Collin, Matt, and Vic Sandel and their friend Judy, are characters from a novel I wrote in 1985 entitled, Charybdis in Pursuit. These are the names of the main characters from the story of which I spoke previously in this podcast series--in Episode 6: "Art as A Growth Tool." This is the story that 'arrived' in my conscious mind in the middle of the night--arrived complete in its form, story line, details and dialogue. These are the characters that awakened me demanding that I write down their story.
And I did.
I spent the next days writing the story long-hand and then the following months holed-up in a rural log cabin rendering it into printed form through the means of a personal computer. While I did make a rather perfunctory and ultimately failed attempt at seeking publication, I actually found more satisfaction in sending copies to friends and family--for their entertainment, for the insight into who I was becoming, and, perhaps, hopefully, for their own personal enrichment and edification.
Surprisingly, the failed and aborted attempt to find publication for Charybdis in Pursuit did not bother or frustrate me. As a matter of fact, the experience taught me some valuable lessons. One lesson it taught me is how thoroughly I enjoyed the writing process--the laborious search for the 'perfect' word to fit the already fully revealed and alive story that little ole me was trying to render unto readable form; I found out how much I love "wordsmithing."
A second lesson I learned from this process was how little I wanted someone else 'tampering' with my story--how little I was willing to bend to the will or even suggestions of others to change my story, my words, my creation. The story and its characters--who were all very real and very much alive within me--could only be rendered by me. Thus the prospect of finding an agent, editor, or publishing house was something that didn't really excite me. I later learned that this story remained plastic, remained malleable; for all intents and purposes, it remained 'unfinished' because, as I grew and gained in wisdom and maturity, as I expanded my perspective and my ability to recognize deeper, broader, and higher versions of Truth, Beauty, Love and Joy, the words that I might use to describe a scene, an inflection, an emotion, or a thought might change. Thus, all my stories are, in fact, works in progress. This gives me great sympathy for artists like Walt Whitman who spent a lifetime continually revising his chief work of art, Leaves of Grass.
A third lesson I learned from this experience was how little attachment I had to any desire to A) get published, B) receive recognition or fame, or C) be involved in writing for monetary gain. I had absolutely no interest in any of the "business" or glamour of getting published. To me, it was a waste of my time and energy. Now, had someone run across one of my manuscripts and offered to represent me to publication houses, I would have been fine with that. Once the manuscript was finished--once it was finally out of my hands--I just wanted to be free of it. As a matter of fact, in order to preserve some anonymity, I wrote and sent out all of my first few manuscripts under the pseudonym, "Tree Fisher." Also, several years later I actually published some of my manuscripts on-line with the caveat that if someone out there wanted to 'adopt' one of my stories and publish it or a version of it under their name or in a different form--say, as a play, screenplay or teleplay--that they had my blessing. You see, it has become quite evident to me that it is far more important that my stories and my characters get "out there" to a wider audience than that I ever get any money or recognition from them. I have come to believe that my stories have power, that they offer those who come in contact with them opportunities for 'healing' or 'awakening.' I believe that an encounter with one of my stories might provide a stranger with an opportunity to recognize--to become re-acquainted with a part of themselves that they might not have recognized before or that my stories might offer food for thought, food for soul-searching, food for improvement or self-reflection or that they might offer provocation for further self-review and self-redefinition--as they have for me.
Yes, the most important lesson I've come away with after my creative juices have delivered a "product" to the world in the form of a concrete, reproducible art form is that I have lived a segment of life, or purged from myself a version of my Self, that I might have chosen to pursue but didn't. Instead, each story and, in fact, each character, has enabled me to work through, to get past, to process and move way from, a certain path that I could have taken or an idea with which I was intrigued but that, like working with a math problem, I had to stay with for a while, had to play with and approach it from multiple perspectives before I was able to come to a satisfactory solution so that I could finally walk away from the problem and move on to the next one.
Charybdis in Pursuit begins as Vic, a college senior with everything going for him: healthy, popular, big man on campus, inexplicably commits suicide. His girl friend, Judy, finds his body and then blames herself for his death. Unfortunately but understandably, she chooses to internalize all of this guilt and remorse instead of sharing her thoughts, feelings, and 'secrets' with others. This ball of repressed emotion festering within her leads her to make less than healthy choices during the course of the novel--not the least of which is reflecting her love and attachment for Vic to his two brothers. This is her way of trying to stay close to Vic, and yet it also provides a kind of unconscious self-inflicted punishment as she is constantly tortured with the fact of her concealed 'secrets' and with the increasing temptation to let out 'the truth' and be caught and punished for her 'crime.'
Collin is Vic's younger brother by 18 months and is also an age- and class-mate of Judy. He is a much more introverted and less social creature than his popular, almost-revered brother. Bewildered and haunted by the mystery and incredulity of his happy, on-top-of-the-world brother's choice to take his own life, Collin chooses to throw his considerable energies into an "academic," investigative approach to unraveling the mysteries of his brother's death. He believes that the best way to do this is by trying to get into the mind, into the way Vic thought. Thus, with painstaking detail, Collin attempts to recreate the intellectual path Vic had travelled. He tries to read every book Vic ever read--in the very same order in which Vic read them--and to take every course Vic ever took. He even tries grilling Judy for her insights into the mystery. The reader watches as the strain of Collin's self-imposed "journey"--one might say "obsession"--takes its toll on his mental and physical health.
Matt is the youngest of the three Sandel boys. A high school all-American football quarterback, Matt foregoes many Division I scholarship offers to instead attend the college of his adored brother, Vic. In watching the actions and events surrounding Matt during the summer preceding college and during his freshman year, the reader is exposed to the erratic, unhealthy and self-destructive choices this confused and devastated young man makes as he keeps seeking stronger, more powerful, and longer-lasting diversions or escapes from the pain eating away within him. Violent, mindless sex, increasingly malicious outbursts on and off the football field, a deepening involvement with and downwardly-spiraling addiction to mind-numbing drugs and alcohol, topped off with a mutually self-destructive relationship with Judy--his brother's ex--all help to illustrate the free fall of helplessness and despair that Matt is on.
Charybdis in Pursuit presents several different ways of dealing with unresolved pain, grief and loss. None are right or wrong; each is immediately recognizable in you or in someone you know and/or love. We all have different coping mechanisms, different ways of dealing with the confusion and burdens of emotional pain. The blackhole that is the void left behind by the sudden and unexplained disappearance of a very important, very inspirational part of one's life is something we all face in this Earth School experience--sometimes multiple or myriad times--and sometimes not in the form of a loved one but in the form of a material thing or a particular way of life to which we were heavily attached. As I've said before, art can help provide perspectives or possible solutions to help us process the unprocessed or stuck energy that might be bottled up within our being.
I have been told that Charybdis in Pursuit was able to provide insight and healing to several people who were dealing with the sudden and unexpected loss of a loved one. I know that Charybdis helped me, Drew Fisher, to realize and actualize another way in which I can work with my own demons. Should I ever find a copy of my manuscript, I will be glad to share it with you in future podcasts.
Writing has provided me with a means to living, processing and eliminating my own alternate or less-than healthy desires and potentialities. I believe that each and every soul that takes on the human form is fully capable of any and every thought, action or expression ever created or ever imagined--that every one of us is equally capable of becoming a complicit Nazi concentration camp employee, that each and every one of us is capable of becoming trapped in a mentality of victimhood, that each and every one of us is capable of becoming a chain saw murderer, that each and every one of us is capable of becoming an aborted foetus, that each and every one of us is capable of becoming a Christ-like or Martin Luther King-like figure, that each and every one of us is capable of becoming a duplicitous politician, that each and every one of us is capable of becoming an idealistic farmer, teacher, priest or parent, that each and every one of us is capable of becoming a cannibalistic post-apocalyptic survivor, that each and every one of us is capable of becoming an enlightened being while still present in a human body, that each and every one of us is capable of forgiving and loving everyone and everything on the planet, that each and every one of us is capable of pain and suffering, of triumph and failure. I believe that the seed of possibility for anything is within each and every one of us--that is one of God's greatest gifts: infinite choice. Another is unconditional love. In God's eyes there is no right or wrong, no good or "evil," no better or worse; there is only infinite choice and infinite patience and love.
We humans have been given this gift of choice--of infinite options for experiencing "life" in its infinite forms of Love, Will, Power, and Courage, Pain and Suffering, Knowledge and Joy. It is up to us to plan and flow, but it is also okay to change our minds and choose something different--at each and any instant. Vic, Collin, Judy, and Matt offer a few examples of life choices. As do your loved ones and your enemies. None are right or wrong, none is better or worse than another; all offer different choices, different experiences, and different consequences; all offer to open new doors for different choices and experiences, and all, inevitably, lead back to an awareness of, a confrontation with, and an acceptance of our True Selves, our Divine Essence.
I wish you all your own creative, artistic means to give process and form to older versions of your self, just as I wish all of you health, healing, and enlightenment.
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