(no subject)

[apiphile]

unsurprising the way i feel about the business of storytelling is the way i feel about humanity; it is necessary to accept what appear at first to be opposing viewpoints and to hold them in your head simultaneously. one is that we are very important to ourselves, that what we do matters, and that we must learn to treat our actions and above all our own persons with the degree of thought and respect they require - that we must not "settle", that we must find ways to be happy, and that while there can be no universal "deserve", there is also no universal "do not deserve". everyone is equal and everyone is equally important. the other thing, the conflicting thing, is to remember how pointless we are, how while we are the universe to each other, we are nothing to the universe. it is right that human beings understand how much we mean to each other; it is right that human beings understand how insignificant we are to everything else. it will not fundamentally alter the state of anything if we visit distant suns, but it might be sad if we never do, from the viewpoint of ourselves. we are part of the universe in the same way as gas and rocks; important, and not important. what we achieve is amazing to us, because we have achieved it, but there is no audience. we are playing to ourselves. we are talking to the other actors on the same stage. no one is listening, and no one will applaud us if we succeed or scorn us if we fail. we're just here, and then we will be not here, and everything will go on until it isn't here any more either. saying that we are worthless in the eye of eternity is not belittling our worth to each other; my loved ones are the universe to me and nothing to the universe. it doesn't make them unimportant in my eyes, and the worlds outside ours have no eyes to judge with.

with writing i kind of want people to understand that the ability to implant images and ideas into other people's minds and have them live for centuries is a wonderful thing, but it's not magic. doing it well takes skill and practice and is praiseworthy and laudable, but it isn't a sacred duty or a sign of a better class of person. it is good, but it is not great; it is uncommon, but not special. distrust writers who tell you how magnificent and holy and otherworldly amazing writers are; they are, after all, talking about themselves, and you wouldn't put up with that bullshit from binmen.