Chicago: Summer, with chimney swallows

A view of the South Side along the lakefront from a 36th floor apartment window. Swallows lived in the chimney of a defunct incinerator nearby, and would come out to eat the newly-hatched insects. There was a prairie falcon who waited on the apartment roof to swoop down on the swallows in turn.

Moon Moth Sonnet

You, gift of God to earth new-made in spring,
Oh, fill these arms! My wooden tongue, extoll
Silvered art unfurled in August evenings,
Lighting windows to an enkindled soul!
This delicate creature of steely mien
Binds their covetous eyes in siren’s art
As gentle inner clockworks pass unseen.
Well-armored thus, it guards the opened heart.
These palms raised up in paean, held out in plea,
Wishing for that not given to possess.
With surfeit of beauty, he painted me,
Crimsoned my cheek with a kiss o’er a tress.
Loved well, I wished an equal heart to tend,
Forgoing the chase to await a friend.

Current Collaborative Project

A few months ago, a collaborative book project was proposed by a friend. He knew that I had been working steadily on a novel and making good progress at the time, so the project was given every expectation of being deferred until the novel was finished. Despite the word count climbing, I kept hitting snags with the novel's structure. Major ones. Despite characters with depth and an interesting concept, I could not answer very basic questions like "What is the protagonist doing?" and "What is this story really about?"

Stories without answers to those kinds of questions are dead in the water. I stopped, and decided to step away for a bit. Still needing to write, the collaboration moved to the forefront.

As initially described by my friend, a university Professor, this was to be a project for "inquiry-based learning". Not knowing what that phrase meant, I had to spend a few hours doing research. As soon as I learned about concept maps, I put one together. When I felt that I had a starting point, I contacted my collaborator for input. He was excited that I had picked this up and started running with it. Then it was time to start writing the story.

The idea driving the project is to present a story or a series of stories for students to read, adding questions at the end to guide students' discussions about the topic(s) and also guide educators who might not have in-depth knowledge of the subject matter presented. Originally intended for college students, we discussed the likelihood of use for secondary education as well, and this drove a guideline for complexity, appropriate vocabulary and so forth. Within the next couple of weeks, I did some additional research and put together a 7400-word story about a murder, and sent it to my friend, worrying that it was too short.

"It's too long," he said. "Students don't generally like assigned reading." I struggled to accept that a ten-page short story could be considered "too long". "Too many students won't know what some of these words mean and they won't look up the definitions." I staggered over that one as well. These students were preparing to be analysts and investigators?

To his credit, he identified the portion of the submission which aligned with his initial idea and instincts. He hadn't really known what he wanted until I unintentionally showed him what he didn't want, and from there he was able to segregate what worked from all of the extra stuff. I pulled out about 2000 words from the last three pages, debrided and sutured it, and re-submitted the product in short order.

He was thrilled. He sent back a bank of questions to append to the first chapter, and we discussed possible directions for chapter two.

About a month later, three chapters are written, the project has taken off nicely, and both of us are happy and excited to see progress.He's been responsive to emails asking for opinions and other feedback, and I've been left alone to do my end of the creative work. We hope to have the book completed and to start proposals with publishers during the spring.

Irrational Behavior

I started an account on LinkedIn a week ago. I was looking at the "People You May Know" section again today for any additional contacts to add, and saw my father's name listed.
He passed away in 2007.
In the span of about a minute I remembered the call I received while at work, getting the news from my distraught mother-in-law, and thought about all the odd things we leave behind when we pass. I wondered if it was the same Anthony Messina or a different one. I thought about sentimental behavior.
Then I clicked on the "Connect" button anyway.

Merry Christmas, Dad.
(You too, Mom)
T

Shots of Awe: Creativity and Depression

This episode opens with another quote from Ernest Becker:

The creativity of people on the schizophrenic end of the human continuum is a creativity that springs from the inability to accept the standardized cultural denials of the real nature of experience. And the price of this kind of "extra human" creativity is to live on the brink of madness, as men have long known."

Jason Silva, paraphrasing Kierkegaard, draws contrasts between the schizophrenic and the depressive. The former is overwhelmed by too much possiblity, too much ecstasy. He is driven mad because he cannot pursue all of the avenues of creativity he is drawn to. Conversely, the depressive is subject to a failure of the imagination. He is stuck with too much entropy, too much gravity. He is too grounded, whereas the schizophrenic is not grounded enough.

I'll go ahead and state at the outset that I find it a bit off-putting when mental illness is romanticized. I know depressives (I sometimes wrestle with it myself) and both know and have known schizophrenics. Creative urges or no, I would not wish either state on anyone.

The person mired in a major depressive episode truly cannot see beyond himself or his current state, and too often sees substance abuse or death (self-inflicted violence) as the only door of escape. The suicides of Dante's Inferno exist as thorny bushes in the seventh circle of Dante's Hell, alongside the profligates, only able to speak through their blood when a twig is torn from a branch. If the depressive person has any creative urge, he may find expression to be a relief valve, in some cases producing works of artistic value. The list of artists and other well-known people with major depressive disorders is certainly a long one. Given the choice, most would probably choose to be free of the chemical imbalances responsible for the condition, but others might say that there is value in asking questions such as "What's the point in / meaning of life?" especially when one struggles towards an answer. The struggle for an answer to that question means that hope exists and life still has value.

The schizophrenics I've known have been creative, but in very unfocused ways. One was obsessed with an MTV VJ and Nazis, another is convinced that a radio personality hates him and communicates this hate telepathically. He is absolutely convinced that the voices he hears are real, but is also an atheist, arguing that God is imaginary. (Regardless of your own beliefs about God's existence, the inconsistency is plain.) The

man's brother, also schizophrenic, believes that all medicine is absolutely beneficial, and will consume any and all medications found unsecured in the house. Both people are intelligent and creative, but unable to support themselves and will need some level of outside care in the future. Powerful medications have to be continually adjusted, and a restless quasi-sleep that is difficult to watch awaits the schizophrenic at night. Regular work seems nearly impossible to attain, lucid periods last only briefly, and a life spent on disability in a group home is often the best outcome to be hoped for. Like depression, there seems to be a genetic predisposition toward development of schizophrenia.

Silva asks, "How do we leverage these contrasts of visions and live with a little bit of grace?"

One thing I would very much like to see is more readily available and effective assistance for persons with mental illness and their caregivers, particularly in cases where there is demonstrated or high potential for violence. In most mass shootings, there was a pattern of problematic behavior and underlying psych-emotional issues that were either unsatisfactorily addressed or wholly unrecognized. One-third of America's homeless population has untreated psychiatric disorders. This is an expensive and complicated problem to solve, and unfortunately, the political will only seems to exist to treat symptoms of problems, not to identify and solve causes. In the meantime, pharmacology saves. More or less.

When depressives aren't so debilitated by the illness that they can't get out of bed or think of a reason to live, and when schizophrenics are able to be free of voices and the mixed-bag of medicine's side-effects, that might be a better time to talk about leveraging visions. The grace comes first, by helping the sufferer.

Milestone A Achieved

Received news that I've been accepted to LIU Post today. I have an A.A. and an A.S., and will be completing the last 2 yrs of coursework to earn a B.S. in Forensic Science. Apparently my GPA was impressive enough to garner some scholarship money too. (I have to attend full-time to get it; some thought on this required.)

Milestone 1 Achieved

Made the 10K word mark on "Singularity" at 1PM today. Wrote like a fiend last night.
Still feeling like the story wants to take an unexpected turn on me. Probably a sign of amateurishness to not have complete control of it, but am erring on the side of allowing intuition to do its thing. Alan says "Write what you know" and that's what I'm doing.