Often I've felt like the world is just far too complicated a place. Too many times I've wanted to simplify it, to make it just that much easier to understand and to grasp. I think for me, this is what life is about: a search for understanding. It basically sums up my entire life so far. All too often, I do things because they're rote, or required of me. Understanding these things is such an important piece of my life that without it, I just feel like I've been cast adrift, set loose on a sea from which there can be no returning.
I guess that basically sums up who I am, doesn't it? It's a strange thought, knowing that one word can encompass your entire life. And yet, for the last two years, I've known that my entire goal in life has been that search, that quest to know and to comprehend just what life is.
Perhaps this is why I grasp at science fiction, fantasy, philosophy. Perhaps this is why these things do so much for me: they present different perspectives into different worlds, yet worlds that are somehow the same. Yes, there are different rules to play by, altered ways of doing or seeing things, but in the end, it all comes down to that understanding of life and of human nature. The methods are changed but the concepts are the same.
And I guess, for me, this is the whole appeal. Perhaps too, this is why I feel like I'm not capable of finishing the story I've begun: because that perspective on life is denied me thus far. If, for me, life is about understanding, and I don't understand, how then can I begin to write about life?
It's a curious thought, but one that is so powerful, one that is so far-reaching and has implications for everything that I do and everything that I am. It gets me in trouble, because I can't just accept certain things. It gets me out of trouble, because I know why, not just what. It changes everything, shades everything with grey, alters how I see what I see. It is, in the end, the ultimate perspective-changing vision.
Understanding, then, is my gift, my curse, and my salvation.
-David
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