2/25/15
1/25/15
Plagiarize!
Putting a New Twist on an Old Story
There are a lot of ways to play this writing game but today we’re going to focus on protagonists. (Never fear, we’ll play variations later, too.)
Four Steps for Making Old Stories New Again
Step One: Choose a Classic Story
By “classic story” I mean an established story that resonates in the culture in which you find yourself. For most of us in western countries, that will mean that stories from Classical Mythology, the Bible, Shakespeare, and European fairy tales are all good starting points. In other areas you may wish to start with your stories taken from your local dominant religions, literary foundations, and ancient myths.
Step Two: Change the Protagonist
Change a key identifier for the protagonist: for example, swap the gender, sexual orientation, age, race, and/or class.
Step Three: Carry Those Changes Through the Script
When you make significant changes to your protagonist, those changes ripple out through the story. For example, look at Romeo and Juliet. If you change Romeo to Romola, you now have the story of two young girls in love–great! But if your Romola is heterosexual and you want to stick close to the original plot, then your Juliet needs to be Julio. On the other hand, if you’re still writing the story of Romola and Juliet and you want them to secretly get married, you need to move your story to a setting where women can marry; if you don’t want to set your story modern day, then you also have the option to change the genre to set it in a scifi or fantasy world. Keep carrying your changes through the script, see what breaks, and fix it.
Step Four: Kick Away the Source Material and Tell Your New Story
You can choose to adhere as closely or loosely as you wish to the original story but at a certain point you need to free yourself of those shackles and make the story your own. Maybe you add or subtract a scene or change the order of things. Maybe the new genre requires a combat scene or an comedy set piece. Maybe the nature of the key relationships dictates a different outcome. Be true to your choices and go where your story takes you. Maybe in the whole exercise you discover one character or relationship or moment that spurs a new idea: throw out the rest and run with the good stuff. (But before you give up on this game, try to see one story through to the end of a full re-versioning: it’s really good for your writing brain!)
Making Old Stories New for Flash Fiction Writers
There are all different kinds of flash fiction and I’m a fan of the “zoomed in” flash that focuses on a key moment. Flash writers, try going through the steps above and focusing on a well-known moment or beat in your story: how is it different with your new protago
nist? Zoom right in on that and show us what shifts and what opens up in the new version. (Or share with us what else you’d do with this prompt!)
Making Old Stories New Again Together
I’m growing fond of Romola and her paramour, so let’s work out their story together. (I’m assuming you’re all familiar with Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet but if you’re not, follow the link for a plot summary).
Do you team Romola with Juliet or Julio? What are their sexual orientations, regardless of their genders?–This could be a passionately platonic relationship after all. Will you change their age, race, or class? Why are their families divided? Where and when do you set the story? Do you keep the genre as drama/tragedy or do you change it? (I’d love to see a slapstick R&J in which the Montagues and Capulets have a big pie fight!) As you make your changes, do they cause friction with key plot points or story assumptions in the original?–What do you do with that? How far away from the original do you wind up?
If Romola & J don’t tickle your fancy, pick another story to work from and go for it.
No matter what story you start with, think it through at least until you hit a thorny story problem that you want to tell us about, or until you discover something wonderful in your new version that surprises or delights you and let us know what it is.
Tip: Don’t try to be clever. If you can put your ego aside and commit to the story, you’ll wind up with something much more interesting. To get the most out of this exercise, make a big, bold choice at the beginning, and then keep honoring it, justifying it, and serving the story.
This isn’t “for marks” (nothing is around here) so have fun and see where this prompt takes you.
PS If you’re awake at night staring at the ceiling, or stuck on a long commute, or waiting in a long line at the store, reimagining old stories this way is a great exercise for “writing in your head”.
There are a lot of ways to play this writing game but today we’re going to focus on protagonists. (Never fear, we’ll play variations later, too.)
Four Steps for Making Old Stories New Again
Step One: Choose a Classic Story
By “classic story” I mean an established story that resonates in the culture in which you find yourself. For most of us in western countries, that will mean that stories from Classical Mythology, the Bible, Shakespeare, and European fairy tales are all good starting points. In other areas you may wish to start with your stories taken from your local dominant religions, literary foundations, and ancient myths.
Step Two: Change the Protagonist
Change a key identifier for the protagonist: for example, swap the gender, sexual orientation, age, race, and/or class.
Step Three: Carry Those Changes Through the Script
When you make significant changes to your protagonist, those changes ripple out through the story. For example, look at Romeo and Juliet. If you change Romeo to Romola, you now have the story of two young girls in love–great! But if your Romola is heterosexual and you want to stick close to the original plot, then your Juliet needs to be Julio. On the other hand, if you’re still writing the story of Romola and Juliet and you want them to secretly get married, you need to move your story to a setting where women can marry; if you don’t want to set your story modern day, then you also have the option to change the genre to set it in a scifi or fantasy world. Keep carrying your changes through the script, see what breaks, and fix it.
Step Four: Kick Away the Source Material and Tell Your New Story
You can choose to adhere as closely or loosely as you wish to the original story but at a certain point you need to free yourself of those shackles and make the story your own. Maybe you add or subtract a scene or change the order of things. Maybe the new genre requires a combat scene or an comedy set piece. Maybe the nature of the key relationships dictates a different outcome. Be true to your choices and go where your story takes you. Maybe in the whole exercise you discover one character or relationship or moment that spurs a new idea: throw out the rest and run with the good stuff. (But before you give up on this game, try to see one story through to the end of a full re-versioning: it’s really good for your writing brain!)
Making Old Stories New for Flash Fiction Writers
There are all different kinds of flash fiction and I’m a fan of the “zoomed in” flash that focuses on a key moment. Flash writers, try going through the steps above and focusing on a well-known moment or beat in your story: how is it different with your new protagonist? Zoom right in on that and show us what shifts and what opens up in the new version. (Or share with us what else you’d do with this prompt!)
Making Old Stories New Again Together
I’m growing fond of Romola and her paramour, so let’s work out their story together. (I’m assuming you’re all familiar with Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet but if you’re not, follow the link for a plot summary).
Do you team Romola with Juliet or Julio? What are their sexual orientations, regardless of their genders?–This could be a passionately platonic relationship after all. Will you change their age, race, or class? Why are their families divided? Where and when do you set the story? Do you keep the genre as drama/tragedy or do you change it? (I’d love to see a slapstick R&J in which the Montagues and Capulets have a big pie fight!) As you make your changes, do they cause friction with key plot points or story assumptions in the original?–What do you do with that? How far away from the original do you wind up?
If Romola & J don’t tickle your fancy, pick another story to work from and go for it.
No matter what story you start with, think it through at least until you hit a thorny story problem that you want to tell us about, or until you discover something wonderful in your new version that surprises or delights you and let us know what it is.
Tip: Don’t try to be clever. If you can put your ego aside and commit to the story, you’ll wind up with something much more interesting. To get the most out of this exercise, make a big, bold choice at the beginning, and then keep honoring it, justifying it, and serving the story.
This isn’t “for marks” (nothing is around here) so have fun and see where this prompt takes you.
PS If you’re awake at night staring at the ceiling, or stuck on a long commute, or waiting in a long line at the store, reimagining old stories this way is a great exercise for “writing in your head”.
1/18/15
Kierkegaard on Boredom
http://www.brainpickings.org/
How dreadful boredom is – how dreadfully boring; I know no stronger expression, no truer one, for like is recognized only by like... I lie prostrate, inert; the only thing I see is emptiness, the only thing I live on is emptiness, the only thing I move in is emptiness. I do not even suffer pain... Pain itself has lost its refreshment for me. If I were offered all the glories of the world or all the torments of the world, one would move me no more than the other; I would not turn over to the other side either to attain or to avoid. I am dying death. And what could divert me? Well, if I managed to see a faithfulness that withstood every ordeal, an enthusiasm that endured everything, a faith that moved mountains; if I were to become aware of an idea that joined the finite and the infinite.
Boredom is the root of all evil. It is very curious that boredom, which itself has such a calm and sedate nature, can have such a capacity to initiate motion. The effect that boredom brings about is absolutely magical, but this effect is one not of attraction but of repulsion.
It seems doubtful that a remedy against boredom can give rise to boredom, but it can give rise to boredom only insofar as it is used incorrectly. A mistaken, generally eccentric diversion has boredom within itself, and thus it works its way up and manifests itself as immediacy.
Adam was bored because he was alone; therefore Eve was created. Since that moment, boredom entered the world and grew in quantity in exact proportion to the growth of population. Adam was bored alone; then Adam and Eve were bored together; then Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel were bored en famille. After that, the population of the world increased and the nations were bored en masse.
How corrupting boredom is, everyone recognizes also with regard to children. As long as children are having a good time, they are always good. This can be said in the strictest sense, for if they at times become unmanageable even while playing, it is really because they are beginning to be bored; boredom is already coming on, but in a different way. Therefore, when selecting a nursemaid, one always considers essentially not only that she is sober, trustworthy, and good-natured but also takes into esthetic consideration whether she knows how to entertain children. Even if she had all the other excellent virtues, one would not hesitate to give her the sack if she lacked this qualification.
How dreadful boredom is – how dreadfully boring; I know no stronger expression, no truer one, for like is recognized only by like... I lie prostrate, inert; the only thing I see is emptiness, the only thing I live on is emptiness, the only thing I move in is emptiness. I do not even suffer pain... Pain itself has lost its refreshment for me. If I were offered all the glories of the world or all the torments of the world, one would move me no more than the other; I would not turn over to the other side either to attain or to avoid. I am dying death. And what could divert me? Well, if I managed to see a faithfulness that withstood every ordeal, an enthusiasm that endured everything, a faith that moved mountains; if I were to become aware of an idea that joined the finite and the infinite.
Boredom is the root of all evil. It is very curious that boredom, which itself has such a calm and sedate nature, can have such a capacity to initiate motion. The effect that boredom brings about is absolutely magical, but this effect is one not of attraction but of repulsion.
It seems doubtful that a remedy against boredom can give rise to boredom, but it can give rise to boredom only insofar as it is used incorrectly. A mistaken, generally eccentric diversion has boredom within itself, and thus it works its way up and manifests itself as immediacy.
Adam was bored because he was alone; therefore Eve was created. Since that moment, boredom entered the world and grew in quantity in exact proportion to the growth of population. Adam was bored alone; then Adam and Eve were bored together; then Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel were bored en famille. After that, the population of the world increased and the nations were bored en masse.
How corrupting boredom is, everyone recognizes also with regard to children. As long as children are having a good time, they are always good. This can be said in the strictest sense, for if they at times become unmanageable even while playing, it is really because they are beginning to be bored; boredom is already coming on, but in a different way. Therefore, when selecting a nursemaid, one always considers essentially not only that she is sober, trustworthy, and good-natured but also takes into esthetic consideration whether she knows how to entertain children. Even if she had all the other excellent virtues, one would not hesitate to give her the sack if she lacked this qualification.
[...]
It
would be
quite
impossible
to prevail
if one
wanted to
demand a
divorce
because
one’s wife
is boring,
or demand
that a king
be dethroned
because he
is boring to
behold, or
that a
clergyman be
exiled
because he
is boring to
listen to,
or that a
cabinet
minister be
dismissed or
a journalist
be executed
because he
is
frightfully
boring.
1/4/15
L'Amour from Yann Dall'Aglio TEDX Paris
What is love?
It's a hard term to define
in so far as it has a very wide application.
I can love jogging.
I can love a book, a movie.
I can love escalopes.
I can love my wife.
(Laughter)
But there's a great difference between an escalope and my wife, for instance. That is, if I value the escalope, the escalope, on the other hand, it doesn't value me back. Whereas my wife, she calls me the star of her life. (Laughter)
The individual used to find
an answer to this problem
by submitting his life to community rules.
You had a specific part to play
according to your sex, your age,
your social stat us,
and you only had to play your part
to be valued and loved by the whole community.
Think about the young woman
who must remain chaste before marriage.
Think about the youngest son
who must obey the eldest son,
who in turn must obey the patriarch.
Of course, this race for seduction, like every fierce competition, will create huge disparities in narcissistic satisfaction, and therefore a lot of loneliness and frustration too. So we can expect that modernity itself, which is the origin of seduction capital, would be called into question. I'm thinking particularly of the reaction of neo-fascist or religious communes. But such a future doesn't have to be.
But there's a great difference between an escalope and my wife, for instance. That is, if I value the escalope, the escalope, on the other hand, it doesn't value me back. Whereas my wife, she calls me the star of her life. (Laughter)
Therefore, only another desiring conscience
can conceive me as a desirable being.
I know this, that's why
love can be defined in a more accurate way
as the desire of being desired.
Hence the eternal problem of love:
how to become and remain desirable?
The individual used to find
an answer to this problem
by submitting his life to community rules.
You had a specific part to play
according to your sex, your age,
your social stat us,
and you only had to play your part
to be valued and loved by the whole community.
Think about the young woman
who must remain chaste before marriage.
Think about the youngest son
who must obey the eldest son,
who in turn must obey the patriarch.
But a phenomenon
started in the 13th century,
mainly in the Renaissance, in the West,
that caused the biggest identity crisis
in the history of humankind.
This phenomenon is modernity.
We can basically summarize it
through a triple process.
First, a process of rationalization
of scientific research,
which has accelerated technical progress.
Next, a process of political democratization,
which has fostered individual rights.
And finally, a process of rationalization
of economic production
and of trade liberalization.
These three intertwined processes
have completely annihilated
all the traditional bearings of Western societies,
with radical consequences for the individual.
Now individuals are free
to value or disvalue
any attitude, any choice, any object.
But as a result, they are themselves confronted
with this same freedom that others have
to value or disvalue them.
In other words, my value was once ensured
by submitting myself
to the traditional authorities.
Now it is quoted in the stock exchange.
On the free market of individual desires,
I negotiate my value every day.
Hence the anxiety of contemporary man.
He is obsessed: "Am I desirable? How desirable?
How many people are going to love me?"
And how does he respond to this anxiety?
Well, by hysterically collecting
symbols of desirability.
(Laughter)
I call this act of collecting,
along with others, seduction capital.
Indeed, our consumer society
is largely based on seduction capital.
It is said about this consumption
that our age is materialistic.
But it's not true! We only accumulate objects
in order to communicate with other minds.
We do it to make them love us, to seduce them.
Nothing could be less materialistic,
or more sentimental,
than a teenager buying brand new jeans
and tearing them at the knees,
because he wants to please Jennifer.
(Laughter)
Consumerism is not materialism.
It is rather what is swallowed up
and sacrificed in the name of the god of love,
or rather in the name of seduction capital.
In light of this observation on contemporary love,
how can we think of love in the years to come?
We can envision two hypotheses:
The first one consists of betting
that this process of narcissistic
capitalization will intensify.
It is hard to say what shape
this intensification will take,
because it largely depends
on social and technical innovations,
which are by definition difficult to predict.
But we can, for instance, imagine a dating website which, a bit like those loyalty points programs, uses seduction capital points that vary according to my age, my height/weight ratio, my degree, my salary, or the number of clicks on my profile. We can also imagine a chemical treatment for breakups that weakens the feelings of attachment.
But we can, for instance, imagine a dating website which, a bit like those loyalty points programs, uses seduction capital points that vary according to my age, my height/weight ratio, my degree, my salary, or the number of clicks on my profile. We can also imagine a chemical treatment for breakups that weakens the feelings of attachment.
By the way, there's a program on MTV already
in which seduction teachers
treat heartache as a disease.
These teachers call themselves "pick-up artists."
"Artist" in French is easy, it means "artiste."
"Pick-up" is to pick someone up,
but not just any picking up -- it's picking up chicks.
So they are artists of picking up chicks.
(Laughter)
And they call heartache "one-itis."
In English, "itis" is a suffix that signifies infection.
One-itis can be translated as "an infection from one." It's a bit disgusting. Indeed, for the pick-up artists, falling in love with someone is a waste of time, it's squandering your seduction capital, so it must be eliminated like a disease, like an infection. We can also envision a romantic use of the genome. Everyone would carry it around and present it like a business card to verify if seduction can progress to reproduction. (Laughter)
One-itis can be translated as "an infection from one." It's a bit disgusting. Indeed, for the pick-up artists, falling in love with someone is a waste of time, it's squandering your seduction capital, so it must be eliminated like a disease, like an infection. We can also envision a romantic use of the genome. Everyone would carry it around and present it like a business card to verify if seduction can progress to reproduction. (Laughter)
Of course, this race for seduction, like every fierce competition, will create huge disparities in narcissistic satisfaction, and therefore a lot of loneliness and frustration too. So we can expect that modernity itself, which is the origin of seduction capital, would be called into question. I'm thinking particularly of the reaction of neo-fascist or religious communes. But such a future doesn't have to be.
Another path to thinking about love may be possible.
But how?
How to renounce the hysterical need to be valued?
Well, by becoming aware
of my uselessness.
(Laughter)
Yes,
I'm useless.
But rest assured:
so are you.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
We are all useless.
This uselessness is easily demonstrated,
because in order to be valued
I need another to desire me,
which shows that I do not have any value of my own.
I don't have any inherent value.
We all pretend to have an idol;
we all pretend to be an idol for
someone else, but actually
we are all impostors, a bit like a man on the street
who appears totally cool and indifferent,
while he has actually anticipated and calculated
so that all eyes are on him.
I think that becoming aware
of this general imposture
that concerns all of us
would ease our love relationships.
It is because I want to be loved
from head to toe,
justified in my every choice,
that the seduction hysteria exists.
And therefore I want to seem perfect
so that another can love me.
I want them to be perfect
so that I can be reassured of my value.
It leads to couples
obsessed with performance
who will break up, just like that,
at the slightest underachievement.
In contrast to this attitude,
I call upon tenderness -- love as tenderness.
What is tenderness?
To be tender is to accept
the loved one's weaknesses.
It's not about becoming a sad couple of orderlies.
(Laughter)
That's pretty bad.
On the contrary,
there's plenty of charm and happiness in tenderness.
I refer specifically to a kind of humor
that is unfortunately underused.
It is a sort of poetry of deliberate awkwardness.
I refer to self-mockery.
For a couple who is no longer sustained, supported
by the constraints of tradition,
I believe that self-mockery
is one of the best means for
the relationship to endure.
8/15/14
XE XEM XYT ZEE ZEN ZARE
A Vancouver School Board Just Changed The English Pronouns We All Know
Christina Sterbenz
Jun. 19, 2014, 12:59 PM After four rowdy rounds of voting, the Vancouver School Board approved replacing all English language pronouns with a new string of newly-created "gender-neutral" pronouns Monday: "xe," "xem," and "xyr," the Vancouver Sun reports.
Henceforth, all district materials, as well as all district employees - including teachers in the classroom or on school property - must begin using the grammatical additions, pronounced "zee," "zem," and "zare," according to the Globe and Mail, to replace "he" or "she," "him" or "her," and "his" or "hers," respectively.
The policy intends to better accommodate transgender students in schools. Someone unsure of a 'transitioning' student's gender must use the generic "xe," and students who don't identify with either gender, typically known as 'agender', will be referred to as "xe," as well.
“We’re standing up for kids and making our schools safer and more inclusive,” board member Mike Lombardi told the Sun. The new policy, Lombardi said, will allow children of every sexual orientation “to learn and thrive.”
Under the heading “Counseling and School Support,” the policy states: “Elementary and secondary schools must appoint at least one staff person to be a 'Safe Contact' who is able to act as a resource person for LGBTTQ+ students, staff and families.” It also states that “all secondary schools are to establish and maintain Gay Queer/Straight Alliance Clubs” on campuses.
In addition, under the heading “Leadership,” the board states it will “consult with the Pride Advisory Committee to ensure that all district directions, priorities and implementation of programs and services are consistent with the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identities Policy.”
But not everyone approves of the movement. One of the most vocal dissenters, Cheryl Chang, chair of the Parent Advisory Council for Lord Byng Secondary Schools, thinks gender identity is a medical and psychiatric issue that should be addressed by parents, doctors and therapists, not by school teachers and other students.
"This is not a meaningful conversation. This is politics of division. It's getting people upset and angry," she told CBC News.
Christina Sterbenz
Jun. 19, 2014, 12:59 PM After four rowdy rounds of voting, the Vancouver School Board approved replacing all English language pronouns with a new string of newly-created "gender-neutral" pronouns Monday: "xe," "xem," and "xyr," the Vancouver Sun reports.
Henceforth, all district materials, as well as all district employees - including teachers in the classroom or on school property - must begin using the grammatical additions, pronounced "zee," "zem," and "zare," according to the Globe and Mail, to replace "he" or "she," "him" or "her," and "his" or "hers," respectively.
The policy intends to better accommodate transgender students in schools. Someone unsure of a 'transitioning' student's gender must use the generic "xe," and students who don't identify with either gender, typically known as 'agender', will be referred to as "xe," as well.
“We’re standing up for kids and making our schools safer and more inclusive,” board member Mike Lombardi told the Sun. The new policy, Lombardi said, will allow children of every sexual orientation “to learn and thrive.”
Under the heading “Counseling and School Support,” the policy states: “Elementary and secondary schools must appoint at least one staff person to be a 'Safe Contact' who is able to act as a resource person for LGBTTQ+ students, staff and families.” It also states that “all secondary schools are to establish and maintain Gay Queer/Straight Alliance Clubs” on campuses.
In addition, under the heading “Leadership,” the board states it will “consult with the Pride Advisory Committee to ensure that all district directions, priorities and implementation of programs and services are consistent with the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identities Policy.”
But not everyone approves of the movement. One of the most vocal dissenters, Cheryl Chang, chair of the Parent Advisory Council for Lord Byng Secondary Schools, thinks gender identity is a medical and psychiatric issue that should be addressed by parents, doctors and therapists, not by school teachers and other students.
"This is not a meaningful conversation. This is politics of division. It's getting people upset and angry," she told CBC News.
8/14/14
The New Yorker chimes in on Robin Williams RIP 2014 ( I worked there!)
reposted w/o perm
Suicide, a Crime of Loneliness
Robin Williams, September 14, 1978.
Credit Photograph by Jim Britt/Getty
Every forty seconds, someone commits
suicide. In the United States, it is the tenth most common cause of death in
people over ten years of age, far more common than death by homicide or
aneurysm or AIDS. Nearly half a million Americans are taken to the hospital
every year because of suicide attempts. One in five people with major
depression will make such an attempt; there are approximately sixteen
non-lethal attempts for every lethal one. The rate of suicide is going up,
especially among middle-aged men. These statistics get dragged out over and
over again, but they bear the endless repetition. Suicide may be a permanent
solution to a temporary problem, but it is one that beckons with burgeoning
seductiveness.
We lionized Robin Williams for the
manic gleam in his performances; at his best, he was not only hilarious but
also enchantingly frenzied. There are very few people who have that kind of
wild energy who don’t dip the other way sometimes. It often seems as if
those who are most exuberant experience despair in proportion to their
joy; they seem to swing wildly about the neutral average. Not always:
some people are like Bill Clinton, who appears to have sustained a level of
hyper-engagement that never lapses into withdrawal or dysfunction. But not very
many.
Robin Williams made no secret of his
troubled moods. In a profile
of the actor published in the Guardian, in 2010, Decca Aitkenhead
wrote:
His bearing is intensely Zen and
almost mournful, and when he’s not putting on voices he speaks in a low,
tremulous baritone—as if on the verge of tears—that would work very well if he
were delivering a funeral eulogy. He seems gentle and kind—even tender—but the
overwhelming impression is one of sadness.
She asked Williams whether he was
getting happier, and he said, “I think so. And not afraid to be unhappy. That’s
O.K., too. And then you can be like, all is good. And that is the thing, that
is the gift.” Aitkenhead saw this as sentimental, but in grim retrospect it
points to someone who struggled against his fear of his own sorrow, someone who
was afraid, perhaps, because he understood the potential that unhappiness had
to subsume everything else about him.
When the mass media report suicide
stories, they almost always provide a “reason,” which seems to bring logic to
the illogic of self-termination. Such rationalization is particularly common
when it comes to the suicides of celebrities, because the idea that someone
could be miserable despite great worldly success seems so unreasonable. Why
would a person with so much of what the rest of us want choose to end his life?
Since there are always things going awry in every life at every moment, the
explanation industry usually tells us that the person had a disastrous
marriage, or was a hopeless addict, or had just experienced a major career
disaster, or was under the influence of a cult.
But Robin Williams does not
seem to have had any of these problems. Yes, he fought addiction, but he had
been largely sober for quite a while. He was on his third marriage, but it
appeared to be a happy one, and he seems to have been close to his children.
His newest TV series was cancelled a few months ago, but his reputation as one
of the great performers of our time remained untarnished. So he would have had
little “reason” to commit suicide—as, indeed, most people who kill themselves
have little “reason” other than depression (unipolar or bipolar), which is at
the base of most suicide.
Nor is suicide an ultimate
manifestation of “selfishness” or “cowardice,” as the reason-mongers often
argue. Suicide is not a casual behavior; for all that it may entail
impulsivity, it is also a profound and momentous step for which many people
don’t have the force of will. At one level, the suicide of young people is obviously
more tragic than the suicide of older people; youths have more of life ahead of
them, more of a chance to work things out. At another level, middle-aged
suicide—the vanquishing of someone who has fought off the urge for decades—is
especially catastrophic.
It implies the defeated acknowledgment that if things
aren’t better by now, they won’t be getting better. Robin Williams’s suicide
was not the self-indulgent act of someone without enough fortitude to fight
back against his own demons; it was, rather, an act of despair committed by
someone who knew, rightly or wrongly, that such a fight could never be won.
Depression is a risk factor for
heart disease; open-heart surgery is a risk factor for depression. That’s an
unfortunate conundrum, and it will be hard to know what role Williams’s heart
surgery may have played in his escalating anguish. Alcohol is a depressant; it
depresses some negative feelings, which is why people use and abuse it, but it
can also make despair bottom out. It’s not yet known whether Williams had been
drinking immediately before his suicide, but he had done a recent stint at
Hazelden, in Minnesota, where he went in order to “fine-tune” his sobriety. So
if we are playing the game of looking for “reasons,” those are a few that offer
themselves.
The same qualities that drive a
person to brilliance may drive that person to suicide. Highly successful people
tend to be perfectionistic, constantly striving to meet impossible standards.
And celebrities tend to be hungry for love, for the adoration of audiences. No
perfectionist has ever met his own benchmarks, and no one so famished for
admiration has ever received enough of it.
That untrammelled dynamism that
Williams brought to almost every role he played has a questing urgency, as
though it were always in pursuit of some truth yet to be named. In public
appearances, he never showed the callous narcissism of many actors; his work
relied on the interplay between riotous extroversion and nuanced self-study. He
played an alien so well because he was an alien in his own mind, permanently
auditioning to be one of us. Suicide is a crime of loneliness, and adulated
people can be frighteningly alone. Intelligence does not help in these
circumstances; brilliance is almost always profoundly isolating.
Every suicide warrants mourning, but
the death of a figure such as Robin Williams makes larger ripples than most.
The disappearance of his infectious glee makes this planet a poorer place. And
since suicide is contagious,
others have perhaps made copycat attempts already, reasoning that if even Robin
Williams couldn’t make things work, they can’t, either. Waves of such events
have often followed high-profile suicides; in the period after Marilyn Monroe
took her own life, for example, suicide in the United States went up by twelve
per cent.
Williams’s suicide demonstrates that
none of us is immune. If you could be Robin Williams and still want to kill
yourself, then all of us are prone to the same terrifying vulnerability. Most
people imagine that resolving particular problems will make them happy. If only
one had more money, or love, or success, then life would feel manageable. It
can be devastating to realize the falseness of such tempered optimism. A great
hope gets crushed every time someone reminds us that happiness can be neither
assumed nor earned; that we are all prisoners of our own flawed brains; that
the ultimate aloneness in each of us is, finally, inviolable.
Andrew Solomon
8/13/14
Kill Me Now
Methods of Suicide and Homicide
A handbook for writers - How to kill off your characters
Kids, don’t try this at home
Just published!
Kill Me Now
Methods of Suicide
because you can't die until you are published, everybody knows that.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B011A4Z98W
Cheers
HM
Self Destruction has been around since the Dawn of Man
but the fascination with
Forensics and means by which people ‘off’ themselves is
endless. Mankind is forever evolving but
we have yet to eliminate murder or suicide, and it appears to be increasing
exponentially as the population increases.
With the recent celebrity suicide of funnyman Robin
Williams, the issue of psychological depression becomes news again, and is
often treatable, if it was more commonly understood. People suffering from
depression often behave normally but the warning signs are there, and it is
important to reach out and offer help to one another, to prevent such a
desperate act as suicide. Suicide is never an answer.
However, if you are a
storyteller, than you must know what the police and paramedics see every day,
and tell the world how horrible it is for them and the families of victims.
- 1 Bleeding
- 2 Drowning
- 3 Suffocation
- 4 Hypothermia
- 5 Electrocution
- 6 Jumping from height
- 7 Firearms
- 8 Hanging
- 9 Ligature compression
- 10 Vehicular impact
- 11 Poison
- 12 Disease
- 13 Immolation
“In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever expect it. I am anxious to afford some alleviation of your present distress. Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You can not now realize that you will ever feel better. Is not this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say; and you need only to believe it, to feel better at once.” - Abe Lincoln
Read the whole book soon on Amazon
Kill me now
by Hathor MacHugh
coming July 2015
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