ABOUT LIFE

                                                

Fiction writers, and I’m one of them, try to write stories of life that for the most part have happy endings. They hope that when you turn that last page and set the book down, you will think, “It’s not how I thought it would end—no it’s better.” Now that being said I admit that not every story I ever wrote, left you giddy and feeling all fuzzy but believe me that was my intent and if I failed you I’m sorry. Remember though, it was just a story and endings are not always what you perceived. You just have to be flexible and think it through. What would it have done to my story to finish it differently?

In a way that’s how real life is too. We all want happy endings and it’s not always in the cards and its not always conclusive either, unless as a writer that’s the way you choose to end it. There is a thing that comes into play here and its called perception and perception is reality.  But Albert Einstein said, “Reality is merely an illusion” It’s your first impression and your first impression doesn’t always need to be the one that sticks with you. You do have the power to change your perception to some degree, if you want to think it through. Sometimes we initially see and hear only what we want to see and hear and sometimes we look through narrow slits in the walls we build to hold the real world out and never see the big picture.

Fear is one of the things that drives us to be shooting from the hip and not make good decisions. Now I’m not knocking fear. Fear is good and it’s like our early warning system and we need to pay attention, but it’s not always right. Its just saying, “heads up here buddy.” In the end fear shouldn’t be making your decision for you. You see a bear in the woods and fear tells you to run but experts say that is the wrong thing to do. That action will only encourage the bear to pursue you. A while back I wrote about being in a fire filled hallway as a firefighter and fear telling me to turn and run but my training was telling me to stay low and fight the fire. Had I ran that day, I won’t be here writing this.

But back to writing. Every writer is different in their approach to story writing. They have an idea for a story and some may not act on it until they have the whole story in their head. Others like me have an idea and an ending so they start writing and let the story take them to the conclusion. When you write that way—making the story up as you go---you come to a lot of Y’s in the road and its those Y’s that can get you into trouble with the reader, because they come to those same Y’s reading it as you did writing it, but sometimes, given a choice, they may have taken the other road.

That’s the way life is too. Tough decisions just when you thought you had it all worked out. I’m at one of those places right now in my own life. I have lung problems that are not conducive to Minnesota winters. I’m faced with going someplace warmer to be more comfortable. I love Minnesota and have lived here all of my life. Do I, at my age, take on the expense and responsibility of buying a second home? Do I leave Minnesota permanently? Do I rent? I’ll keep you posted.