CT: The World Behind The World
Hey there readers,
So here I am, late on my post. And Little C assigned me the word "empirical", and I have to be honest with you all, I really struggled with it. I poured over sci-fi and pop culture news sites for something, anything to write about that I could work that word in. It was a struggle. The struggliest struggle in all of Struggle-land. Which is at least part of why it's Sunday and my post is STILL NOT UP. Well, I mean, by the time you're reading this it is but it's waaaaaay late.
But then I had a quiet revelation this morning, sitting on the couch with Roommate, googling the various forms of "empirical" and praying that some sort of inspiration would hit me. For those of you that may not know, empirical is defined as "based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic". There's also the concept of "empirical reality" which the reality that can be deduced by repeatable observations of the senses. The reality that we see and touch and feel in our day to day lives. That's it. Not based on our greater theories about the way the universe works, or our faith in a great power unseen. Just the dirt and work of what we see every day.
There's a lot of art that's set inside this empirical reality, especially in television. Cop shows, family dramas and sitcoms, workplace or medical dramas. We love many, many of these shows. They make up many of the hours of television that we watch and need to catch up on desperately and whose writers we look up to. But at the same time, I can't help but think "how boring".
I've never been all that interested in an empirical reality as it turns out. I mean, yes, I go to work and I live in my house and I pay bills and grocery shop. I live in the real world. But when it comes to writing or reading or watching, my mind has always, always turned more towards the world behind the world. The stories of the hidden mythologies or powers or abilities that could be moving right behind what we see of the world. Narnia, Orphan Black, The Magicians, Dollhouse, Ex Machina, Supernatural, Neverwhere. The list could literally go for days. The stories that take one or two or three steps past the empirical reality and show us something new.
I have just as much love for the kind of sci-fi or fantasy or horror that creates an entirely new world, like Mad Max or the work of Tolkien or Firefly. Something that starts fresh, in a whole world of the writer's creation. We wrote a pilot set in this kind of world and working inside of this kind of fantasy is a magic all its own.
But see, I have to live my day to day in the empirical reality. So the stories that really get into my mind and my heart, the stories I find myself re-reading or rewatching over and over are the ones where someone in the "real" world finds something so much more hiding just behind it. I was the kid that desperately searched cupboards for doors to Narnia, who waited for my Hogwarts Letter, who suspected that maybe those monsters in the stories were more than just stories. And as it turns out, that's what we like to write too.
So that's where my head is on this Sunday afternoon, readers. Further up and further in.
Much Peace!
CT
So here I am, late on my post. And Little C assigned me the word "empirical", and I have to be honest with you all, I really struggled with it. I poured over sci-fi and pop culture news sites for something, anything to write about that I could work that word in. It was a struggle. The struggliest struggle in all of Struggle-land. Which is at least part of why it's Sunday and my post is STILL NOT UP. Well, I mean, by the time you're reading this it is but it's waaaaaay late.
But then I had a quiet revelation this morning, sitting on the couch with Roommate, googling the various forms of "empirical" and praying that some sort of inspiration would hit me. For those of you that may not know, empirical is defined as "based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic". There's also the concept of "empirical reality" which the reality that can be deduced by repeatable observations of the senses. The reality that we see and touch and feel in our day to day lives. That's it. Not based on our greater theories about the way the universe works, or our faith in a great power unseen. Just the dirt and work of what we see every day.
There's a lot of art that's set inside this empirical reality, especially in television. Cop shows, family dramas and sitcoms, workplace or medical dramas. We love many, many of these shows. They make up many of the hours of television that we watch and need to catch up on desperately and whose writers we look up to. But at the same time, I can't help but think "how boring".
I've never been all that interested in an empirical reality as it turns out. I mean, yes, I go to work and I live in my house and I pay bills and grocery shop. I live in the real world. But when it comes to writing or reading or watching, my mind has always, always turned more towards the world behind the world. The stories of the hidden mythologies or powers or abilities that could be moving right behind what we see of the world. Narnia, Orphan Black, The Magicians, Dollhouse, Ex Machina, Supernatural, Neverwhere. The list could literally go for days. The stories that take one or two or three steps past the empirical reality and show us something new.
I have just as much love for the kind of sci-fi or fantasy or horror that creates an entirely new world, like Mad Max or the work of Tolkien or Firefly. Something that starts fresh, in a whole world of the writer's creation. We wrote a pilot set in this kind of world and working inside of this kind of fantasy is a magic all its own.
But see, I have to live my day to day in the empirical reality. So the stories that really get into my mind and my heart, the stories I find myself re-reading or rewatching over and over are the ones where someone in the "real" world finds something so much more hiding just behind it. I was the kid that desperately searched cupboards for doors to Narnia, who waited for my Hogwarts Letter, who suspected that maybe those monsters in the stories were more than just stories. And as it turns out, that's what we like to write too.
So that's where my head is on this Sunday afternoon, readers. Further up and further in.
Much Peace!
CT
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