The Flame: An idea for aftermath magazine

[Payne]

O.K. This is a VERY rough draft.

It's a concept I was working on to put in my fiction I'm writing in bring and brag, but took out due to artistic differences

Don't know exactly how the headitors of the mag want to run contributions, but this is so sketchy, I thought it bext to post here.

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Imagine that life is a small circle of land with nothing around it. I mean really imagine it. There is only enough there that you could become very familiar with it in a lifetime, and there is no way off it, because it isn't an island. There are no beaches with clear blue water lapping around the edges.

You can see other plots of land around you. Some higher, some lower. Some closer, some farther. These are the lives of people you communicate with. Sometimes a new one moves into view, and other times an old one drifts away. These are the changing relationships you have in your lifetime. You can see these lands, but you cannot explore them, someone else has to tell you what it's like. Communication can be funny that way.

In the centre of this little galaxy of life, there is a large fire. Sometimes people sit and stare at the fire instead of their own, mundane little worlds. Some will see God, or money, or knowledge, or chaos. It all depends on your own point of view because, ultimately, the fire is neither good or evil, it just is. Occasionaly, people will try to convert you into seeing what they see in the flames.

The funny thing is, you don't need that fire. Everything you need is on your own little private paradise. The promises made by the fire will never be fulfilled to your satisfaction, it's the nature of the beast. Salvation, advancement, contentment, joy. These are all things that are granted to you by yourself, not some distant entity which won't even talk to you.

Imagine now that you spend your time instead considering what is in your little pleasant pasture. Unlocking the little secrets for yourself. Rearranging the furniture of your conciousness. Thinking for yourself. Imagine that you do this everyday, understanding the most simple little parts in a unified, collective, way. Building the puzzle of your life piece by piece, day by day.

Then think about the people who don't. How incomplete their lives must be when they pass the responsibility of perception to someone else.

How does that grab you? Even the smallest and weakest man has the advantage when he knows himself.

[Triple Zero]

i think it's good stuff.

i would be very pleased with it,
though, having read some of your other stuff, i think you can do better

i think you could add some sort of "spice", "trick" or even just a "pun(ch)" to it.

some more concrete remark: i don't like the idea that this fire is portrayed as in fact a "real" entity somewhere outside your life-land (which is, you must admit, another metaphor for prison-cell right?), and that there is one same central fire everyone looks at (even though they see different things in the flames).
maybe you could change it to the skies being ablaze with whitehot fire, and people looking at that. kind of in order to move it out of the same space that everyone's life-island is occuppying. cause it is something of another order of "being", if it is even real.

maybe you could add something about how all the roads on your life-land run in circles, because you're never going to get off of it, but there are some people who believe that if they run long enough in circles, they'll get to someplace new, somewhere else, which must be closer to the fire right?

just some ideas. please use them if you like them.

it's a fun metaphore to play around with.

[Payne]

Yeah, it was posted in response to Hawks little rant for aftermeth. I really didn't think it out so much as a finished piece, but it was an idea floating around, so I bashed out what I had.

I may revisit this at a later time, and I may well use some of those ideas. I like the idea of decentralising the flame, but it would be more difficult to convey that to lay readers without descending into some of our common metaphors, which is what I was trying to avoid.

It very much is the prison cell idea, but I wanted to remove that connotation. We're (generally) more comfortable with it, I can see how it would flavour someone elses view before they've even read anything more than that.

This is seriously a back burner, and will probably never be developed further...

[Adios]

Well, I for one would like to see it developed. I'm going to try and un-rant mine tue or wed.

[Payne]

A little closer, but I feel it needs something more. As inexperienced as I am in doing things like this, I feel that if someone wants to see it developed beyond this point, they will have to do some tinkering themselves. My writing needs more development, I'm not sure that I've disembodied the flame concept enough, but I've tried.

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Imagine your life spread out around you, a patch of land, composed as you want it. Grass. desert. tundra; whatever! This is something where you can choose the decor yourself without looking to your paretns, your wife or to interior designers. You can even have a theme tune if you want, a personal dream of mine.

You life is expressed in finite terms as this island, but the devil (as it were) is in the detail. The important stuff is all the small odds 'n' ends scattered around. Again, these elements are metaphorical, and they are connections to your life that only you can truly understand. (An abundence of chairs represent laziness or a laid back attitude or a fetish for furniture. But, it's up to you.)

Now try to picture everyone elses life as a little patch of land, in the same way. Their perception of their life will always be more complete than your perception of it. The decor will be more accurate. Where you see shifting sands they will see green pastures. The hazy bits are like a fog covering the secret parts of their life, things or experiences they don't share with you.

There is no connection between you and them. You can shout across the chasm, but you can never cross over to shake the persons hand. This is communication in real life: you can share experience, but not minds.

Some plots of land drift away, some drift in. It's the nature of relationship, you fall out of touch with some, and meet new people. (I got a phone call from a guy I hadn't spoke to you for five years the other day. It was like a phone call from a stranger, before we had been the best and closest of friends).

Everyone has some potential to screw life up in new and interesting ways. But most people screw life up in the tried and tested ways practised for thousands of years. They stare at some indeterminate point of the sky, and seeing a flame there, they worship something from outside themselves. God, Money, Knowledge, Love, Drugs. Of course, they can choose to do this, and we ALL do it to some extent, but these people abrogate all responsibility for their perceptions and/or their actions. (God told me that they were evil, so I HAD to kill them. What else could I do? So what if my profiteering has thousands suffering in the streets? Thats business!) The rewards for doing this are small and meaningless. You get another rung in a ladder reaching towards the flame, and even as you get closer, as it gets hotter, you continue. Most continue until they are burned to a crisp. It's perilous to try and leave your little land.

Some however can find their own entertainment in their own lands. In their mind, if you will. You can rearrange the chairs. You can pick up a little stone and attempt to understand what it means, why you put it there in the first place. You can fight the monsters that live on your land, for fun and games. It may not always be productive, but it is all done by you, for you. Understanding yourself is the first key. Knowing what the key is for is something you have to figure out for yourself.

Things to note: You are alone responsible your mind. Look not to CNN or the BBC or God to tell you how to arrange your mind. Understand your mind, why you have what you have there. Learn to use the tools in your life, never steal another mans tools, but copy them if you want, make them fit in your hand and do what you want. Look to the fire in the sky occasionaly. Let it know that you are your own person, and you will not surrender your responsibility to something outside your sphere of influence. Learn to laugh.

Finally, learn to overcome communications restraint. Live your life and don't be ashamed that you are more concerned with your own mind than with the modern myths of the fire in the sky. Even the smallest individual has great power when they know themselves and know their tools. If you insist on building the ladder to your own fire in the sky, wear a lot of suncream.