5. Now is neverending
Hello, it’s JOey.
It is my solemn duty to proclaim the Podcaster’s Lament: I have read something, and now everyone has to hear what I think about it.
I just finished “The Neverending Story” by Michael Ende. I read it over the course of two days while at the beach.
Some light research suggests to me that the book “The Neverending Story” and the movie, “The NeverEnding Story” are similar in lots of ways, but different in very important ones. So different that if you like the book, you will not like the movie, and if you like the movie, you will not like the book. I have not seen the movie, hence why this is a blog post, instead of an Affable Chat episode. Maybe one day I will watch it! But not before I write all of this.
I tend to do this thing, which I’d like to assume most other people do too (except that my content consumption habits seem alien to most other people), where I connect the things I have recently read and watched in ways they are unlikely to be connected again. They just happen to share proximity in my mind and that gives certain aspects added resonance and meaning. Different things are drawn together, as if by gravity, from the page and swirl together, creating a new theory in my mind, connecting these works inextricably and setting me up for some kind of strange conclusion. this post is an attempt to capture that feeling, and to document it for others.
The system of orbiting bodies at play are as follows: three shiny new stars, set against the wide nebula of beliefs previously held, and tracing a lovely arc that is doomed to coincide with a black hole of radical meta-media analysis.
The three stars are these: Neil Stephenson’s “Anathem”, recently finished in audiobook form. Another novel from Stephenson, co-authored with Nicole Galland called, “The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O” which I have not yet finished. And finally, glowing brightly but with strange, ancient energy: Michael Ende’s “The Neverending Story”.
Both Anathem and D.O.D.O. are ostensibly based on actual physics and popular scientific philosophy. Whether these books are actually faithful to our current understanding of the universe is questionable. But they get at something a bit more metaphysical.
All three books propose that another world exists, or possibly, many other world’s exist. And you can go to them! But you don’t really need a spaceship or time machine. Instead, you only need to move your consciousness into another stream of reality; to shift your mind away from the insistence that this world is the only one, and let it wander into the ether, and latch on to another way of living.
The characters in Stephenson’s novels are very intentional about the way they interact with other strands of reality or other worlds. It is very scientific and controlled, even when it is explicitly not those things. Yet, they do not shy away from the shock and destabilization of their actions. They suggest over and over that it is only the limits of imagination that keep us shackled to our current reality, and the secrets of magic are really locked inside our brains, waiting for a chance to be unleashed.
The Realm of ideas
The Neverending Story isn’t just Fantasy instead of Sci-fi, it is much more dreamlike. It’s edges are soft, it’s characters are mythical, it’s setting unlimited. It poises itself as a sort of Ur-fable for the post-modern age, and keeps itself aloof through the inclusion of many many different creatures from other stories, and the allusion that its telling spawns many many other stories altogether.
Imagine how I feel, reading three different books, and being told in three different ways that another world is out there, waiting to be discovered. This world is as real, I keep reading, as dragons or the soul. It is the shared space of ideas, of dreams, of platonic ideals. It is where imagination roams free, nourished by the continued need from humans to create and tell stories.
This isn’t the first time I’ve head someone say something like this, but it is the first time I’ve ever really taken it seriously. What if this is how imagination works? Instead of taking reality and twisting it, we are visiting another world altogether. A world that is the same except specifically different. We record our findings there, and come back to “base” reality here. Instead of a simulation of reality that runs in our heads, other planes of being are accessed and then forgotten. Our adherence to what is “normal” is build entirely on our perception of reality. Change perception, and reality shifts as well. Perhaps it shifts right from under our feet.
And what if Fantastica is one of those places? A world populated by the impossible, the improbable, and absurd. A world built by and for wishes of any kind. When we imagine a new world, Fantastica grows in the collective unconscious, becoming grander and more incredible for the next person who visits.
A shared world of dreams is something I want to take more seriously as an idea. Not because I am trying to escape reality, but because I am intent on improving it. Sharing a dream makes it more likely to come true, and building a universally accessible world of ideas means we can conceive more and more complicated solutions to our problems. Plus there is something we don’t know yet about how important stories are to human psychology and civilization. Fiction isn’t just a fun pastime, it is an important intellectual realm that deserves study, criticism, and expansion.
Consider this quote from Gmork, the werewolf, talking about what happens to the creatures of Fantastica when they leave for the real world:
"Who knows what they will make of you? Maybe you'll help them persuade people to buy things they don't need, or hate things they know nothing about, or hold beliefs that make them easy to handle, or doubt truths that might save them."
With this passage Ende seems to suggest that fiction and lies have to be held back with a barrier of dissolution and disbelief. It is dangerous to handle them directly, because they can be so easily twisted into something else. But we also cannot just do away with lying as a concept. Not because of the logistical problems with doing so, but because lies and fiction are so useful! Look no further than the main page of this website for how I feel about it. “Fiction is a lie that tells the truth” is a kind of unofficial moto of Affable Chat. I believe in the power of fiction so much. I believe in it’s transforming nature, and it’s ability to make us see and believe things that are impossible, but are still beautiful.
I was moved deeply by “The Neverending Story” because of this. Because it wants so desperately to tell us stories are important, and that we need them not just to become better people, but to grow as a species. We need to learn lessons that cannot be physically experienced. We need to travel to other worlds and see what we are doing wrong (and right!). And we need something to compare reality to. How can we truly comprehend our world, if it is the only one we know about?
Yes, we are still a Podcast
We are entering our Long Distance Era. Benjamin and his lovely wife have moved to Sante Fe, NM. I am still in NC, same as it ever was.
I will be releasing an episode on “The Thing” that I recorded in April with Otis from Allentown Presents.
Benjamin and I have an episode on “Inside Out 2” that will be released soon.
Super Bracket Bros is back from a hiatus as well. They are releasing episodes of their GURPS season featuring Benjamin as you read this! Go check them out.
Many, many more movies are in the pipeline. We are building that catalog, just you wait!
