All the World (Part 1)

For the first time since starting this blog I've actually gone a full year without posting on it. I think that is a mistake. I've decided I'm going to write a little story while I'm studying abroad this term. I know (or at least hope) that no one is actually reading this anymore. I'm not convinced that anyone actually knows blogger even still exists. But that's exactly the point. I've found writing to be an effective way to work out complicated thoughts stuck in my head. This is as close as you can get to a black hole on the internet and I like having a place to look back on some old thoughts.

Finally I'm a bit older and I'd like to try my hand at something a little longer. I may not be a better writer but at least I have a little bit more life to talk about. I'll be posting a story (I don't know yet if it will end up being 10 pages or 100) about 2 pages at a time every few days until it's done. I might even put in some interludes. If anyone actually ends up reading this, I'd appreciate some feedback. If not, I'm completely ok with it. =)

All the World

Chapter 1

All the world’s a stage – or a novel, a movie, a TV screen, a textbook, a vinyl record. I guess it doesn't really matter. Certainly, though, the men and women are its players. Shakespeare lies. The roles are not infancy, whining schoolboy, lover, soldier, justice, old age and incapacity. These are far too limited and linear. There isn't just a “soldier.” There is the heroic soldier from Ride of the Valkyries and the cowardly soldier from the Red Badge of Courage.

Obviously I’m talking about the first half.

Indeed these limitations cloud the point. It is not that all men and women play out the story of one life but rather that we perceive lives as stories have already been played. We see each moment of our lives and the lives of others as scripts. It is our job to read the part well. We take these moments like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle that don’t quite fit. We squish the pieces together because it is much easier to bend cardboard than to look through the other ten-thousand pieces of blue sky. I don’t think the differences really matter anyways. It’s just a little cloud. The pieces fit.

Narrative. Everything is Narrative.

The news is on. I watch the Presidential candidates debate.

Debate. The closest French word is debattre, from battre: to hit, to batter.

John Doe was born in Idaho. He got a public school education and worked in his father’s steel mill for two years. He went off to war and flew a beautiful, jet black, B-52 bomber in the air force until the war ended. He murdered thousands of men in only a dozen months, so he won a very shiny medal. John Doe went back to work at his father’s mill for another five years when a teenager shot his dad in the back of the head outside of a drug store. It was a stray bullet from a drug deal gone wrong. The teenager and the father aimed to buy different kinds of drugs. Maybe the teenager wasn't buying drugs. I think he dropped the gun while buying a candle for his mother’s birthday. I forget. That wasn't an important part of the story. Either way, he didn't win any shiny medals.

John took up the steel mill and ran it successfully. He paid everyone a fair wage and good hours before unions required such things. His company started to build railroads and hospitals and it grew to be one of the biggest steel mills in the country. He started twelve new factories in seven states and helped bring the country out of a recession. John never stopped living in Idaho the entire time. When John sold his father’s company he ran for mayor of the small town he was born. When he ran for Governor six years later he won in a landslide.

John is wearing a worn gray wool suit and an unassuming tie. He has a light, charming accent that makes him sound like he could be my uncle, or that old friend I haven’t spoken to since it stopped snowing. He smiles and laughs a lot. Never too much. He speaks plain English and has common sense ideas for domestic policy. John thinks that grown people deserve their freedom. Hardworking people deserve to be paid enough to live on. The hardworking people shouldn't have to pay for the people who don’t work as hard. John Doe was “honest.” That was John Doe’s Narrative.

No, that isn't his real name.

Jane Doe wore a black suit. It was tailored for her when she worked in Hong Kong as the CEO of an international investment banking firm. She hasn't lived in Hong Kong for fifteen years but her body hasn't changed a bit. She’s almost sixty now. She runs at least five miles every day. When she has interns, she makes the interns run at least five miles every day. I think Sandra Day O'Connor used to do that. O'Connor wasn't Jane Doe. I don’t think so anyways. I can’t remember.

Jane’s family was a successful family. Her father was a lawyer at a corporate firm. He would take money from rich people so that they could keep being rich. Her mother was a professor of economics at the best University in New York. She would take money from rich people so that they could keep being rich.

Jane was astonishingly smart.  She went to a prestigious college when she was only seventeen. No one but her cares which one, but she did well. She double majored in math and political science and finished a year early. She became the youngest person to work at the venture capital firm that she started out. It was the best one in the country. Fifteen years later she was a branch manager in the same firm. The company got so big that the government had to break it up into different parts to prevent a monopoly. That’s when she moved to the Hong Kong firm that dealt in investment banking.

Jane didn't join the army. I don’t think her dad was shot in the head. At least if he was I don’t think it was because of a stray bullet.

When she came back to the United States she worked for the Federal Reserve for three years. She was extremely successful but quit to run for a position in the senate. She was a senator for twelve years before she decided to run for President. Her hair is jet black like Joe’s bomber. Her haircut cost about as much as Joe’s suit. She speaks slowly and with precision that makes me feel like there’s not a thing in the world that she doesn't know. I think my feeling was right. Jane Doe was “experienced.”

That’s not her real name either.

Jane has three young children who love her. That wasn't part of her Narrative. I forget that Jane has children. I don’t think it matters.

I forget how this story ends. I think the people demonize and exclude Dr. Stockmann. No, I think Hiccup learns to ride the Night Fury. At the very least we can be confident that sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.

CNN says David beat Goliath. I think that’s a little bit of a cliché. They could have done better. Like Shakespeare, they lie. I lie too. I just put a little more time and effort into making the lies pretty.

In reality, of course, David didn't beat Goliath. We wanted David to beat Goliath. Instead, Jane misspoke. She said that the Spanish-American War was the War of 1812. Jane was “experienced” and John was “honest” so Jane became Goliath and John became David. Neither of them truly resembled David or Goliath. It may have even been rude to suggest that Jane was Goliath, considering the time she put in to keep fit at her age. What about the weapons? I think Malcolm Gladwell said that David actually had a better weapon than Goliath. I don’t think that’s important.

Debate. To hit. To batter.

Why is David a better President than Goliath? Because he can throw a rock from a sling? I pull the lever for David, or John, or Sandra Day O'Connor. I forget. It doesn't really matter. I don’t think so anyways.

Narrative. Everything is Narrative.