Retracing the Steps

[Payne]

http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=9695.0
1. Perception is selective.
1a. Perception influences the experience of "reality".
1b. Changing perception can change your experience of "reality".

I missed the Friday deadline.... This is a rough draft of a couple things I've been thinking about lately, and descends (roughly) from the Paths discussion, something I was trying to do with the Starbucks pebble test and an autobiographical piece which I canned cause it was too laem.

Picture this: One life, lived three different ways. Of course, these are bare outlines of the lives, and many more factors would need to be considered, but if we could suspend disbelief for a moment, and consider all three men as basically the same person with the only real differences between them being the choices they have made.

once upon a time there was an average kid.
He does relatively well in school, and graduates into the work force with a good education. Finds a solid, regular job, gets married, has kids, has vacations, a car, a modest house. Gets a promotion, has grandchildren, more vacations. And so on, until he dies, aged 73 (and 4 months).
On his deathbed, he is asked a question. "What is the finest thing in life?"

once upon a time there was an average kid.
He works very hard in school, and graduates into the work force with an outstanding education. Finds a very good job, gets married, has kids, has vacations, several cars, a great house, and a summer home. Gets a promotion, has grandchildren, more vacations. And so on, until he dies, aged 73 (and 4 months).
On his deathbed, he is asked a question. "What is the finest thing in life?"

once upon a time there was an average kid.
He does poorly in school, and drops out with barely an education. He scrounges and steals his way through life, taking what he can, when he can, and with the least amount of effort required. He generally avoids prison, but is always fighting off hunger, poverty and the cops.Until he dies, aged 73 (and 4 months).
On his deathbed, he is asked a question. "What is the finest thing in life?"

The first man, who has worked well and hard all his life, who has raised a family through good and difficult times may well answer that the satisfaction of seeing work pay off is the finest thing, seeing your influences effect directly, and liking what you see is the finest thing.

The second man, who has experienced all the things that money and prestige can buy you, who has never felt the bite of a hunger that could not be satiated. He may answer that the finest thing in life is security and comfort, that the advantages you can accrue early on will pay off later, and you can face the future without fear.

The third man, who has had to rely on himself his entire life, and had no help from anyone. Who has made his mistakes, but never quite the same one twice might tell the questioner that the finest thing is the thrill of the chase, the deployment of animal cunning, and the primitive urges that have kept him barely ahead of disaster for almost his entire life.

All three are right, to some extent. And all are completely wrong. The choices they have made have led each man to give different answer to the same question, the choices changed their perceptions, and their reality was in turn shaped by those perceptions.

The fact that each man is on his deathbed, and seems relatively happy with his lot does not change the fact that they did not (any of them) live up to their full potential. If Man A had taken more risks, he could have found some of the pleasure that Man C experienced. If Man B had got more "hands-on" he could have discovered some new and different happiness in Man A's reality.

Chaining yourself down with your choices, and your perceptions and your reality is not wrong.

But it's a damn shame.


OK, you can unsuspend your disbelief now, what do you think?

[AFK]

Bravo!  And spot on!  I think I'm pretty much the first Joe in your parable.  But, I try to mix in some of Joe C as well, cept without the financial struggles. 

This is good stuff. 

[Richter]

Well spoken.
A good illustration of the wisdom we acquire form different life in different levels of society / experience, and the worth of each.  You could look at each of your three folks and easily stereotype them based on that, but it NEVER dictates if they are good or bad people, and all have things worth learning. 

[Payne]

Yeah, I could have made it even more overt by giving them different coloured skins, different geographical locations and such like. The problem with this though is I want to tighten the draft up for people outside of here, and the suspension of disbelief thing will only go so far (and it's corny as fuck).

[Richter]

I think less detail makes it more effective, it lets the reader project themselves into the situation.

[AFK]

I agree.  It's simple and easy to follow.  This is to your advantage if you are going to disperse it amongst the generic public. 

[Cramulus]

good work here, Payne. One editorial note though--

A boy is born and raised in a good, solid environment. He is relatively mediocre in most aspects, neither stupid nor a genius, and angel or a demon. An average kid.
He does relatively well in school, and graduates into the work force with a good education. Finds a solid, regular job, gets married, has kids, has vacations, a car, a modest house. Gets a promotion, has grandchildren, more vacations. And so on, until he dies, aged 73 (and 4 months).
On his deathbed, he is asked a question.

A boy is born and raised in a good, solid environment. He is relatively mediocre in most aspects, neither stupid nor a genius, and angel or a demon. An average kid.
He works very hard in school, and graduates into the work force with an outstanding education. Finds a very good job, gets married, has kids, has vacations, several cars, a great house, and a summer home. Gets a promotion, has grandchildren, more vacations. And so on, until he dies, aged 73 (and 4 months).
On his deathbed, he is asked a question.

A boy is born and raised in a good, solid environment. He is relatively mediocre in most aspects, neither stupid nor a genius, and angel or a demon. An average kid.
He does poorly in school, and drops out with barely an education. He scrounges and steals his way through life, taking what he can, when he can, and with the least amount of effort required. He generally avoids prison, but is always fighting off hunger, poverty and the cops.Until he dies, aged 73 (and 4 months).
On his deathbed, he is asked a question.

When I first read this, I read the first paragraph,
then the first line of the second paragraph ("A boy is born and raised in a good, solid environment. He is relatively mediocre in most aspects, neither stupid nor a genius, and angel or a demon. An average kid.") and decided it was identical to the first and skipped to the third. Then I thought the third one was identical too. Took me a minute to go back and pinpoint the differences because the opening lines are identical.

Also, the way I read it,

On his deathbed, he is asked a question.

is the lead-in to the question that's about to be asked. I thought the second and third paragraphs were recursed sub-stories that are being asked of the first man, and then a question being asked of the hypothetical man in the second story. (did that make sense?)

It all made sense by the end, of course. But a bit confusing to follow for the above reasons.

[Payne]

Any suggestions on how to fix that in a way that will keep the audiences mind on the idea that all three lives are basically the life of one man, lived in different ways?

I had a problem in figuring one out, and though this format has it's shortcomings, it was also the easiest to work with, and easiest to resolve at the end.

[Cramulus]

I think the paragraphs could actually do without "A boy is born and raised in a good, solid environment. He is relatively mediocre in most aspects, neither stupid nor a genius, and angel or a demon. An average kid."

Maybe replace it with "once upon a time there was an average kid." After all, you're admittedly presenting a very generic, stripped-down biography. I don't think you need the details about mediocrity.


I think, just like telling a joke, you're building the reader up for a conclusion. You serve to heighten the anticipation of the answer by repeating the question at the end of each paragraph.

On his deathbed, he is asked a question. "What is the finest thing in life?"

this way you also avoid making the following paragraphs sound like they ARE the question.



Look at me wearing my editor's cap!
(which is precisely why I've only made like three posts today - real busy)

[Payne]

I will edit it exactly as you suggest.

Because it sounds about right.

[wordweaver5]

mechanically,  i never saw that someone else was asking the deathbed question.  i thought the man,  in each of the cases,  was asking that question of himself.


philosophically i thought that none of the men had any singularly different experiences.  more that they all had the "get by with whacha got" experience in three hues of variation.  which of them could've knownπ∏ that there was another life pathway available to them.