my creation

I once sat listening to a pastor who said that people shouldn't claim to "create" things; people can make things out of the vast material that God provides around us, but the word "creator" should only apply to Almighty God. Well, I don't really agree with that. I agree that He's the Supreme Creator, and I would never try to equate myself with His glory and majesty. But we're also created in His image and as an artist, I know what it's like to fashion something where there was nothing there before. You could say that God sometimes plants a seed of inspiration, but that doesn't really diminish it in my book.

Last time, I tried to describe to you (whoever YOU may be, my readers) what a perfect world would be like, if I ran it. Actually, it was more like the world that I do in fact run in my writing. But the words eluded me, and I was unable to capture the essence of this thing, you could call it Mattopia, where people always listen and treat you the way you want to be treated and people don't have to worry about arbitrary social rules and boundaries; they can be completely honest with each other, and in doing so, they come one step closer to fulfillment.

It's not a perfect vision; there are bits of hypocrisy hiding just below the surface. For instance, I would like to be honest with Joe Blo about my feelings for him, but if that grosses him out, then I would not want him to tell me that, at least not in those words. Maybe in my perfect world, he wouldn't have to like me back, but at least it wouldn't gross him out. People wouldn't be grossed out by stuff like that. On the flip side, if Flo Joe tells me she's into me but it grosses me out, under my "perfect world" standards, I would still want to be friends with her, but that's not really the way I feel. So you see, it's a perfect world when it suits me. And I feel like a really big man that I can admit that.

The things I write (and I mean, creative writing projects, not like this blog) do not represent a totally artificial world, like Leave It To Beaver. Rather, it shows the world like it is, but then presents some element of different-ness, a way that things aren't but ought to be, in my humble opinion. And I'm not the only writer who does this. I seem to recall Stephen King's emotional reaction to seeing Stand By Me, the film adaptation of his great novella, The Body. He was greatly moved, but had to admit that the kind of friendship shown in that story is more the way we'd like it to be than how it is in real life.

So as I reflect on finishing the first draft of my script, para physin, which I've worked on for 4 years (all tiny bits and pieces until the last week when the majority of it just fell in my lap, like a giant elephant from the sky), I realize that the real world is certainly represented, but so too is Mattopia, a place where some really sweet and wonderful things can happen, things that don't generally happen in real life. Does this make me a more honest or less honest storyteller? Less honest, perhaps, from the viewpoint of the cynic and the realist. But more honest in terms of what my true heart hopes and dreams for humanity. And I have to think there is an important place for that in the arts.