h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I post here now because I was amazed by this entry and not because I owe-you-one for your kind words at last weeks <./>AggGag</.>/CAC-C.

As someone who often thinks along these lines but always gets lost in the fog of my ancestories multiple distant pasts, your entry is a sharp pointed stick - a poke in the eye and a boot in the pants.

The plain speaking short sentences build like bricks in a fortress wall of self awareness leading to the moral conclusion:

>> Every minority that you despise is there somewhere in your own past. <<

Now if I could just be sure about the antecedent of the final 'it' in your closing last sentence...


~jwf~

Thanks, ~jwf~. Any praise of yours is high praise.

I like this piece, even though the ground's getting well-trodden.
The weakest thing is the title. Someone challenged me to write something suggested by a title, I said OK, and they said "One in a Million".
Doesn't quite fit, does it?
But once they're named, I never can think of an alternative.

The only reason a title should make sense is if you want people to remember it. If nothing in the piece reinforces or identifies the meaning behind the title it will not be remembered.

Not everyone will reverse engineer from 'million to one odds' to 'one in a million'. They are the same but different, and I would not risk the great unwashed making that kind of half twist reverse.

And that last sentence has me dangling several ways. I still have no idea what 'it' refers to and now the true nature of 'make', 'you' and 'alone' are escaping me. I believe I understand 'cannot help' as a concept but the context is lost when three of the other four words are left undefined by the ambiguity of 'it'.


~jwf~

>>All those others have become mere history. You alone cannot help but make it<<

The first cut ran : 'In this tapestry of chance, all those others...'

My recollection is hazy, but I think that shows that the intended allusion was to the tapestry/history as a huge interwoven fabric of lives, with only the reader as a still-active weaver. 'It' was therefore history.

The early draft was much wordier, though. I started paring it down, to sharpen it. I guess you've found too that such a process can reveal exciting half-considered meanings.

By the time the piece was finished, I'd noticed and cultivated some ambiguity. There's a second meaning for 'making it' as simply surviving rather than actively creating history. The original version had a philosophical grounding in ideas of fate, too, with the reader-in-the-present as a shoot emerging from the unchangeable soil of the past. Only the tip is growing and is capable of change. But it was all too precious. Out it all went.

I never expected anyone else to pick these nuances up. To be truthful, I've gone past expecting anyone else to read my contemplative stuff at all. The justification for the effort is self-discovery. You too?

Now that you ask, I can see more potential meanings still. Rather elusive ones, which are the best kind, yeah? Whether the writer consciously intends such things is irrelevent, because the reader is always more important.

I love hootoo. I'm tempted to ask similar questions to yours about lots of pieces here. I never do, because my choice is to personalise the interpretation. Autopsies are for dead things. (For the same reason, I dodged your question first time round. Sorry about that. But since you persist...)

So what ever you think it means, it means. Moreover, that meaning is finer than any original meaning, because it proves that a piece of writing is still blossoming. But you knew that anyway, didn't you?

Thanks, fellow-spirit.

Pin

Thank you for the effort of allowing yourself to be honest in response to a direct question. You obviously (the entry) are willing to expose your deepest thoughts, insights, inspirations and aspirations when writing for a wider audience, and now I know you are capable of the same integrity of spirit when face to face with a single reader.

It's quite refreshing really. Like you, I often want to question or challenge others on their 'creative' musings. Unlike you I have a reputation for doing just that. From my experience, the replies (if at all) are usually politely nervous, suspicious, annoyed, painfully concise and without any real thought have been given to my questions.

It's funny how the tapestry of chance unravels.

In a moment of inspiration I finally understood what had happened to the last half dozen sentences of your piece and suddenly they swirled before my eyes and landed looking like this:

"You are the spearhead of the cosmos. A history of countless millions strove to make your every heartbeat possible.

Trivial compared with what has gone before, you are unique in your mastery of the moment. So inconsequential and so mighty, you are the ultimate paradox.

You alone cannot help but make it."

Which at least nails down 'make it' to the colloquial sense of 'succeed' and leaves the 'it' as ambiguous and free as you originally intended I'm sure.


~jwf~