"Chapter 1: Fiction is about Truth"
Today I was talking with a coworker who shall remain nameless (Casey). It's hard to track the thread of a conversation, let alone any of the ones I'm involved with. It started with an earlier topic about what makes a hero: skills, character, or a combination of both? Friction revealed that a hero must possess both skills and character...a third component of destiny was also added as a skilled good man can still be hit by a stray arrow leaving a "lesser" character to carry on with the heroing.
It was from this last thought that a new question arose. What does it mean to be the best at anything? Is there even a best? One view said that there was always a best. Another view said that there was no best, only best in a certain time and place set to a specific task. If that hero was hit by an arrow than for the task of victory, the "lesser" character is in fact the best. It's similar to the illusion of risk. Not to draw this out, but it begs the question doesn't best rely most heavily then on destiny? After all, the "best" man gets killed then what does it matter that he was best?
Anyone who has known me long, knows that I have a philosophy that says "All things are like all other things." By that I mean that patterns repeat. The physical mirrors the spiritual, and the each mirrors themselves. Combine this with how desire always leads to God, and you come to a stark realization. What makes a good story, mirrors God's story. Why do we long for one guy to come and save us? Because God's plan of redemption is about one man coming down to save us. Why do we want our heroes to struggle? Because our lives are struggle in the spiritual.
Why do we love stories at all? Because a story means there is meaning! There is something worth remembering and retelling! We are each created in the image of a God, can God do anything that has no meaning? Likewise, we crave for our own actions to have meaning! To be remembered!
"Chapter 2: Destiny or Triumph?"
This was the essence of the real question behind the questions. The question is not about whether a hero in a story is one by destiny or personal triumph, the question is: is my place in God's story merely one of destiny or merely personal triumph?
Each has it's consequence. If it is destiny then anyone could "do my job" and my personal choices seem of no meaning. If is of triumph, then what of the man cut down in his prime who never had a chance to hero despite his best efforts? The short answer is that destiny cannot be denied. No matter how much we would like to think it personal triumph the fact is our triumphing only can last as long as God permits it. Your triumph is limited by the pleasure of God. Try to deny it and then follow that by saying "Even God can't stop me."
That leaves us with destiny and the despair that our actions are without meaning. After all, can God's purposes be thwarted? But still we are in the image of God, if our Father's actions have meaning then so must his sons and daughters. What meaning can there be in person who does only what they are meant to do?
Suppose the question is wrong. I have come to believe in paradoxes. They are the best descriptions we have for things we cannot describe, but are still true. We assume that the purpose of choice is outcome...what if choice is its own end? Suppose a bear attacks a child, his mother sees and goes to intervene. Does she have a reasonable hope of changing the outcome? She might "scare" the bear off. More likely she'll get torn limb from limb, but even if the bear changes course it wasn't because of her choice it was because of the bear's choice. Was her choice then meaningless?
Tomorrow, Chapter 3...
