Reality and Fiction: The Natural Absurdity

An old adage states that "Truth is stranger than fiction." And the old teacher in me says, "That is disgustingly trite. Stop it!"

Yes, the saying is a cliche, but banality aside, there is a validity there we need to talk about, especially as we finish our series on reality in fiction.

Thus far, we've explored the pitfalls of too close an adherence to authenticity—boredom, distraction, and outright abandonment of the material—and the areas of a story that demand Steven Colbert's element of "truthiness"—sound, reactions, and relationships. Today's installment explores the elements that are simply rife with possibilities for stretching credibility (rife in a good way):  imagination, conflicts, and resolution.

First, be aware that stressing over a creative subject is not only destructive to the writing process; it is also totally unnecessary. To see why, look at the back pages of the newspapers/magazines and observe the barrage of bizarre reported there on a daily basis.

In an interview with 60 Minutes, prolific novelist Carl Hiaasen, author of Skinny Dip, Strip Tease, and assorted children's stories (strange man ...), credited the Miami Herald as a major inspiration for his novels. 

For example, Skinny Dip involves a man throwing his wife off the back of a cruise ship only to have her land on a plastic-wrapped bale of marijuana, which saves her life. Far- fetched? If you live in Wyoming or any spot 300 yards inland from the Atlantic, of course, it would seem fanciful, if not totally impossible. Yet Hiaasen claims he read it in the Miami news. His 60 Minutes interviewer later confirmed the story.

One could blame such implausible occurrences  on an overabundance of alligators, pink flamingoes, and octogenarian golfers dressed in shorts and Panama hats. One could blame them on the intellectual influence of DisneyWorld's resident Goofy. Or one could simply write off the behavior as typical to any landmass surrounded on three sides by seawater.

However, ridiculous reality is not limited to the fringe life of Florida.

It's everywhere! 

Google can provide an abundance of examples. Simply search "News of the Weird" and you will find a virtual conflagration of creativity. Except it's not created by the machinations of a warped mind; it's all true. 

One may not want to believe what is found there, and that's all right. Most "normal" people are reticent to enter the realm of the ridiculous; however, it is important to know that readers are often more adventurous than writers. Note the success of Yann Martel's Life of Pi. Few rational human beings would conceive of a shipwreck survivor adrift on the Pacific Ocean sharing a lifeboat with a hungry Bengal tiger. Martel did, however, tapping into his readers' need to believe. The book became one of the most successful of the decade.

It wasn't the first either. If you're not convinced that preposterous succeeds, note Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull, L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and C.S. Lewis's Perelandra.

As contrived as the concepts of these books were, they all found an audience. How did they do it? By stretching reality.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull describes the search for spiritual perfection through the everyday physical and societal struggles, failures and successes of a BIRD! 

Baum turns his Populist political philosophy into a children's story, transforming the turn-of-the-century industrial worker with no heart into the Tin Man, the Robber Barons of the coastal states  into the Bad Witches of the East and West, and perennial Presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan into the Cowardly Lion. (I have more. Ask me sometime.)

Lewis retells the familiar Bible stories of creation and salvation by transporting good/evil earthlings to Venus to prevent/ensure the Fall of Man on that planet. 

In each case, the author blends the familiar with the fantastical, permitting the reader to flee everyday existence to a magical yet authentic world apparently created just for him/her.

In this new world, new conflicts naturally arise from the settings and premise. How does the writer go about making them "real"? By paying attention to detail in the settings, plot, AND characters. With clarity applied to these elements, inventive conflicts arise naturally that in real life would be considered absurd. It is this natural absurdity that hooks and retains the readers' attention.

After guiding the reader through the fictional verities of the plot and climax, the resolution, to be credible, requires the greatest stretch of imagination and the strongest attachment to reality at the same time. The best ending need not be the expected nor the unanticipated, but should result in the reader reacting, "Of course! That's the way it has to be.”

A couple  examples:

Despite the clunky travelogue nature of a great deal of Dan Brown's Inferno, the ending is uniquely successful. After a number of chases, misdirections, and world-threatening chaos, the reader positively needs a solution to the conflict, but never suspects the one that actually occurs. Even though the resolution is not suspected, it is ultimately satisfying which is strange in that neither the protagonists nor the antagonists win. In fact, in the final analysis, the reader isn’t even sure who were the protagonists and who were the antagonists. (I’m purposefully vague here to avoid an ever-annoying spoiler alert.)

A more classic example of the Huh?-Wow! ending comes in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. The climax and resolution occur so fast, they are a one-two punch to the gut, eliciting a shocked gasp and frantic blubbering search through the last chapter trying to discover what the reader missed. Nobody I know has LIKED the ending to this book, but after re-examining the story, everybody reluctantly admits it is the correct one, as well as the perfect expression of the overriding theme of true friendship.

Which brings us to the moral of our three-part odyssey into fictional reality.  I propose the  lessons are threefold: 1) Be real. 2) Stretch your creative muscles, and 3) ... uh ... Eat your vegetables? 

I'm getting forgetful and lazy in my old age. I know that wasn't really one of the lessons. It's what my wife has been telling me all week as we work on our Weight Watchers diet. Sorry.

Yes, dear. I'm listening. I'll be right there.

It all comes back to the Greek ideal of balance. Balance in fiction. Balance in reality. Balance in eating habits. 

Remember, no matter how fanciful a story's premise, the audience also needs to empathize with its characters and their lives. With that in mind, a writer must be careful. The readers'  desire for authenticity does not override the craving for a good story and the hunger for diversion.

That is t0 say, keep it real ... but not too real. Naturally  That would be absurd.

Where Reality Goes Wrong

Funny thing about reading. Many people use it to escape their mundane existence, yet they also demand that the writer take them away from reality by using ... reality.

Huh?

We have already seen where reality works best in fiction. In Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain brought life and energy to what could normally be called a tall tale by conveying authentic sounds, reactions, and relationships to engage the reader.

While Twain was a master storyteller, the problem for modern writers to avoid is becoming so entranced with reality that we forget to pay attention to its overuse, particularly in the detail, dialogue, and pacing of the story.

Detail

A single early literature survey class will quickly illustrate how classic authors REALLY paid attention to detail. No matter who/what a character was, the reader had no trouble picturing what that person looked like, smelled like, or sounded like.

If a matriarchal crone had a wart on her chin, the author provided a topographical map of its surface, the precise location, and its ability to frighten small children, dogs, and the illegitimate offspring of a red-eyed tree frog. (I have no idea where that image came from. Sorry.)

Pub scenes choked the reader with odors of sweaty coal miners, stale beer, and the patrons' horses just outside the door. 

Opera scenes not only related the songs and the girth of the singers, the readers experienced the basso's rumblings in their chests. The prima donna's excursions into the musical stratosphere shook the chandeliers until the readers heard their trembling and ringing.

No doubt the description thrilled the audiences of that time. Today, not so much. More often than not, the issue today is that modern readers regard such attention to precision as TMI (too much information). Accustomed to the cinematic pace of movies and television, today's audience simply desires to know only what is necessary to the story. Anything else is dross.

One can argue that this attention deficit disorder is unfortunate. Impatience and preference for the visceral can be detrimental to the reader's final appreciation of the work as a whole. For example, my first reaction to the first 70 pages of James Michener's Hawaii was "I don't care how the stinking islands were formed. I don't care if a bird pooped a flower seed onto the volcanic rock. Tell me a story!" Had I given up, however, I would have missed a fantastic tale of love, violence, intrigue, and history.

That said, it's important to remember Michener was Michener. Those attempting to break into the writing business don't have the reputation and history he had in order to force their readers through the thoroughness the writers want to provide.

Consequently, we need to address this shortcoming of our audiences. One does not accomplish this by talking down or cheapening the final product. Rather, it means recognizing the issue and finding techniques to alleviate its effects. Two important techniques involve the use of dialogue and control of pace.

Dialogue

One of the simplest yet most dangerous ways to engage the reader is the use of dialogue. Earlier entries on this blog have shown how extended, overly realistic dialogue can glaze the reader's eyeballs and turn him/her into a quivering, gelatinous mass of protoplasm. 

That does not mean writers should refrain from utilizing dialogue, however. On the contrary, in addition to its dangers, dialogue has numerous advantages as well.

First is the wonder of white space. Some call this a cheap psychological trick, but it really works, especially if you have just inundated your reader with thirteen pages of dense, gray description. The fact that grammar rules demand that you hit return (enter) after every time somebody speaks provides welcome relief from all the type. Even if you use the same amount of words, the pages look less daunting, the text flies faster, and the reader feels as if he/she is accomplishing something.

Secondly, in what may be an even more blatant psychological manipulation, dialogue allows the reader to imagine himself/herself eavesdropping on a conversation. Whether we like to admit it or not, we all have a bit of the voyeur in us. We like to know what is going on in other people's lives. Hence, the success of the tabloid press.

This is not anything new. Writers have been using dramatic irony since the inception of the written word. Why? Because through its use, the readers know something that the characters don't. They know what everybody is saying, doing, thinking, wishing ... And they know why. Hence, they feel smarter, privileged, sneakier. Heck, they feel superior, almost god-like in their omniscience.

They are happy! And happy readers buy more books. And when readers buy more books, writers are happy. Cheerfulness reigns. What a wonderful thing!

Thirdly, dialogue simplifies the writer's task of storytelling. What a character speaks allows the reader to ascertain what that character feels without the author using excessive adverbial attributions. (he said perturbedly ... she answered with all the excitement of a tranquilized sloth ... and so on.) This use of the imagination allows the reader to interact with the words, not simply decipher them. This interaction leads to the transportation to the core of the writer's world. It is here that the writer and the reader bond.

Pace

Both constant rushing and relentless slogging can turn a story into mush. Mush like oatmeal may be good for breakfast, but mushy stories are bad and sure to turn off the reader. The key to pacing your story appropriately is simple. Variety.


One of America's greatest writers, Ray Bradbury, gave us a superb example of how to properly pace a short story in "August 26: 'There Will Come Soft Rains'."

Several things make this story unique, not just Bradbury's control of speed. First, there are no characters. All living organisms except one unfortunate dog are dead. Second, because there are no characters, there is no conversation.

As constraining as the premise is, the major fictional elements are clear. The exposition tells the reader what has happened and establishes the conflict. Complications intensify it and dramatically lead to the climax. The stunning resolution answers all the major questions and leaves the reader chewing on the story's theme/moral.

To accomplish this feat, Bradbury gives a clinic on managing rate.

The exposition, while detailed and explicit, consists of short paragraphs of no more than four sentences (Usually, two or three.) From the opening words, there is a quiet, passiveness to the setting, one remaining house amidst the radioactive rubble of a city destroyed by a nuclear explosion. The quiet pace belies the tragedy that has already occurred. It also invites the reader to enter the narration to find out what could possibly happen next in a world of blankness.

As the story and its tension escalate, mental pictures intensify, growing ever more graphic, ever more excruciating. To both attract and torment the reader, Bradbury turns up the pace. 

The conflict not only moves; it bolts, racing faster and ever faster uphill toward the climax. Sentences snap into fragments. Fragments shatter into lists of nouns, verbs, and flashing images. Periods become commas. The reader cannot help stumbling forward through the chaos and confusion to toward the shattering conclusion.

At the climax, the story flies off into nothing and crashes into silence. It is the thunderous race into the quiet of oblivion that gives the story its impact and ultimate significance.

Had Bradbury fallen into the trap of replicating desolation and meaningless destruction in fine detail, the story would have failed miserably. Instead, he managed reality to write one of the most effective pieces of fiction of the 20th century.

And that's what we aspire to, isn't it? To write effective, even monumental fiction?

That then is the point of today's installment: To write our best, we must use reality, yes, but manage it to most effectively communicate our theme, our purpose. In other words, keep real right. Reject wrong.

Reality: A Huck of a Mess

Old grudges die hard.

Last week's tirade against Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises proves the adage. Portraying reality is tricky business and sure to incite strong responses. Such perilous territory should not dissuade the journey, however. Reality in fiction definitely has its place.

In fact, it has at least three places: the sounds of the story, the characters' reactions, and the relationships in your story.

Sounds

Earlier in this blog's history, we examined the use of realistic dialect and how it influenced the impact of Huckleberry Finn. I said that dialect can enhance the dialogue's authenticity, which is a good thing. 

While a conversation's authenticity is important, realize that the sound of the dialogue is what makes it genuine and unique, not the use of exact words. It was not simply the words that Huck heard as a covert listener that generated excitement and fear during his adventures with the runaway slave Jim. The totality of sounds—tone, emotion, accent, and volume—practically put us on the raft with Huck and Jim. We not only hear what he hears; we feel what he feels. The verisimilitude Twain created with sound proves far more effective than had he simply recounted the words.

It is the portrayal of conversation at which writers today fail the most often. Somebody somewhere told them that to make conversations accurate all they need do is relate the conversations you hear in real life.

Those somebodies somewhere are human ferrets—weaselly little animals who like to play with your mind and actions. 

The problem with "relating conversations you hear in real life" is the vast majority of modern-day conversations are pointless and boring, filled with incomprehensible slang, jargon, and throwaway words of which even they don't know the meanings. 

For example, ask a teenager who comes home after curfew where he's been, he will usually answer, "I was just hanging out with friends." Maybe I'm an over-concerned parent, but I really don't want to think of my child "hanging out" in public, especially with the indecent exposure laws being what they are. It would be far better to say, "I was with Bob and Oscar planning the philosophical takeover of Rwanda." It would at least make you sound intelligent.

The important thing about the characters in your fiction is to use them to tell a story. Stories have conflict, action, and resolution. It is difficult to depict this with the aimless discourse one hears at the local McDonald's, on ESPN interviews, or during the audience-less speeches on CSPAN. It is far better to replace all the cliches, slang, and throwaway words with intelligible sentences that can advance your plot. For example, instead of saying, "She was, like, all up in my face and goes, 'Outta my way, #@*%!' So I laid the smack-down on her åßß!", perhaps it would be better to say something like, "She was highly perturbed with me and attempted to push her way past me, at which point I became violent and paddled her buttocks with a badminton racket." 

All right, that would be a mistake. Although the correction uses "nicer" language, it lacks the important qualities that the former has: its passion, its enthusiasm, its reality. The key is to maintain those elements without allowing the words to cover them up. The way around that is to keep the conversations short and pointed rather than letting the likes and the she goeses induce the reader to bang his book against writer's forehead.

Remember, you don't create passion, enthusiasm, and reality just by using the common words used in dialogue. You need to capture the energy and the fervor of the characters as well if you want to capture the reality of the scene. In other words, capture the sound of reality. It is that sound which will reach your audience and advance your plot.

Reactions

A second area where reality is essential is in creating characters. The important aspect about building authentic characters is not deciding whether they are people you like, people you dislike, or even if they are people at all. The most essential trait to develop is how they react to any given situation. That is what they do with the complications you throw in their way to intensify the conflict. It is their reactions that make them memorable.

What readers like about Huck Finn is not simply his cunning, his bravery, or ability to talk himself out of virtually every situation. It is his uncomplicated and unflinching humanity he relies on in complicated situations.

As resourceful as he is, Huck is a vulnerable, compassionate character. He thinks. He feels. As a result, so does the reader. Through Huck's reactions, we share his confusion over the ethical dilemma of aiding a runaway slave escape. Through Huck's reactions, we empathize with his frustration with authority when a judge orders him to stay with his abusive father. Through Huck's reactions and despite our own spiritual beliefs, we cheer when he consciously risks hell-fire and damnation rather than hurt his friend Jim.

While Huck's actions may be far-fetched and illogical, his reactions to people, situations, and values are real and engaging.

Relationships

One could go off into an analysis of Huck's relationships, but you will appreciate the novel more if you discover them for yourself. I urge you to read or reread and marvel in Twian's depiction of real and engaging relationships, but let's use a more modern example to prove the importance of reality in relationships. Something newer than the 19th Century. (English teachers DO read newer material. I promise.)

Like the 21st Century.

Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys takes fantasy, mangles the reader's concept of life and death, and thoroughly convinces him/her that even in the spirit world, people are people. How? By making the relationship between spirit-human siblings genuine. Even though everything else in the novel is beyond our experience, the relationship between the two brothers is common to our everyday life.

Two brothers, sons of the trickstaer-god Anansi, live with one foot in the human world and other in the world of spiritual legend. While the conflict between the two is at once fantastical and hilarious, the reader latches onto their familial bond, cheering for both even though they are clearly protagonist and antagonist. These are brothers with an authentic love-hate relationship with which anybody with siblings can immediately empathize. 

The conflict may be unreal, but the relationship is authentic. It draws the characters closer.  The conflict becomes secondary and the reader is glad.

In summary, reality has its place in every story, particularly in the sounds, the reactions, and the relationships. When used well, reality can illuminate and inspire. When overused or misdirected, it can frustrate and anger.

Choose to put reality in its proper places, and everybody will be happier.

Happy is good. Happy destroys grudges ... like the one against the overuse of reality in ...

We'l save that for next time. Stay tuned.

Effective Fiction: Twisted Reality of The Sun Also Rises

I like to read. Reading is fun. Reading is relaxing. Reading is my life.

Okay, part of my life, but a large part. Good thing, too, because I also like to write. The two go together cheek by jowl. (Do you like the Shakespeare allusion? I'm kind of proud of it. It took me years to fit it into conversation.) In fact, reading and writing are so interrelated that everything I've ever read finds itself, in some measure, influencing whatever I write, whether by way of inspiration, direction, or methodology.

The good and the bad, the genius and the mundane, the enlightening and the exasperating all give me something to emulate or avoid.

Interestingly, the trait that weaves its way memorably into all literature is the use of realism. Not Realism, the literary movement of the 19th and 20th century, but realism, the faithful recreation of actual life experiences, situations, conversations, and characters.

"The faithful recreation of actual life experiences, situations, conversations, and characters"....Sounds laudable. Every piece of fiction should attempt to be real. Right?

One would think. But too much reality, especially poorly done or pointless reality, can annoy a reader to the point of using a Kindle to actually start a fire, a fire that annihilates every paper and ink factory, every book binder, and every forest that provides the raw material used for printing books.

Few people can imagine that level of frustration, but it exists. At least it did when I took American Literature III in college.

The American literature survey course at my school had three levels. Each had its positives and negatives. It was school. Nothing is perfect.

For example, American Lit I, the first class in the survey, had itsdown side. You can only read so many overwrought ramblings of Hawthorne and Poe; so many political tracts and documents of Jefferson, Paine, and Hamilton; and so many infernal images of Jonathan Edwards' sermons before you want to help God cut the spider web holding you over the Lake of Fire. But we knew once we were finished with that step, it would be over and we could move on to more modern writing. Like the intrepid students that we were, we got over it and moved on.

Thank goodness for American Lit II. Realism! Realism as it should be. Mark Twain made us laugh. Stephen Crane revealed the horrors of the overly-romanticized Civil War. Walt Whitman energized and unveiled true poetry.

Those realistic writers of the 1800s created worlds in which we could never live, but worlds we knew actually existed. We knew because of their words. Through words, we heard Twain's paddle wheelers working their way up and down the Mississippi. Through words, we smelled the gunpowder explode and felt the sticky on our cheeks as we trudged across Cranes's battlefield. When Whitman wrote "O Captain, My Captain," we felt the sorrow over Lincoln's assassination rise in our throats and choking the breath from us.

"This is literature the way it should be," we thought. "It captures the senses. It inspires our thoughts and reinforces our values. It is real! Yea, Realism!"

Then came American Lit III. The 20th century and the Lost Generation.

I wanted to bite the head off a gopher.

Oh, it was a good class for a few weeks. Then came the most frustrating book I had ever read. It is still in my bottom five of all time. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway.

I know, Papa fans. Saying that any item in the Hemingway canon might be bad is blasphemy punishable by flaming bamboo shoots stuck up your nostrils, but I have my reasons for believing that book is terrible. Here's the story:

Springtime came early that year. It was April and the snow was only six feet deep.

The class syllabus said it was now time for Hemingway. I had read The Old Man and the Sea in high school, and unlike my classmates, I thought it was brilliant. I loved the story, the symbolism, the language, the warm weather, the conflict of man and nature, everything. So when the prof smiled and assigned The Sun Also Rises, I was not daunted. I was excited. "Lemme at it," I snarled. "Hemingway. HEMINGWAY! This is going to be so good."

Then I began reading.

The story was so...meh. After a few hours of reading Jake Barnes's ramblings, I began to wonder, "Is anything ever going to happen in this book?" Concerned that I might be missing something, I asked the prof. She told me just to hang on until the end, so I did, confident––well, half-confident––that even though there were only ten pages left, this "classic" surely had a gigantic climax that would leave me gasping for air and mouthing an awestruck, "Oh, my ... Wow!"

(Spoiler alert)

No such luck.

NOTHING HAPPENED!!

Not in the last ten pages. Not in the preceding 240 pages. NEVER! In 250 total flapping ink-infested leaves of paper, not a single event of note occurred.

I was miffed. Miffed? No, strike that. I was livid. Did I say livid? Heck, I was thoroughly urinated! Unable to wait for class in two days, I jammed the book into my backpack and climbed the six flights of stairs to her office two steps at a time. I barged through the door and plopped angrily into the chair in front of her desk.

Words would not form. Instead, I just kind of growled. Spittle drooled down my chin. My teeth itched. I was still mad, so mad I wanted to chew off a leg. Mine. Hers. I didn't care.

"Is there a problem?" she asked, annoyingly polite and unruffled.

I huffed. I lowered my head and peered over my glasses.  I wiped the spit from my jaw with my forearm. "You told me something would happen," I grunted.

"I told you to hang on and finish the book. Did you?"

I nodded, keeping my eyes fixed on the space between her eyebrows. If I could hit that spot just right with a hurled piece of chalk...

"And ...?"

I took a deep breath, sat back in the chair. and collected my thoughts. Finally certain I wouldn't scram and attract campus security, I began, "I have to ask a question, if you don't mind."

She leaned forward, her arms on the desk. "I'm here to answer questions. What would you like to know?"

I gulped, pursed my lips, and closed my eyes. "Okay,"I said. "What was the point of that?"

Maybe it was the sound of my book slamming onto her desk. Maybe it was because I accidentally knocked over the stack of books next to the door. Maybe it was because, despite my best efforts, I did scream a little when I uttered the word that. Whatever it was, it resulted in a pounding on the door and an urgent clamor of "Are you all right, Professor?" "What the hell's going on in there?" and "Leave her alone alone! I've got a gun!"

The professor rose, patted my shoulder to calm me down, and answered the door. She stepped outside and assured everybody she was fine. (But I swear I heard her say, "It's just a student who finished The Sun Also Rises. It will be fine.")

In retrospect, I have to admire the instructor's patience and inner peace when she came back into the office. She calmly poured herself a cup of coffee, returned to her chair, and cooly explained. "You have to understand Hemingway's purpose here. This was more than people traveling through Europe, going to bullfights, and wanting to have sex they can never have."

"What was it then?"

"It was a great author showing the aimlessness of an entire generation."

"In other words,  the theme is 'Life is boring'?"

"Yes."

I shook my head.

"Is there a problem?" she asked.

"Let me get this straight," I said. "You wanted us to read this book to show us life is boring?"

"Yes. Well, not me. Hemingway. He does it pretty convincingly, don't you think?"

I inhaled deeply and sighed. "Ma'am," I explained, "I live in a town of 124 inhabitants, including dogs, cats, and my neighbor's pet skunk. We have no school, no library, no entertainment. My parents have one car they use to go to work. I have no money, so I ride a bicycle sixteen miles one way to get to school. I KNOW BOREDOM! I don't need to be reminded."

"But the book is so real," she countered.

I stood, went to the door, and opened it. I paused and thought. "You know what?" I said. "I hate real."

I've grown up since then. I've learned to read critically and to read widely. I've learned to accept the bad literature with the good. Consequently, I know a certain amount of realistic portrayal is a good thing.

I've learned another lesson about literature, however. The whole reality thing—while positive in the right amount—is easily overdone. Overdoing anything is a practice to avoid.

So that's what I want to talk about next.

For the next few postings, then, I'm going to explore the role of reality in creating good fiction: Where reality goes wrong, what MUST be real in a story, and what areas of your story can use a bit of invention and stretching.

I know there are more areas to explore, and I'm certainly willing to delve into them or let you have your say.  If you have more ideas, please leave a comment or send me an email.

Dealing with Change: Joyfully Hugging the Cactus

"Change is chaos!"
"Change is life."
"Change is a #@$&*!"
Change is a blessing!"

The cliches abound. And the important thing about cliches is, despite their irritating overuse and simplistic view, they are—at least in part—true.

Don't you hate that about them?

The truth of the change cliches above came home this past week as my wife and I underwent a forced transition from carefree, secure, vacationing tourists gallivanting about the Texas hill country into fraught, frantic, and furloughed wanderers whose lives had been upended by the turbulence of a government shutdown. 

Okay, I was fraught and frantic. O wondrous wife of mine, the one actually furloughed, faced our return rather calmly. While I ranted, raved, and turned several shades of purple sputtering mangled and senseless expletives at the politicians on television who made excuses for the shutdown, she calmly pulled out the laptop and began revising her resume and checking out job openings elsewhere outside the federal government.

She's learned much more from the changes in her life than I have from mine, particularly how to deal with adversity.

In the eleven years we've known each other, she's taught me to recognize that despite all the upheaval we've endured separately and together, we will get through this and all will work out for the good.

I don't want to admit that, but it's true. 

Truth can be so annoying, especially when you want to wallow in misery. "C'mon, God! I just wanna wallow!" 

Numerous times our lives have changed, both purposely and passively, both beneficially and adversely. All of them contributed to making us who we are today. To illustrate, let's look at four areas of change (career, health, relationship, family life) and the payoff they brought:

Career: When you're 18, you think you know what you want to do with your life. However, when you start post-secondary school, you begin to wonder. Then when you actually go to work ... Yikes!

On my first day on a job, when everything started falling over my head like a downpour of sticky, runny oatmeal, I just wanted to smash my mushy forehead with an open palm and scream, "What was I thinking?" So I changed track a few dozen times, each time cleaning off the same mushy oatmeal and starting over, until I found the job that allowed me to truthfully say, "I GET to go to work today." The truth is I would never have found that job had I not accepted changes brought on by the strange meteorological phenomenon of oatmeal precipitation.

Relationship: Adolescence is marked with relationship changes that are confounding and sometimes stupefying. Then comes adulthood and the really messed-up stuff happens ... at least it's messed up until you learn from the changes you've encountered before. Before meeting each other, my wife and I had both been married and divorced. We both endured subsequent failed relationships. But when we finally gave up trying so hard to "find the right person," when we finally stopped looking "for our type," the right type showed up.

Health: Life is a dangerous occupation. It seems as if nobody gets out of it alive. When faced with life-threatening experiences, in our cases a traffic accident and a stroke, one could give up or he/she could accept the challenges, face the hazards, and move on. We both chose the latter. Doing so, we realized the blessing of existence.

Family life: Family members come and go. Children are born, mature, and go off to live their own lives. Parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, grow old and pass on. There is joy and there is pain. Amidst it all is family. And family is a blessing

The pay-off: Through the trials and tribulations of using cliches like "trials and tribulations" to describe how change affects your life, it's all right to maintain a safe and comfortable contentment. Nothing exuberant or nutzoid. Simply content. 

But to be perfectly honest, contentment is boring and pointless. The aim of life is not simply to exist, but to excel; not to seek contentment, but to seek joy. And when you accept and even embrace change, you can find it. 

There are dangers, I can assure you. Hugging a cactus or a porcupine hurts, but sometimes the result can be tremendous.

Don't ask me what. When I first wrote this, I lived in urban Minnesota where there were few porcupines and even fewer cacti. It's hard to imagine hugging either. But I do know that accepting change has  graced my life with family, friends, and a satisfaction I could never have found without it.

So in the face of the shutdown furlough, my wife and I move on to whatever change can bring us. 

I will continue to write, looking for ways to improve my art by changing genre, style, format, wording ... whatever will make it better. 

My wife will look for what work options are available, and in the meantime she'll wait patiently and blog about a variety of things at her site Managing Forward (http://managingforward.blogspot.com).

In Washington, the powers that be (at least temporarily) can fuss and fume, fluster and flail wildly about, accomplishing little or nothing. The Storyteller family will carry on, knowing this too will change and somehow we'll be the better for it.

We will hug the cactus of change and we will be joyful.