Escape

First I want to say that I learned (or maybe re-learned) a lesson last week. I pre-wrote my blog post on a Google Doc and tried to copy-paste into Blogger. Silly me, I thought since they are both Google properties it would be smooth. It was not. It was mostly because I had bullets and levels of bullets and colors. I think when I write in just text it will be much better.

I have been reading and writing several things this month. I'll start with what and how I'm reading.

For the most part I try to read things I can get from the local library (system). I don't often buy books. I get them by putting them on hold to get the physical books, and I borrow them through two library apps. Through our local library I can borrow things from Libby and Hoopla.

I'm currently listening to Grave Peril, a Dresden Files book by Jim Butcher on Libby; The Two Towers, a Lord of the Rings book by J.R.R. Tolkien, on Hoopla. I'm also reading Casino Royale, a James Bond by Ian Flemming on Hoopla.

I borrowed several of the Discworld audiobooks from the library, and I'm just about finished with Feet of Clay by Sir Terry Pratchett.

I'm trying to read the physical book of Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice by Colin Renfrew and Paul Bahn. I say, trying because it is a textbook and not exactly riveting and light reading.

I am actively working on writing the first draft of two stories. The first has the working title of The Invisible Guild. It's an urban fantasy that is slightly comical and mostly adventurous (along the lines of Dresden Files and The Watch books within the Discworld). The other one is a Science Fiction time travel story tentatively called Joy Righd and GAIL the Time Machine.

You might have noticed that my reading helps fuel my imagination for my writing. Only Archaeology is a non-fiction book and I'm reading that for two reasons mainly: to prepare for the graduate school I'm hoping and planning to attend when I retire, and probably more importantly to convince myself Archaeology and pursuing a PhD in Archaeology are really what I want to do in retirement. This is long-range planning and based on a fierce belief that the world will be in a state that will allow me that path as an option.

How can I be listening/reading so many things at once (for those of you who are asking and not saying, pfft that's not a lot of things at once)? I am consuming them at different times, different ways and different places.

Pratchett is on CD audiobooks and I listen in the only place I still have a CD player, while driving. Tolkien is on Hoopla and because I've read those books before I can listen to them in the background at work or while walking the dog. Butcher is on Libby so I can listen on my phone also while I'm walking the dog or working around the house, but I haven't read that book before so I have to pay attention. Flemming is on my phone or Kindle, but I read that when sitting in the family room in the evenings. I split my time then with Archaeology.

Why am I reading all these things? To fuel my imagination as I said earlier, but there is something more. There is something about reading and writing these types of things: escape.

I'm also listening to J.R.R. Tolkien's essay, On Fairy Stories. That's on YouTube. I'm trying to figure out how to get a print/electronic copy so I can highlight and take notes on it. In this essay he says that we must not confuse escapism as running away. We must think of it as freeing ourselves like a war prisoner or political prisoner frees themselves.

This kind of escapism allows us to recharge ourselves, to be refreshed for future struggles. It also allows us a safe place, like when you are in school, to train and experiment with ideas, methods, policies and beliefs we can use when we return to the real world.

A long time ago I realized Jurassic Park did a lot more to teach Paleontology than almost anything else and JFK changed the national zeitgeist (if only a little). I realized that the common language offered by fiction can become so ingrained in our minds that it becomes indistinguishable from facts. We all know dinosaurs are warm blooded like birds and JFK was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, but he was a patsy. How do we know those things? Because that's what we always thought or knew.

That's powerful stuff. I really do think I can tap into that, I can use it to push our default ideas a little bit in the direction of democracy, humanism, ecological responsibility and that higher technology can help for a start. I'm not going to pretend that my fiction is real (like people eating pets), but just putting it out there in the universe I hope people will start to take for granted these things are good and they are the things we want to try and espouse and/or do.

I recently read Atomic Habits by James Clear. The thing I want to leave you with today is something from that book. You have to decide what person you want to be (determine your identity) and prove it to yourself by doing the things that that person does. 

For example, if I decide I'm a healthy person, healthy people go to the gym to exercise so they can be fit and capable outside the gym.

I think that is also true of society. If we decide we are a humanist democracy that respects nature we have to, everyday do the things humanist democracies do. 

Our escapist literature can be our gym to learn how and practice democratic things so when we get out in the real world we can put those ideas into practice. 

In my writing I want to build that gym/sandbox/escapist world for us all to train our brains and hearts in.