong!

It was a new-to-me kind of frustrating, because I could tell that I was supposed to be terrified (or at least anxious or creeped out), yet the only emotion I could muster was impatience.

I asked around, to try and understand what I was missing, but all replies suggested that while Lovecraft's mythos is phenomenal, he could have done with an editor. Ok, fine. Forgot about it for a while.

Those eldritch wall paintings are more interesting than wallpaper, at least.

But last week I stumbled upon a virtual book club reading this very book, so I thought I'd ask them if they could convince me of Lovecraft's genius, and their responses were thorough and helpful.

I should consider Lovecraft in his own time, they said, based on the way scientific researched changed their understanding of reality. Okay:

The TL;DR version is that when Lovecraft was born the sun was thought to be, at absolute most, around 20 million years old. When he was an adult we had discovered that the sun was powered by fusion and was around 4.5 BILLION years old. As a child Lovecraft thought the universe consisted of the milky way, around a million stars total, and a few blurry things no one knew what were. As an adult it was known that a) the milky way contained closer to 100 BILLION stars and b) all those weird blurry things were in fact galaxies as large as the milky way.

For a modern comparison:

The cosmos expanded during Lovecraft's life at a rate comparable to the rate of expansion of available data storage during my life. I was born in late 1964. In 1973, the total manufactured fixed disk storage capacity in the United States was on the order of 100Gb. 40 years later, it's really hard to buy hard disks that small; hard disk storage currently costs on the order of 4 cents per gigabyte, giving our 1973 USA's installed hard disk capacity a value of around $5.

Ok, that IS a pretty huge series of changes. But what makes this terrifying? I needed someone to point it out to me. [Spoilers ahead, but plot isn't necessarily the point with Lovecraft, so whatever.]

Now think back to At the Mountains of Madness. The horror is not that the Elder Things, these half-plants / half-animals that have been hibernating for millions of years might come to once again re-inhabit the Earth, it's that even this wondrous creatures, to whom we are nothing more than ants, were themselves wiped out by something even bigger, more awesome, and more terrifying than they were.

Okay! That I can wrap my head around! But I still can't get my emotions there. I can appreciate his creations from an artistic standpoint, but they still don't creep me out.

Although they are still unsettling to look at.

This disconnect between brain and emotions simmered on the back burner of my mind for a few days, until finally, after returning from a wonderful retreat, it hit me:

What completely undercuts the eldritch horror of Lovecraft's world and creatures is Catholic theology!

Sorry not sorry. Couldn't resist!

Now, I've read explicitly atheistic authors before, but none were trying to terrify, so it's hard to compare. And no wonder Lovecraft's creatures do inspire so much fear; the world they represent is precisely the opposite of that in which our all-loving God has not only created but redeemed us!

Think about it. At the heart of Christian theology is that God, who needs nothing, created us just because he wanted to love us. Then he actually took on human weakness and died violently, painfully, so as to redeem not only all humanity, but each human being! His love for each one of us is profound especially in light of the enormity of the cosmos!

This image is not to scale.

It's all so enormous and grand! And we are so small, so short-lived. And yet, what dignity we are afforded, by virtue of the incarnation!

All this, just for a chance to spend eternity with you!

Angels, the only non-human sentient species mentioned in Scripture and Tradition, are metaphysically superior to us, being pure spirit--and we are explicitly praised as higher than the angels! How could any species, no matter how powerful, compete with love like that!?

You may be gigantic, powerful, ugly, and brutal, but you cannot deprive me
of the life that really matters, so why should I fear you? (cf. Mt 10:28)

Deus Pater, qui creavit omnium, miserere nobis.