Freeday 2 June 2000

Pic of the day: "Everything you can do, I can do better." Screenshot from the computer game The Sims.

Gwalawala

We got today off from work, for reasons that are barely known to me. Anyway, it was welcome. Not just less pressure on my foot. Also sleep! Sleeping in, till 10 in the morning. Moderately indecent dreams about young women, known and unknown, who all had one trait in common: They were highly intelligent and competent. Perhaps this ties in with something I have been thinking about for a while...

I've thought about christian ethics again. As a christian, albeit a heretic even among heretics, I sort of have to think about that. And I have an idea. I think a central point in christian ethics is to see other people as real people, not as objects. Is this what is meant with the thing about loving one's neighbor like oneself? Perhaps. But it goes against the grain of our nature, which is honed to sort the world around us according to usefulness. If we did not extend this to humans, we might not even survive, much less breed. The competition is simply too intense.

So lately I've thought about this when I've seen a luscious woman (and boy is the town full of them!) - I've thought: 'Do you regard this person as an individual as real and important as yourself, or as an object? How do you relate?' So in my dream, I saw these young women first as attractive females, and then it turned out that they were doing something impressive - they were competent in things that I were not. They were as good as I, just at different things.

When I know and love someone, then it is easy to see that they are important in their own right. It is easy to share fairly with them, and to think of their needs as well as my own. But have this attitude to anyone you meet? To start with the attitude that they are important, valuable, in their own right? Well, go ahead and try it if you dare. It's pretty extreme, huh?

***

Oh yes. Gwalawala. I'm coming to it. After a peaceful breakfast and stuff, I played The Sims a little, and got two personal e-mails, which I LOVE! I LOVE MAIL! Well, you get the message. And then I continued to write on my latest attempt at a novel.

I feel more than usual clumsy this time. But the notes I made before starting already come in handy. So far I have written 3 really short chapters. I feel that the mundane part of the story is too clumsy. I'd like to jump right into the magic and the strange beasts and all the fantasy stuff, and not need to approach it slowly and gradually. But that's the law. "All fantasy novels must start with the mundane." Sad but true. Sometimes I'm ready to just put aside a novel I read because it is so mundane, but they all pick up speed eventually. Or perhaps pick up acid. Anyway...

I have searched on AltaVista for Gwalawala and "Gwala wala", none of which were present. (Though there were several instances of Wala, in various languages.) So, Gwalawala is now the official name of the novel. Don't laugh. OK, laugh if you must. Though I doubt many of you are old enough to remember the song that made that phrase a common expression at least in the family where I grew up. For some reason, it made me imagine a creature like those later found fossilized in Burgess Shale, more or less.

Anyway, Gwalawala means "our world" in Gwalawelsh, as if you need to know. Or at least in Golock. The serpents certainly have their own name for it, not that their names matter much anymore, I guess.

So I wondered if I should put it up on my web site. There is, after all, unlimited space on the crosswinds.net server, so it would not cost me anything, just a little time. It's just that I feel slightly ashamed. I always do that about fantasy. Writing facts makes me proud, but fiction makes me ashamed. Perhaps with good reason. :) Then again, when has that ever stopped me from posting anything here? It's not like I've been painting myself in gold and silver here, have I?

So I have been thinking this over back and forth, and that's what I still do.

***

In equally local news, I found that some sheephead program had packed dozens if not hundreds of useless files on my hard disk under the folder name "timesink". Time sink indeed! I sunk them all and suddenly got more space on my harddisk. No bad side effects so far.

***

I'm still playing around with colors. I have occasionally wondered if I should color code my entries. But how? According to recommended age group? Levity / gravity? Personal / general? Present / past? I am at a loss! But hey, being able to write at all isn't so bad.