Yesterday, I finished reading such a book. Truth to tell, yesterday I just finished reading a whole series of books that I've been slowly plodding my way through over the last eight years. Eight years, I kid you not. The series in question is a bucolically epic FOURTEEN books long, each one averaging around 800 pages. The author, Robert Jordan, began writing it in 1991 and the last instalment was published in January this year. Those who are au fait with the particular genre of high fantasy that Jordan is best known for will probably already know the series to which I allude - The Wheel Of Time.
That feeling, I loves it. The characters, the story, the nail biting moments of suspense, the romances, the jealousies, the acts of self-sacrifice and courage, you just get sucked into it all. Ostensibly all you are doing is staring at black marks on pieces of paper, but the truth is SOOOOOO much more than that. You are there. You are feeling what the characters feel. You get to know these people, you go on a journey with them, you suffer when they suffer and you elate when they elate. I'm not ashamed to say that I did let out the odd (manly) whoop of triumph when things were going well, and....perhaps a few tears (manly tears, MANLY TEARS) at certain points? By the end - and it was SUCH an end - I indeed found myself staring at nothing as that whirlwind did its work on my emotions.It's a wonder how stories can have this effect. Stories are able to bypass that logical part of our brains that wants to anchor everything in 'the real world' (whatever that is) and engage us on a completely different - a deeper - level. This level of our psyches has a different understanding of truth than the logical level. Truth in this dimension of reality isn't about what we can prove or what we 'know', it is...how to conceptualise it?...perhaps 'unrealised' is the best word I can come up with. In 'the real world', the idea of good triumphing over evil is kind of absurd, the notion of courage, love and self sacrifice being all-conquering virtues which nothing can oppose is, well, just silly. Putting all of one's trust in hope...that most fickle of values...is a recipe for disaster. BUT, when we use our imaginations to engage with a story, all that is forgotten about. Hope becomes the primary value, courage the highest ideal, love expressed through self sacrifice the most powerful force. Yes those things may not be realised in the world in which we normally live but, just for a moment - that staring at one spot for 10 minutes moment - they become more real than anything else.
Those moments are like rare glimpses of a bright, diamond studded reality that seems to sit just beyond the grey veil of the normal. The ancient Latin term for these moments is 'numinous' - literally moments of power. And it doesn't matter whether you're an atheist or fully paid up God botherer, anyone can and does have access to this experience, everyone has this understanding of truth buried deep within them.
So why am I harping on about this in a blog about pioneering? Well, partly because that whirlwind is still faintly spinning away in me innards and I wanted to talk about it, but mainly because THIS experience, THIS understanding of truth, THIS sense of reality - deeper reality - being out there somewhere just over the horizon, THIS is what compels us as pioneers. We have imagined something different, something better, but we're not content to leave it loitering over the horizon, we want to find it! We want to be in the middle of it, saturating ourselves in it, staring around in awe and wonder at the sights and sounds around us! And we want others to find it too! For me, books like the one I have just finished remind me of why we do what we do. So here's to you Mr. Jordan, and here's to all you story makers who remind us what truth is all about.
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