Only Through Experience Can You Know Sympathy

I’ve been reading some writings from Joseph Campbell, author of Hero With A Thousand Faces, where he talks about the idea that only through experience can you know sympathy. He says, “It is through experience that the soul grows, by learning to extend its horizon of sympathy and understanding.” In other words, a person can’t sympathize with sorrow until they have been sorry enough to know what deep sorrow is.

I’m not altogether sure I agree. As a teenager, I had many peers who seemed extremely compassionate to poor people and the plight of non-whites in our society. Back then, we were a generation against the Vietnam war, though few of us ever served in the military, and we were all for civil rights, even though most of my friends were white. We came to these conclusions through logical consideration and, for some, peer pressure. 

On the other hand, as I grow older—I’m now in my mid 60s—I have become much more compassionate to all my fellow human beings, and I credit that attitude to having experienced a long series of, lets call them learning opportunities, where I suffered as a target of discrimination. In short, I’ve had more than my share of sorrows, and I like to think that I have learned a great deal from them. And the older I grow, the more I understand that there is no good and bad, no right and wrong. There is only experience, and what we do with that experience.

I’ve also learned that each of us humans have accumulated a different set of experiences that shape our lives, and that makes each of us unique, no one person any better, worse, or more valuable than the rest. 

Campbell argues that it is through having experienced all experience that the soul finally achieves perfect sympathy and understanding. The soul comes to a point where it has learned everything experience can teach, and that point is called enlightenment. Campbell takes this idea a step further to suggest that all people should do everything they can do to accumulate a vast wealth of varied experience, and that getting tied down in any routine where one practices the same thing day after day for years at a time (like a dead-end job that does nothing more than put food on the table) means stagnation, and is tantamount to death. Again, I must disagree. I believe even so called “dead-end jobs” provide opportunities for growth and understanding, and the job is only ten hours in a day. There is so much more to life and learning.

Although I must admit, my life improved a hundred fold after I abandoned corporate America to pursue a career in writing where I manage my own time, goals, and interests. So perhaps Campbell is on to something.

Halloween Party

I’ve never been a fan of Halloween, not even as a child. Still, most people seem to relish dressing up as something different, something spooky, and this year we decided to join the fun. We attended a wonder party of interesting people, and we even managed to throw together our own costumes. The party’s theme was The Black Lagoon, and the following pictures are just a sampling of the wonderfully creative costumes. The first two pics are myself and Herman.

Writing Tip: Plotting

There is a story of a man in a rooming house who took off his shoes every night and dropped them on the floor one at a time, with a pause in between. The lodger below had complained about this many times. One night, after dropping the first shoe, the man suddenly remembered the complaints and put the second shoe down gently. Twenty minutes later, a cry came up from the floor below: "For God's sake, drop the other shoe!" 

Every plot sets up a series of expectations that makes the read wait for the other shoe to drop. We wait for the resolution of a conflict, or the solution to a puzzle, or the explanation of a mystery, or just the completion of a pattern, and it is this anticipation, as much as anything else, that makes us read on. 

A plot, then, is the structuring of events to create anticipation, either in the form of anxiety (in a story of conflict or mystery), or of curiosity (in a puzzle story).

In a well-structured story, the ending may be a resolution, a revelation, a decision, an explanation, or a solution. 

Resolution is the end of a conflict by the victory of one side or the other. 

Revelation is the exposure of something previously hidden. 

A Decision story ends when the protagonist makes up his/her mind about something important and difficult. 

Explanation, obviously, resolves a mystery.

Solution provides the ending for a puzzle.

A successful plots rests on five pillars. 

1. a believable and sympathetic protagonist;
2. his/her difficult problem;
3. his/her repeated attempts to resolve the problem, which continually fail and make his/her situation more desperate;
4. a crisis point, his last desperate chance to win;
5. a resolution, brought about by means of the protagonist’s own courage, love or ingenuity. 

The reverse of this plot is the story in which the central character is the villain; the story ends with his/her defeat rather than with a victory.

A Delightful Surprise From A Reader

Tuesdays are the days I showcase my own work on this blog. Today I’d like to share some artwork and a note that a reader, Janet Sidelinger, shared after reading my novel, The Lonely War. Like any writer, I love hearing from appreciative readers, but this note and drawing make my whole week. Loved it.

  

She wrote:

Hi, Alan - I just wanted to share last Tuesday's inspiration with you because you were a large part of it, and might get a kick out of it.

I am (very obviously) not an artist, but I have enjoyed submitting these weekly doodles for DoodleTuesday/You Will Rise project. Anyway, last week's doodle was created on the heels of having read "The Lonely War", which was very much on my mind especially because Andrew broke my heart. The story was poignant and very lovingly written. I think because I am half Japanese, I was particularly affected by the setting, historical context, and characters. Thank you for writing it. I very much enjoy your novels.

“Common souls pay with what they do, nobler souls with that which they are. And why? Because a profound nature awakens in us by their actions and words, by their very looks and manners. — (excerpt from "The Lonely War" ~Alan Chin)

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Just finished readying The Help by Kathryn Stockett, and I just wanted to say I loved it. Beautifully written. Wonderfully complex characters. A satisfying plot that kept me turning pages. 

The book is about the relations between white middleclass women in the south during 1960’s segregation and the black women who work for them. The story for me comes down to a quote from the book: “Wasn’t that the point of the book? For women to realize, We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I’d thought.”

In the postscript, Stockett added a quote from Howell Raines’s Pulitzer Prize-winning article, Grady’s Gift:

There is no trickier subject for a writer from the south than that of affection between a black person and a white one in the unequal world of segregation. For the dishonesty upon which a society is founded makes every emotion suspect, makes it impossible to know whether what flowed between two people was honest feeling or pity or pragmatism.

That quote kind of blew me away, because he describes such a large and important topic in such a beautifully succinct way.

Writing Tip: What Makes the Good Guy So Good? The Bad Guy!

Your hero is only as interesting as the foe s/he is battling. Any protagonist is just some ordinary shmuck until you put evil in his/her path. Then your hero is pushed into showing courage, nobility, compassion, etc. 

Roger Corman hit the nail on the head when he said: “In science-fiction movies the monster should always be bigger than the leading lady.”

The antagonist needs to be a worthy opponent! S/he has to be stronger than the protagonist or you’ve got no story. A man swatting a fly is nothing anyone wants to read, unless the fly is 600 pounds and has fangs. I’m not saying all antagonists need to kill people with ray guns. Look at Mary Tyler Moore in Ordinary People. She was a strong, implacable, relentless opponent.

Your bad guy can’t simply be bad, s/he needs to always be taking action – plotting, planning, stealing, belittling, killing, lying, leaving the seat up on the toilette – as a way to show us how bad s/he is. S/he needs to be constantly making more and more clever moves, always upping the ante. Just when we think s/he’s down for good, s/he comes back with a bigger punch. If s/he is not doing this, then you don’t have much of a bad guy, which means you don’t have much of a story. 

Remember that the protag and antag don’t have to be cross-town rivals. They can be husband and wife, business partners, man against nature, or patriot against his/her own country. 

Just like your hero shouldn’t be 100% good, your antagonist shouldn’t be 100% bad. The Godfather was motivated by love for his family. In Schindler’s List, the commandant was being a good and loyal German carrying out his orders. If your antag is a terrorist who loves killing women and children, then make her also love Italian opera or fine wine or have impeccable manners, anything that the reader can connect with. 

It is the villain’s job to push the protag into being a hero. By doing battle with a much more formidable opponent, the protag must reach inside and find inner strength or superior intelligence in order to overcome the evil one. And the more clever and evil the antag, the deeper the protag must dig to prevail. 

Every good protagonist must grow, evolve into someone better (or at least different). That can’t happen without a bad guy. In Die Hard, John McClane is in a bad marriage and headed for divorce. His wife doesn’t seem to like or respect him anymore. Enter Hans Gruber. Hans give John McClane the opportunity to show his wife what he is made of, and of course, he also becomes a better person in the process. Without Hans, McClane is just another washed up cliché cop. 

The bad guy should think s/he is the hero in your story. In the example above, Hans Gruber felt he was so clever and so slick in they way he mastermind the whole crime, that he was the star, he should be the one everyone admired. And why not, nobody was smart enough or had big enough balls to stop him. Yes, he’s stealing 600 million and killing hoards of people, but stealing from mega-rich-corporations to give to the poor (himself).

So once you’ve established the protag and antag, and they are doing battle, be sure to give them plenty of face to face time. They should come to know one another very well. And for the most part, the antag should have the upper hand, until the end, of course. 

Keep in mind that your bad guy is the point on which your story pivots. Make him/her deliciously bad.

Buddha's Bad Boys excerpt

I’m very pleased to announce that my latest book, an anthology of six short works called BUDDHA’S BAD BOYS, is available in paperback or any eBook format, at

Bold Strokes Books http://tinyurl.com/pfe7dnl

Amazon http://tinyurl.com/mplxvc7

Some of these stories are purely fictional, while others are based on real people and true events.

Blurb: There are many reason why Western men turn to Eastern religion—searching for inner truth, lost love, loneliness, fleeing the law, hopelessness, alcoholism. Some travel halfway around the world in an attempt to overcome their particular dissoluteness, only to realize that improving yourself is like polishing air. What they eventually discover, nevertheless, is one of the Buddha’s most significant lessons: enlightenment comes to those whose singular focus is on helping others less fortunate. 

Six stories, six troubled gay men trudging down the road to enlightenment. What they each find is that last thing in the world they expected.

The first story in this anthology is called Monk For A Month and is about two men, Reece and Doug, are almost done with the “Monk for a Month” program at the temple in Chiang Mai, where they have been living like Buddhist monks. But on the same night that Reece finds that Doug is having an affair with another Thai monk, there is a murder lose in the town. Reece sees the killer hiding in the temple and goes about trying to help him escape the police. In the process, a love affair begins.

Excerpt:

I sat at the bar sporting saffron robes and a shaved head, sipping a Singha beer and listening to the bartender, who was clearly agitated. I couldn’t tell whether the man was upset over the recent murders, or because the hard rain was hurting his business, or if he simply didn’t like serving alcohol to a monk, even a Caucasian one.

“His name Somchai,” the bartender said. He spoke English, but with the usual Thai singsong clip that I had come to adore. “He kill American expatriate named Warren. Tony Warren.”

I had seen a dead body only once, a gruesome spectacle. It took an effort to settle my nerves as the bartender glared at me, as if, also being an American, made me an accomplice. I had never learned the invaluable art of staying detached in the face of tragedy, of not identifying with the victim. I had no way to shield myself from the reality of how brutal humans can be to each other, what ruthless lengths they will go, and the pain they are capable of inflicting on each other.

Across the street, four soldiers trudged along in the rain.

“When did Somchai kill Warren?” I asked, my voice scarcely a whisper.

The bartender didn’t know exactly, sometime at the beginning of the afternoon that had now come to an end. At the same time that he killed Warren, Somchai had also slain Warren’s Thai girlfriend. Both victims had been found two hours earlier at the apartment belonging to Warren.

The barroom was already dark, due to the lateness of the hour and another power outage. Candles flickered on the bar and at each table; their yellow light mingled with the blueness of the dying day.

The shower stopped as suddenly as it had started, as it often does in Thailand.

“How old was she? The girlfriend I mean,” I asked.

“Very young. Nineteen.” Regret passed over the bartender’s face. “A real beauty.”

“I would like another Singha,” I said, “but I have no more money. Can I buy on credit?”

The bartender’s look of regret turned to disgust. As he walked away, a customer two stools over ordered beers for me and himself, and also shots of cheap Thai whiskey.

The bartender prepared our drinks while the customer moved to the stool beside mine. He introduced himself as Ty Poe, and did not shake my hand, as it is considered disrespectful to touch a monk. Poe was courteous, offering the customary wai gesture of respect. He was somewhere in his forties, and had a smoking-induced cough. The polluted streets of Chiang Mai didn’t help his lungs any more than his chain-smoking, I thought. I gave him my name, Reece Jackson, and told him I was from America, San Francisco in fact.

“I overheard your talk about the murders.”

“Why haven’t they caught him yet?” I asked. “Chiang Mai’s a small town.”

“They have him trapped within the walls of the old city, but you should know how it is,” Poe grunted. “We’re talking about an American expatriate and his whore who got themselves killed by a homeless gay kid. I mean, there are limited resources available to the police department. The police force, as a rule, is not well trained. Officers have to buy their own uniforms, their own guns. They are poorly paid. Not much would be happening now except that this dead girl happens to be the daughter of an army major. The army is doing what they can but they do not know the town as well as Somchai.”

Poe was right, I thought. What could anyone reasonably expect of this situation? The unvarnished fact was that in this country, any given police station’s cases were ranked according to priority. And priority in Thailand had to do with wealth and status. Those on the low end of the spectrum were unlikely to receive much attention. And for a homeless gay kid with no family who happened to murder a bit of riff-raff, then it was probably the victim’s fault. Why bother figuring out all the sordid details?

I felt thankful that I came from a country where every death warranted respect, every victim merited justice, no matter how far down the social and economic ladder that victim might fall. At least I liked to believe that bit of hype.

The bartender placed the beers and shots before us. I lifted my shot in a toast to Poe and knocked my head back, taking the drink in one hot swallow. Poe stared at me in obvious surprise.

“I’ve never seen a monk do that,” Poe said.

“I’m not really a monk. My partner and I paid good money to enroll in the Monk-For-A-Month program here at Wat Phra Singh. He’s on some damned spiritual quest that I, frankly, don’t understand. Me, I’m just an IT geek along for the ride.”

“So you’re not alone,” Poe asked, exhaling a stream of smoke.

“Technically, no. But it often feels like I am.”

The bar stood only a few doors down from Tha Phae Square, which spread before one of the four main gates of the old city, and where two of the town’s chief avenues collided. The square was bordered by the city wall, built of ancient brick, and butted against by the city moat on the north and south sides.  The top of the wall was wide enough to walk on, and just then a flock of children scampered along the wet brick, heedless of the danger of slipping. Among them ran Archer, my adopted son, also sporting a shaved head and wearing the saffron robes. The children looked down on the tourists who gathered in the square, clutching their umbrellas in case the rains returned.

It must be between six and seven in the evening, I thought.

Another shower started and people in the square ran for cover.

Archer hopped down the wall steps and dashed across the road like a fleeing deer. He entered the bar and huddled against me, giving Poe a cautious glance. Archer was a handsome seven-year-old with a round face that gave way to a large jaw and a brilliant set of teeth. He had an impishness and good humor in his eyes, and was strong for so young a boy. But what I admired most about him was his gentle and trusting disposition. Unlike most boys, he was incapable of hurting anything. His only flaw was that he was fathered by two gay men, which made him an outcast back home, someone to be pitied, stared at, whispered about, laughed at, and occasionally beaten up by his peers.

Strokes of lightning lit the sky, coming so close together that they seemed like a ceaseless illumination. The thunder was continuous. The noise burst like metal fireworks, and then would immediately rise again; its modulations grew less and less defined as the shower let up, until there was only the sound of rain striking paving stones.

“This rain will last all night,” Poe said, lighting another cigarette from the butt of his previous one.

Moments later, the shower stopped. Poe left his stool and pointed at the leaden sky, patched with massive blotches of somber gray so low that it seemed to brush the rooftops. “Don’t let that fool you.”