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Dreaming of Japan (and Other Imaginary Lands)

July 10, 2023

Experiencing

dream, experiencing, Japan, nostalgia

Japan is obviously not imaginary; it’s a real country, it exists – if you’re looking for countries that don’t exist, Finland is the one you’re looking for 😛. But my Japan is imaginary. I’m dreaming of a Japan that simply is there only in my imagination, being an entirely subjective, partial, and factually extremely flawed version of the realWe’ll come back to this later; it’s intriguing. Japan.

My Japan is no more (or less?) real than the afternoons of my childhood, smelling Greek coffee, and overall constructing a version of a reality that is, shall we use the term, questionable.

Whenever I’m reading about Japan, seeing photos or videos from there – including its huge cat culture, one must admit – I immediately feel calm. I feel a sense of longing for something that, again, isn’t there. More still, it never has; it’s not like I used to live in Japan and now I miss it.

So what does dreaming of Japan – and other imaginary lands – reveals to us about the way our mind wanders?

dreaming Japan
I tried to find the most stereotypical Japanese image you can think of, and this qualifies. I’m dreaming of a Japan that isn’t real – or, to put it this way, is a drop of reality in an ocean of factual details I deliberately ignore
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How to Deal with Incompetence: The Role of Malice

July 3, 2023

Society

ignorance, responsibility, social masses, society, stupidity

You might have seen some memes going around claiming “Idiots, everywhere!” or something of the sort. As George Carlin famously said, imagine how dumb the average person is, then realize half of them are even dumber. But to deal with incompetence (which isn’t quite the same as stupidity, which isn’t quite the same as ignorance), we need to also take something else into consideration: the role of malice.

There is a world of difference between an incompetent person who, still, has good intentions, and one who is malevolent. In other words, the saying “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” is seriously misleading.

Why?

But because benevolent incompetence will want to rectify its repercussions, whereas malevolent will not even recognize there is a problem.

Let’s try to categorize all this and come up with a theoretical framework, to see where (if anywhere!) it gets us.

deal with incompetence cats
“Let me handle this, Jim” (as I’ve said before, whenever I don’t want to spend much time finding a more suitable image, you get a cat; this time, you get two)
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How to Use Flashbacks: The Role of the Past in Writing Fiction

June 26, 2023

Fiction Writing Tips, Writing

creativity, fiction, literature, narrative, time, writing

Humans are temporal beings: We live in the present (good luck defining that), but we also have a vastly complex understanding of the past. Moreover, we can anticipate future events, even those, as Schopenhauer put it, in times far ahead of our own. Inevitably then, when it comes to writing fiction, learning how to use flashbacks and understanding the role of the past is an integral element.

Narratives come in all forms and shapes, and the more experimental a narrative is, the less likely it will follow commonly found patterns. Nonetheless, the overwhelming majority of novels feature some sort of characters, some sort of narrative antagonist, and display some sort of structure.

They also display some sort of narrative progression. And, unless for some rather simplistic, point-A-to-point-B stories that are entirely linear, some sort of temporal back-and-forth is present.

In this post I’ll show you how to use flashbacks skillfully, that is, with a narrative intent. To use flashbacks well is to increase affective impact and narrative meanings, and overall, be in better control of your novel.

How to use flashbacks
To use flashbacks efficiently, you need to understand the narrative purpose they serve – which is often much less about the “hard facts” (exposition) and more about the dreamy, ambiguous meaning (affect)
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