Grounded at Gadling
The reason I included Hob Gadling in my little pantheon... is this:
Hob: "I've hated every second of the last eighty years. Every bloody second. You know that?"
Dream: "And you still wish to live? Do you not seek the respite of death?"
Hob: (is pensive for a moment; smirks) "Are you crazy? Death's a mug's game. I got so much to live for."
-- The Sandman, "Men of Good Fortune".
I don't expect that I will ever grow up, to be honest. I do not think I will change that much. I believe I can, to be sure, and I believe that I must try; but possibility is not probability, nor prediction. I don't think that I will ever be more than second best; a prophet, not a god.
This unshakeable constancy, this unremarkable profundity: this defines me in a different way than I am defined by Wednesday or Aenea. Gadling is my human element. Aenea represents my radical ideas, my passions in total. Wednesday is the trickster God, the All-Father who stooped to learn womanly arts, the man who listens to ravens and walks with wolves, the seeker who sacrificed, the Shepherd of Mankind. (Wednesday is for another year; perhaps this one, at my current pace.) They are my triumvirate.
But Gadling is my humanity. My baseness. He accidentally got the slave trade going and felt it was good enough line of work until someone pointed out that it was kinda mean. He outstrips his peers without surpassing them; grieves and laughs and loves as any man does. He does little favors for those of his own kind--a malleable definition--and refuses the repayment.
Gadling, in this wonderful sense, shows that while we are a changing people, we are still us. The constancy of change.
In my apologetics, I explained that God appeared different at different times in the same way an object would appear different when light is shone upon it at different angles. This is Heraclitus: you never step into the same river twice: but it is the same river!
It is not a matter of tradition or causality or flat-out understanding that says we are the same as we once were. There's no such thing! We aren't the same, and yet we are as well. Period. You can perceive it as change, or you can perceive it as a deeper understanding. This perfect world, perfect because we yet improve it, is us.
Gadling embodies my drive to live simply. Wednesday's deathwish is swathed in a inevitable fatality, and Aenea's is a candle that needs to light the fire with her life while she can, but none of my suicidal urges can be found in old Hob.
In my unwritten trilogy, Gadling is Aradal Raccaldin, the bard. Wednesday is Kherer, the wanderer. And Aenea is Caminela, the architect. At this point, there is no hope of bringing Fainor back, heh. Gadling is faith; Aenea is hope; Wednesday is love.
Hob: "I've hated every second of the last eighty years. Every bloody second. You know that?"
Dream: "And you still wish to live? Do you not seek the respite of death?"
Hob: (is pensive for a moment; smirks) "Are you crazy? Death's a mug's game. I got so much to live for."
-- The Sandman, "Men of Good Fortune".
I don't expect that I will ever grow up, to be honest. I do not think I will change that much. I believe I can, to be sure, and I believe that I must try; but possibility is not probability, nor prediction. I don't think that I will ever be more than second best; a prophet, not a god.
This unshakeable constancy, this unremarkable profundity: this defines me in a different way than I am defined by Wednesday or Aenea. Gadling is my human element. Aenea represents my radical ideas, my passions in total. Wednesday is the trickster God, the All-Father who stooped to learn womanly arts, the man who listens to ravens and walks with wolves, the seeker who sacrificed, the Shepherd of Mankind. (Wednesday is for another year; perhaps this one, at my current pace.) They are my triumvirate.
But Gadling is my humanity. My baseness. He accidentally got the slave trade going and felt it was good enough line of work until someone pointed out that it was kinda mean. He outstrips his peers without surpassing them; grieves and laughs and loves as any man does. He does little favors for those of his own kind--a malleable definition--and refuses the repayment.
Gadling, in this wonderful sense, shows that while we are a changing people, we are still us. The constancy of change.
In my apologetics, I explained that God appeared different at different times in the same way an object would appear different when light is shone upon it at different angles. This is Heraclitus: you never step into the same river twice: but it is the same river!
It is not a matter of tradition or causality or flat-out understanding that says we are the same as we once were. There's no such thing! We aren't the same, and yet we are as well. Period. You can perceive it as change, or you can perceive it as a deeper understanding. This perfect world, perfect because we yet improve it, is us.
Gadling embodies my drive to live simply. Wednesday's deathwish is swathed in a inevitable fatality, and Aenea's is a candle that needs to light the fire with her life while she can, but none of my suicidal urges can be found in old Hob.
In my unwritten trilogy, Gadling is Aradal Raccaldin, the bard. Wednesday is Kherer, the wanderer. And Aenea is Caminela, the architect. At this point, there is no hope of bringing Fainor back, heh. Gadling is faith; Aenea is hope; Wednesday is love.