Fatalistic Optimism, Bar, Writers' Rooms, NaNoWriMo

It was about a week ago that I received word through the mail that I had passed the bar exam. There have been moments this week--many, in fact--where it all felt strangely surreal. I felt confident enough in my performance, walking away from the test site on the second day, but over the course of the three months I spent waiting for the results, my confidence disintegrated like rice paper in a warm bath. I began to visualize what I would do in the wake of failing the test, steeling myself for a disappointment that, on each successive consideration, seemed increasingly inevitable.

A part of this progression likely stemmed from my outlook on life: hope for the best, but expect the worst. I tend to exercise a sort of fatalistic optimism, largely indistinguishable from ordinary optimism, except that I explicitly force myself to consider the worst-case scenario, and accept that fact that it may very well come to pass. It's the same way that I eventually overcame my adolescent crisis of faith, where I used spend sleepless nights pondering what would become of a human being if there truly is no soul to carry one's consciousness beyond this mortal coil, no God Almighty to guide us, and if the sum total of human life is destined to return to all-consuming nothingness. The thought of a state--if one could truly call nonexistence a "state"--of thoughtlessness, of blindness without darkness, of soundlessness without silence, frightened me unlike any other horror, waking or dreaming. However, somewhere along the way in college, studying the luminaries of Western Philosophy, I somehow managed to come to terms with the possibility, accepted it as a necessary contingency if all that I believed yet could not prove were, in the final calculation, proven to be false. Nevertheless, even as I accepted the object of my deepest-seeded fear, I chose to believe what I had grown up believing, what I've seen and interpreted to be true in every detail of this existence. This was my interpretation of the traditional Christian concept of faith: to behold the wonders and depravities of this world, and choose to recognize the spark of Providence in each of them, a jewel of the divine set in countless facets of an intricate and unfathomable setting, composed of sometimes unremarkable parts that somehow fit together to form a whole beautiful and awesome beyond all human reckoning. The evidence is plain and abundant all around us, though they require a leap of faith in reaching any genuine conclusions; where I see God in his heaven, another could envision Chaos in its entropy, or, even more simply, nothing at all. Even scientific certainties are predicated upon an implicit faith in the reliability of sense perceptions, the inherent reality of the world around us, and the immutability--and knowability--of the physical relationships that bind this existence together. If every conclusion, whether hopeful, pragmatic, or pessimistic, requires the same implicit act of faith, then why not put my faith in the one I want to be so? From this perspective, a leap of faith is perhaps the greatest volitional act an autonomous actor is capable of, the ultimate expression of free will.

Granted, failing the bar pales whiter than alabaster next to utter nothingness, but the adjustment process for me was quite the same. Seeing as my faith--or, at least, plaintive hope--proved well placed in the bar's case, I can only hope my faith in the grander dilemma proves equally true.

And hope I will.

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I've been fascinated with the writing desks--and by extension, rooms--of the professional writers I admire, ever since I first laid eyes on a photograph of the late-Robert Jordan's work desk. There is some poignant yet ethereal connection between an author's finished work and the means, process, and--yes--even locale of its creation. One concede that, much in the same way that we as people are largely shaped by the people, places, and events that ensconce our lives, so too must these artifacts, the products of human thought, toil, and rapture, be influenced in subtle but sensible ways by their author's surrounds at the time of their crafting.

I was, therefore, understandably delighted to discover a photo project called "Where I Write: Fantasy & Science Fiction Authors in Their Creative Spaces," which features several well-known authors in their workspaces. It satiates some quasi-voyeuristic urge that I think we all share, to a certain degree; yet at the same time, it also humanizes the works that, when rendered to us void of the human story of their production, can seem like godly, unwieldy things that we are doomed only to worship, an Asgardian fortress or Olympian height to which we may never aspire. It tethers them to the earth, brings them close enough for us to see the cracks, dents, and defects we might otherwise overlook, and forces us to acknowledge that the giants who built them not only were once human, but are human still.

It kindles hope where a hero worshiper and pedestal placer is apt to find an overabundance of despair.

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And, on the apt segue that "despair" provides, I should come to acknowledge that NaNoWriMo 2009 is two weeks away. I thought that I would use it to write the historical fantasy I codenamed "Wander," but as the month approaches I increasingly fear that I may still lack the confidence to tackle a story that takes place not in a fantasy world of my own imagination, largely and safely divorced from our everyday reality, but in a doppelganger milieu whose verisimilitude relies so heavily upon its resemblance to the real world. I thought about working on a story in the fantasy milieu I codenamed "The Year of Our Lord," which would be a welcome respite from science fiction, and a way to hone the skills I've gleaned from the copious fantasy novels I've read in recent years, but I fear that that story is not yet ripe enough to pluck from the aether. Lately I thought of writing the first of two "prequel" novels to Book One, which actually may be ripe enough to be written, but a part of me feels that I should focus my efforts on something that lies outside the familiar SF milieu that I've developed and dwelt in these past thirteen years.

In the meantime, this weekend is, once again, to be sacrificed on the altar that is Chapter Three. I'm hoping it will be done before the weekend is; and if it is, then perhaps I can turn greater attention toward deciding which story most deserves to be told next.