There is an immense tapestry of lives and times unknown to us, unrecorded by any history – quiet lives, tumultuous times, souls that were deeply important for their times and places, but that we have lost or simply ignored.
What of the people who lived two thousand years ago in ancient China, or the Moors of medieval Spain? Who remembers the Mound Builders of the plains in what would become the central United States? Seafarers of the Mediterranean at the time of Christ? Plenty is written about the Egypt of the Pharaohs, but where are the tales of ancient Minos? Who sings the songs of pre-Christian Ireland?
Even closer to home, but of a different strain altogether, are the tales of worlds that might have been, or almost were, but never happened. We call it fantasy, but is it really just a brush of sound, a swirl of color from another dimension? It would be a very different world, indeed, if Martin Luther had never lashed out at injustice; if Hitler had died in World War I; or if Einstein had decided to stick with music instead of physics.
Or, going one step further out, what of the tales of worlds we can never touch – fabulous yarns featuring elves and goblins, dragons and warlocks and fairy princesses? High fantasy or low, dark or light, these stories never really go away. Tales of bright magic and eldritch horror march on the edge of our dreams. What are they trying to tell us?
And then, of course, there are the tales of a future which may or may not be. Wishful thinking, in the minds of many; but without that wishful thinking we would not have many of the toys and wonders of technology we now enjoy. ‘Science Fiction’ has been a beacon of hope and a vision of possibilities for centuries, now. It’s more than just a pipe dream. It is prophecy.
I am a wanderer, forever traveling down those avenues of thought that others dismiss as “wasting time”. Time for what? The amassing of fortunes; the pursuit of fame? Ridiculous. Now that, I would consider ‘time wasted’. I’ve never wanted any of that; never saw any use in it. More and more, the unwritten stories in my head press in on me, demanding to be written. But up to this point, I have been lazy – no, I have been afraid. I have been afraid that no one else would want these stories; I have been afraid of the ridicule that has haunted me from my earliest days. But as I grow older, and I see that there are fewer days ahead of me than behind, I realize that I must act. I must walk into the shadowy realm and rescue the fair maid – with nothing but a pen – alone. I am left with Frodo’s dilemma: I fear to go forward, but I cannot go back. The only way out is through. I may die in the attempt, but whatever I do, I have to stop wasting time. And for me, wasting time is not in the dreaming of my dreams, but the failure to write them down.
When I was fourteen years old, my mind suddenly ‘woke up’. I began to see things others could not, I understood things no one had taught me. I was given a vision of the nature of existence, and it haunts me still. I saw all of the multiverse spread out before me like an immense tapestry or layers of tapestries, the threads and designs in the fabric were real and unreal things, some physical, some ethereal, from entire galaxies to a single wave in the ocean, animals, plants, wind. The design on the tapestry seemed chaotic until you looked closely at it, then it revealed its immense and intimate, constantly recursive and reinvented patterns moving in and out of each other. And then I noticed that there were smaller patterns worked into the overall design – sometimes in a single color, sometimes many colors, some repeating, some standing alone. I realized that these were the additions to the pattern left by people, whether as art or science, architecture or literature. I saw that everyone is given a ball of thread and a needle and told to make the tapestry beautiful as only they can. Some do. Most – sadly – don’t.
Many people want to know what makes artists do what they do – what makes them tick. I can’t speak for anyone but myself. My own thread is fairly straightforward. I have stories to tell: some dark, some funny, some just flat-out confusing. All of them present the audience with the images of people – humans, mostly, with all their blemishes and glories, their animal hungers and altruistic motives. But whether I’m writing or drawing, creating fantasies or science fiction, a common theme runs through every narrative – hope. Many people say that it’s too late – we’ve done too much damage to ourselves and our planet, and only inevitable collapse awaits us – there is no hope. I disagree completely. The first rule of prophecy is that prophets of doom are always wrong. I may seem like a grump to most people, or at the very least a pessimist. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m an optimist and a dreamer, but I create fantasy realms – I don’t live in them. I hope that what people get from my art, from my stories, is that there are rough times ahead, but we can pull through. Humans are endlessly inventive, and we can solve our problems. Just don’t give up. Pick up your ball of thread and stitch your design into the tapestry. Remember, where there’s life, there’s hope.
Be good to each other.
pax et ama
TGC