Daily Doohickey #1

The Daily Doohickey. The first one of a possibly epic journey that might lead to me actually sticking with something long enough to get the courage to submit to a publisher. At the very least, these Daily Doohickeys should provide me with at least a diversion, a reason to get out of bed just a little earlier, and help wake me up. Give me something to do while my archaic coffee pot takes its time deciding if it will or will not brew me some caffeinated goodness today. [Ed Note: I have no idea why the word "caffeinated" is highlighted yellow. Maybe I spelled it wrong like I often do, and blogger autocorrected it but tattooed it yellow so the world would know of my heinous error. I really don't know and I don't know how to change it, and I don't know if any of you see it as yellow. Sorry. I'll randomly highlight some words in the next post to make up for it.]The Daily Doohickey offers comments on idealism vs. realism. The book suggests idealists are akin to optimists, while realists tend to see the world in terms of what really exists and what really -or usually- happens.

Exercise 1: Are you an idealist or a realist?

I'm not sure what I am. I would say idealism and realism should be viewed on a continuum. There are situations in which I am an idealist, like, not to be cliche but love. I'm an idealist to the point where I am so damn picky that I have been single for 23 years and 7 months of my 24 year and 1 month old physical self. That's without getting technical over the length of time I was physically alive when I was conceived. And just like that, TMI.

I am a realist in how I approach most situations in life probably. I can see where idealism can be seen akin to optimism, because that would indicate realism is synonymous with pessimism. I have been called a pessimist in my life, more than once. I was a realist when I said I needed a 'real' job from my college degree. I told myself, "I can write a book without a college english degree" When I pick up a book, the first thing I do isn't flip to the flap about the author and see what Ivy League school gave them their Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Literature. Infact, of all the books I've read, the only names that stick with me are the authors of classics (Salinger, Twain), or authors of series which I have read numerous times over.

Am I an idealist or a realist? I guess the answer is I am a dreamer trying to dream up a way to unlock the very real chains of the world that hold us to the ground. It seems some people have figured out a way to release those chains, or maybe they just don't care what society says they can and can't have, or what they can and can't do. Some of those people end up in jail, I bet. It all comes down to balance if what I'm driving at. Like the yin and yang, they complement each other. I think our society has a place for both idealism and realism. Having either in too much focus would lead to trouble, me thinks.

Exercise 2: Outline a Short Story in which a realist, through some fascinating series of events, becomes an optimist-- or vice versa.

Well I've never done outlines, it's not really my thing. Still, if I had to, I would take a realist and turn him into an optimist. Just a happier story. Who wants to read about a great dreamer/idealist who never gets off the ground?

So, there would be this guy, we'll call him James.

James has come from a very traditional family, raised with the 'traditional American values' that the man will work a 9-5 to support his family. I would have him be in college, going through a business program so he could satisfy those extrinsic desires of his family.

Intrisically, he is craving to shake loose all that he has ever known, being raised with very realistic values. He meets a girl. Don't all good story have a boy meeting a girl? Or a girl meeting a boy? Or a boy meeting a boy, or a girl meeting a girl, if that's your cup of tea. The girl, or young woman I should say, is from a family fostering creativitity, dreaming, shooting for the moon and landing in the stars, all of that.

I truly believe to have a character, or a person in real life, change values, even if just moving along that continuum of realism vs. idealism, it involves love. Love for a 'greater power', love for a person, or even I guess love for a 'cause'. I guess if I wanted James to change due to a 'cause', we could have some terminal illness befall him, but he fights back out of it and devotes his life to living the way he wants to, shaking free of his familys constraints as he realizes every day is a precious gift to be lived as YOU want. We could have James come to find God, in one way or another, to make him change for love of a 'greater power'.

Perhaps it is just the style of myself to make James want to change for this amazingly awesome girl he meets. If this is an indication of my personal preference, it is probably because I have not yet met (or I don't know I have met) an amazingly awesome girl yet myself. So in writing this it would give me some fun to toy around with just how awesome this girl would be. Maybe, if I were like 75% of my friends and already married, I might have a different change in mind for James, like the spiritual change or the changing for a 'cause'.

Anyway, James is going to meet this awesome girl, and there'll be fights and she probably won't get along with James' parents because this is the girl they warned him about before they sent him packing for college. James is going to grow up and start thinking for himself and begin to take the world as his oyster (within reason). He lives happily ever after with the girl. The End.

Comments

Well that about brings this first edition of the Daily Doohickey to a close. It took longer to write than I thought, I've already had three cups of coffee and now my attention span is comprable to that of a goldfish (3 seconds is what I've heard). I think it was interesting to realize, probably not at the intent of the 'exercise', that we write what we know, and we write what we want to find out. Hence my reason for chosing to have James change for a girl. It's the phase of life I am in, and that is reflected in my writing. I would like to broaden my scope of context, and dare to write about that which I do not know much about, or that which I am afraid of misrepresenting.