Working Backwards

Some Reflections on Moving in the Right Direction

From a young age, I developed a fear of forgetting and a fear of losing my creativity. This is partially why I began writing or at least talking about writing. I perceived adulthood as a state of being where everything mystical, magical, and fantastic was stripped away. Now, being an adult, and finding that my imagination has intensified instead of diminishing, I am drawn to wander in this curiosity -- in passageways that span from mystical to mundane, from childhood to adulthood.

Yet it was not always this way. I did not always have this understanding. There is an essence of being that still creeps in every now and then. It is that of disenchantment. That manner of living and thinking only in the context of the modern materialistic world.

I imagine disenchantment as a pit of stone. Every time you allow yourself to go down, you dig a bit deeper and it takes you longer to get out. It is a way of living similar to Plato's Cave except the modern world and our base pleasures reshackle us to it over and over again. Every time I doomscroll or redownload a game from Steam or find myself sucked into watching TV at work, I dig myself deeper into the pit of disenchantment. A pit where million waste their lives away hammering rock, only to find nothing, consigning themselves to the perceived reality that the pit is simply what life is.

When engaging with content, our eyes may glaze over but our soul still searches. We scroll to find something. But this is the pit of disenchantment. There is only bare stone, no gold nor silver, no gem nor jewel. Yet we tell ourselves that such beauties are right around the corner, after we dig through a bit more rock, after we scroll just a bit more, after one more episode, one more turn. Then we will finally be satisfied. This is the language of an addict. To be disenchanted is to be an addict to the pit, to the algorithm, to data mining corps, to Satan. The analogy is not perfect, I know, but these are unprecedented times for the human psyche. In order to participate in modern society, you must keep the most destructive, addictive black box of a thing in your pocket at all times. A thing that desires your attention, demands it from you. The same 'tool' by which you call your mother or wife offers you infinite lifetimes of distraction. This thing facilitates the Pit of Disenchantment like no other.

Towards the end of my time in college, I was introduced to the phrase 'Creative Production'. A woodworker making a stool for a particular person who lives in a particular house. A homemaker making a quilt for a neighbor's child. A young father who writes fiction on his lunch breaks (or at least tries to). Creative production is a beautiful thing. It is the expression of the power God gave us. The ability of man to 'subcreate' from that which God has wrought. We do not build as a beaver does, we conceptualize the article and then *make* it as God bid us to do.

To re-enchant, you must leave the quarry, permanently if your will is strong enough. You must leave the passive pursuit of gold that does not exist and walk where beauty can inform your production and prayer.

My writing of Realms Untold has not been reflective of my desire for re-enchantment to date. Concrete Sunrise is a pessimistic view of the future of America (at least in the vignettes). Granted, I intended it to be so, and it is not without coincidence that I conceived of the setting and the characters within during a very dark and pessimistic time of my life (high school). The world of Concrete Sunrise is filled with Nihilism. All the stories are tragic in some way. It should prompt head scratching from you, reader, when I say that Concrete Sunrise is no the type of story that I want to write.

Then why did you write these stories, George?

Great question. Because the inspiration for them has informed my worldview and is a crucial part of my own ongoing re-enchantment. 'Delivery' is sentence for sentence my reimaging of my neighborhood after an economic collapse of America. The story came to me piece by piece as I walked home from school. 'Investigations' plays upon one of my greatest fears: the removal of my will. The story came to me while praying for discipline. I wrote 'Law' about a month after I first became a father.

I desire to write about enchantment and more importantly to write enchanting stories. But up until now, despite my passion for what one could call 'deep fiction' (Tolkien, Lewis, etc.), I have only posted stories from a low, materialistic world.

I am six months into the endeavor of Realms Untold and admittedly, my engine has sputtered. I really wanted to push through and finish the ten vignettes I had planned for Concrete Sunrise, but it looks like for the time being, the conclusion of 'Terror' and the other stories will have to wait. I will finish the vignettes at some point, along with publishing the main story which should bring them all together. Right now, however, I am pulled in a different, better direction.

I am working backwards as we all must. To paraphrase Lewis, if you are on a path that does not lead to your goal (re-enchantment and subsequently Salvation), then the only way forward is back down the path you have travelled. So I am working backwards, towards a fiction of the future that honors the timeless past. Working backwards to fall in love with the stories and the process by which they are revealed to writer and reader. Working backwards to give my children and friends something real and beautiful. Working backwards from being a slave to this modern world of churn and burn and money and mayhem to the calm and easy yoke of Christ. In order to go forwards, we all have to work backwards.

Thank you for reading. If you would do me the honor, please like, restack, and subscribe. A host of short stories are in the future along with many more reflections such as this. Be confident of my prayers, reader. God bless.