The World Through Claeten's Eyes

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Confronted with my inability to explain my perspective on the world, I went with my next best option: I turned the question around on my characters. Claeten was by far the most cooperative, though initially he shared my amazement at the broadness and gravity of the question. But since he gave a pretty decent answer, I'll be posting it here.

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Claeten, what is your perspective on the world?

On the world? The whole great big wide world? Gosh, how am I supposed to capture the whole world? I can try! Let's see...
 
I like it here. It's that simple. I like being alive. I like meeting people and getting to know them. I like going on adventures with them, finding new and exciting things around every corner. Every adventure's got it's dangers, but what's life without taking some risks?
 
But... sometimes it all goes wrong. We take risks when we should've stepped back. We fail. We lose. We lose something beautiful, something we can never get back again. A loved one. A treasured possession. Our innocence. But you can't let it get you down. You have to stand back up again, to keep fighting.
 
Why? You want to know why? Because of you! Yeah, you! You're a perfectly amazing person, and you have so much good in you, so much potential. A lot of people forget that. We get so caught up in our failures that we prevent ourselves from ever succeeding again.
 
And that's where you come in. Yeah, you. You think you're all alone? You think you're the only one hurting? Not by a long shot! We all have scars that we hide. But those very scars that we try so hard to hide are what make us truly beautiful.
 
And that, I believe, is our purpose in life -- to kiss each other's scars. To love, to encourage, to build up. To help each other until the day we die.
 
This life, this pain -- it's not permanent! No! The best is still yet to come. But until it gets here, I will give everything I've got to make the journey easier for others.
 
Because the world can be dark, but it doesn't have to be. You and me? We're the light-bearers. And together, we can help others find their way, and make the world a brighter place.

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Now if only it was that easy to write about my own worldview. I suppose there's a bit of Claeten in me, just like there's a bit of me in all my characters. And I agree with Claeten on at least one point -- we are the light-bearers, and I for one will always strive to create stories that reflect that light.

 

 

Burdened With Glorious Perspective



Image from http://blogs.rsc.org/cy/2012/04/

What is your perspective on the world?

I stare at the writing prompt in my devotional book, utterly stumped. The question is so broad, I don't even know where to begin. My mind is a total blank.

I know that I sometimes see the world differently from people I know. I often feel out of place among my peers because my worldviews are not like theirs. But what ARE my worldviews, exactly? And how on earth am I supposed to communicate them to others if I can't even understand them myself?

All too often I cannot find the words to express what I believe or how I think. And I like to call myself a writer!

But maybe I'm doing it backwards. I can't come up with words to say what I'm feeling, so I store my emotions away, hoping that if I just ignore them, they'll eventually go away. (Because that's just the perfect way to handle the situation...)

Recently, I discovered a quote that beautifully addresses what I'm dealing with:

 I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say. -- Flannery O'Connor

Maybe what I should be doing is just writing for the sake of writing. Stop worrying about whether or not it's any good, or even if it makes sense. Stop wondering whether or not people will like it if I ever let them read it. Just write.

So that's the point of this blog: "The random ramblings of an aspiring author." I need a creative outlet, but even more, I need motivation! Hopefully this blog can serve as both.

Maybe no one will ever read it, or those who do read it will think it's the work of an amateur, but that's okay. The greatest writers were amateurs to begin with, but they kept writing and honing their craft, and that's exactly how they became great.

As for me, I am burdened with a glorious perspective that I do not yet fully understand. I'm young and inexperienced and more than a bit raw around the edges. But I have decided that I'm not just going to sit around anymore.

I am going to write.