One of my favorite movies, Back to the Future, is about having a time machine and going back in time and forward in time. Possibly the only time travel fiction I can get behind. The reason for that is because it has consequences.
When Marty disrupts the meeting of his mom and dad, he faces the challenge of being erased from history and when George McFly punches Biff he wins the love of Lorraine, Marty and Doc return to a changed future, when Biff steals the time machine and they return to 1985 to find a changed past, at the end of the third one we never really know what was changed except for Marty's belief that he could change the future himself because no ones future is written.
The important thing to remember there is that actions in the past and future had consequences on their present.
A new show on Fox, Making History, is coming out soon about time travel, the time machine itself is a duffel bag, but in the promo they do one of those things everyone says they would do with a time machine out of the two things everyone says they would do if they have a time machine:
Kill Hitler
I haven't seen any of the show Making History, so I don't know how killing Hitler effects the future in the show, but when we think about if those two things happened, what would the consequences be?
Remember all actions have consequences that will effect the future in a good way or bad way.
Scenario
Congratulations you have invented a time machine! You decide to do the thing you always said you would do, kill Hitler.
You travel to the past and find Hitler painting in his room before he ever gave his first speech. Holding piano wire between your fingers, you walk up behind him and wrap it around his neck. He struggles and puts up a fight, but you prevail and strangle the life out of him. You escape the scene and return to where you left your time machine, but its not there! Not only that you begin to be erased from history. In your last breath you ask, 'Why God? I did the right thing.'
What happened?
Think about Back to the Future for second? When Marty altered the past, he was in danger of not existing in the future. In each scenario, the same thing happened.
By killing Hitler, you altered the history of people; those who would of died, survived, fleeting emotions of soldiers going off to war and returning resulting in less marriages and children being born during what we call the baby boom. More people led to more options in partners, leading to different marriages resulting in different people being born who were not your grandparents thus never giving birth to your parents thus you. Even if your grandparents did meet and your parents were born, a non-world war 2 America could of resulted in a longer Great Depression with less jobs, less food meaning families had to move more often, children didn't go to school regularly and certain cities wouldn't of been development and the chances of your parents meeting becomes less and less thus again you are never born.
This raises a very altruistic question. Who's life is more important? Yours or theirs? Did you in fact do the right thing?
Alternative Timelines
In an episode of The Big Bang Theory, the guys watch Back to the Future II. In that episode, they explain how old Biff could of stolen the time machine to give young Biff the sports almanac, but returns to present future the Doc and Marty are in to return the time machine, but when they return to 1985, it is the alternate 1985 with billionaire Biff. How did old Biff return to 2015 and not an alternative 2015 where he is the billionaire Biff?
Marty and Doc go back to 1955 to destroy the sports almanac thus the future of billionaire Biff never exists for old Biff to return to. Thus is my conclusion.
But, the writers at The Big Bang Theory had a different theory involving alternate timelines. Old Biff could go back on the original timeline to give himself the sports almanac, then return on the same timeline as if nothing happened, but he creates an alternative timeline that Doc and Marty can cross over to be on that timeline. By that reasoning, I think they could of just gone back and forth until they arrived back on the original timeline where everything was safe. But they would always know the Dead Limb timeline was out there and alternative versions of themselves were living a life of despair and pain.
The Dead Limb Timeline
The theory is we are living in one reality while a million other realities (also known as dimensions) are happening all around us. Every decision you make puts you on a path while in an alternative reality yourself made a different decision that set them on a different path. Each of these decision that you, and everyone makes branch off to make a tree with each branch being a different reality.
Which means there are realities where you were never born or you took an extra second to slam on the brakes that one time and you died rather than lived to tell your friends. Which means there are realities where Hitler was never born or he was killed or he became a successful artist and never committed mass murder.
But in this reality, that did happen. If by chance someone created a time machine went back and did stop those terrible things from happening, they would create a new branch in the reality tree, what I call a Dead Limb timeline. A reality that shouldn't exist, but does because of human intervention. And by the reasoning of the writers' of The Big Bang Theory, you could intervene and change history and return to your original timeline, the one you were on, but you would of never of changed history for your timeline, only for someone else, that may or may not include a version of you.
Altruism
Time travel is messy when you think about it. Nothing can proven or disproven without the technology to test which one of these outcomes would come true. But knowing that one of the outcomes could result in wiping yourself out of existence, would you do it?
It's that altruistic question again. To save millions of people in the past, would you risk the existence of millions of people in the future, one of whom is yourself, two of those are your parents, your grandparents, your brother or sister, your nephew or nieces, aunt and uncles, wife or girlfriend along with any children you may have. Are you willing to risk it all to change history?
Making a Conclusion
Everyone might make a different decision on what to do, some might do it and some might not. But I would like to watch that, a deep philosophical and scientific discussion on if they should use the time machine to change history or just witness it. That's what I would do. Solve all the ancient mystery's of the world; who built the pyramids, who was Jack the Ripper or who was the Zodiac, did O.J. really do it, who killed JFK, what happened at Roswell that night? I'm very curious to know the answers to a lot of murder mysteries and paranormal activity. But honestly I don't know if I could stomach it, because I couldn't intervene. The time traveling detective, kind of like the show Crime Traveller except he couldn't travel longer back than a week, but was also not allow to change the past in any way.
But I do know, I don' want to watch happy ending time travel anymore where people can alter the past or the future as much as they want without any consequences. And because the consequences could be too high for all of us; the born, unborn and the dead, no one should even be contemplating the idea of time travel and everyone who says they are a time traveller should be shunned as a liar.
I am usually opened minded about stuff like this, but for some reason I have had it with time travel, I just can't stand anymore time travel fluff and especially for something that can not possibly happen. Yes, it would be nice to go back and fix all the worlds woes, it really would, but living here in the present looking to the future we keep making the same mistakes, so why speculate about fixing the past when we need to be worrying about the future.
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Saturday, January 28, 2017
How to Think About Haiku
There are in great respects a lot of books about writing Haiku. Books that teach you the rules and requirements for writing such a short and sweet poem.
Rules such as:
Syllable construction - 5, 7, 5
Needed references - usually towards a time of year
And some other things I can't remember.
The Japanese have lots of rules for constructing a Haiku that need to be taken seriously if you intend to be taken seriously as a Haiku poet. Such as syllables, references and specific phrases. The good thing about the Japanese language it is easy to construct a Haiku in such a way, but what about the English language.
The best rule I ever read about the subject (in a book I can't remember at the moment and some terminology that I can't find on Google) was this:
Of the three lines - The first two lines should make a complete thought and the last two lines should make a complete thought.
The TV is on
In the afternoon
Always doing nothing
Line 1 and 2: The Tv is on in the afternoon
Line 2 and 3: In the afternoon always doing nothing
The three lines form a complete thought about what is happening, expressing something that I believe is true. Two of the most important aspects of any art form.
Professional poets and classically trained English teachers might disagree with my thesis, but I believe that we shouldn't be putting too much restrictions on creativity. Although Haiku is only a Haiku because of its distinct parameters otherwise it would be something else.
So go and Haiku my little monsters.
Rules such as:
Syllable construction - 5, 7, 5
Needed references - usually towards a time of year
And some other things I can't remember.
The Japanese have lots of rules for constructing a Haiku that need to be taken seriously if you intend to be taken seriously as a Haiku poet. Such as syllables, references and specific phrases. The good thing about the Japanese language it is easy to construct a Haiku in such a way, but what about the English language.
The best rule I ever read about the subject (in a book I can't remember at the moment and some terminology that I can't find on Google) was this:
Of the three lines - The first two lines should make a complete thought and the last two lines should make a complete thought.
The TV is on
In the afternoon
Always doing nothing
Line 1 and 2: The Tv is on in the afternoon
Line 2 and 3: In the afternoon always doing nothing
The three lines form a complete thought about what is happening, expressing something that I believe is true. Two of the most important aspects of any art form.
Professional poets and classically trained English teachers might disagree with my thesis, but I believe that we shouldn't be putting too much restrictions on creativity. Although Haiku is only a Haiku because of its distinct parameters otherwise it would be something else.
So go and Haiku my little monsters.
Friday, January 13, 2017
A Little Bit Genghis Khan
One of my current favorite songs is Genghis Khan by Miike Snow.
Their previous song Animal is also one of my favorite songs. But this video is also very funny and cool. But for some reason I don't want to share it on social media. Mostly because it has a somewhat homosexual love story in the James Bond inspired storyline. You know how people on the internet are, even people you know. Because I like creativity, dancing, catchy melodies, interesting plot twists and cool costume design this video makes me smile. And it has a cool cliffhanger.
Their previous song Animal is also one of my favorite songs. But this video is also very funny and cool. But for some reason I don't want to share it on social media. Mostly because it has a somewhat homosexual love story in the James Bond inspired storyline. You know how people on the internet are, even people you know. Because I like creativity, dancing, catchy melodies, interesting plot twists and cool costume design this video makes me smile. And it has a cool cliffhanger.
Monday, January 9, 2017
Hard Work Over Talent
A lot of people say, 'I wish I was just good at something.'
A person goes on stage and sings a beautiful song. People watch and when it's finished they say, 'That person has talent.' I don't say that. If a five year old does it, I do say that, and that person who is now an adult started off with talent, but talent alone did't put them on that stage, hard work put them on that stage.
The hours of practice that you didn't see, the hundreds even thousands of performances that you didn't see. The heartbreak, the pain, the rejection, the failures that all led up to that glorious moment on stage.
Some of us will never get there because they believe they don't have the talent. What you don't know is hard work can just be as good and better than talent. I don't believe you need talent at all to be honest. You just need to be brave, willing to put in the hard work everyday, be vulnerable and show it in a public space.
When you look at a piece of contemporary art that looks messy and effortless as if the artist put no thought into what-so-ever and your first thought is, 'my kid could draw that.' You should stop and remember that the person who did draw that was a kid once and they're bringing that experience with them. They also probably went to art school and drew thousands of pictures of hands, legs, arms, bodies, portraits, apples, rooms and whatever to the point where they made a decision, a choice to paint that particular work and paint another and another just like it.
Your kid drew a picture just like that because it is all they are capable of doing, right now. As they grow up they will improve and move forward. You should teach them the value of hard work over talent. Just because Tiger Woods picked up a golf club when he was three and won tournaments by the age of five that doesn't make his story the formula for being good at golf. Thousands of other kids picked up clubs and worked their fingers to the bone to be good and never amount to the level he has achieved.
It takes passion, it takes time. If you haven't become successful by the time your twenty-eight doesn't mean you should give up. Don't believe that you have to be young to be successful. All the 30 under 30 crap is just motivation for someone else. It's not for you or you should spin in a way that does motivate you and there's always something they did that you can learn from also.
Reading through some old notebooks from my days at the University of Akron, I came across a quote from one of my mentors at the time Michael Spiro. He said, "It's not magic, either you put in the time or you didn't." Meaning you either sat in the room by yourself for hours at a time putting in the hard work or you slacked off and didn't, no matter what art form of discipline you're working in.
Preparedness + Opportunity = Success
This is one of the principals of success I believe and it is true. You have to be prepared to earn success, that's not the hard part in my opinion, the hard part is the opportunity.
If you have a degree in history, but you have been designing your own video games and want to switch over to a career what do you do? Having knowledge of history would be great if the company was making a historical game, but without experience or a portfolio that shows off you skills then you are doomed to be overlooked again and again.
So maybe you should just make your own game and put on the App store for people to play for free.
If you share it with 100 people and they share it with 100 people and they share it with 100 people then eventually you will get to 10,000 and that is the magic number according to Seth Godin to have a substantial tribe. Then that tribe will want to have more and your next project you can sell to them and make a living, or get noticed and hired and make a living and do the things you love.
A person goes on stage and sings a beautiful song. People watch and when it's finished they say, 'That person has talent.' I don't say that. If a five year old does it, I do say that, and that person who is now an adult started off with talent, but talent alone did't put them on that stage, hard work put them on that stage.
The hours of practice that you didn't see, the hundreds even thousands of performances that you didn't see. The heartbreak, the pain, the rejection, the failures that all led up to that glorious moment on stage.
Some of us will never get there because they believe they don't have the talent. What you don't know is hard work can just be as good and better than talent. I don't believe you need talent at all to be honest. You just need to be brave, willing to put in the hard work everyday, be vulnerable and show it in a public space.
When you look at a piece of contemporary art that looks messy and effortless as if the artist put no thought into what-so-ever and your first thought is, 'my kid could draw that.' You should stop and remember that the person who did draw that was a kid once and they're bringing that experience with them. They also probably went to art school and drew thousands of pictures of hands, legs, arms, bodies, portraits, apples, rooms and whatever to the point where they made a decision, a choice to paint that particular work and paint another and another just like it.
Your kid drew a picture just like that because it is all they are capable of doing, right now. As they grow up they will improve and move forward. You should teach them the value of hard work over talent. Just because Tiger Woods picked up a golf club when he was three and won tournaments by the age of five that doesn't make his story the formula for being good at golf. Thousands of other kids picked up clubs and worked their fingers to the bone to be good and never amount to the level he has achieved.
It takes passion, it takes time. If you haven't become successful by the time your twenty-eight doesn't mean you should give up. Don't believe that you have to be young to be successful. All the 30 under 30 crap is just motivation for someone else. It's not for you or you should spin in a way that does motivate you and there's always something they did that you can learn from also.
Reading through some old notebooks from my days at the University of Akron, I came across a quote from one of my mentors at the time Michael Spiro. He said, "It's not magic, either you put in the time or you didn't." Meaning you either sat in the room by yourself for hours at a time putting in the hard work or you slacked off and didn't, no matter what art form of discipline you're working in.
Preparedness + Opportunity = Success
This is one of the principals of success I believe and it is true. You have to be prepared to earn success, that's not the hard part in my opinion, the hard part is the opportunity.
If you have a degree in history, but you have been designing your own video games and want to switch over to a career what do you do? Having knowledge of history would be great if the company was making a historical game, but without experience or a portfolio that shows off you skills then you are doomed to be overlooked again and again.
So maybe you should just make your own game and put on the App store for people to play for free.
If you share it with 100 people and they share it with 100 people and they share it with 100 people then eventually you will get to 10,000 and that is the magic number according to Seth Godin to have a substantial tribe. Then that tribe will want to have more and your next project you can sell to them and make a living, or get noticed and hired and make a living and do the things you love.
Friday, January 6, 2017
Learning to Write with Spec Scripts
If you're going to build a house, you should know what a house looks like, right?
If your going to write within a documented universe, then you should study the universe. I'm mostly talking about Spec script writing for a TV show, but should apply to anyone writing fan fiction.
'Why are you writing a Spec for on-air show?' You may ask, 'You should be working on original material.' You're right and I am, but the major network writing fellowship programs require a spec for a show currently on-air.
Luckily, I have some favorite shows that I am invested in and have some stories to tell within their universe. It used to be the standard in getting the job as a TV writer. Anyone who listens to Nerdist Writer's Panel have heard some of them from writers working today. One story I remember is from a lady, whose name I can't remember, getting a job with a spec script of Sex in the City.
Writing specs for current shows should be somewhat standard for learning to write a show. Why? Because it is a show that is on air, its on air for a reason. It's something you can watch and learn from, get the characters voices in your head and see how the story works in multiple episodes.
Then when writing something original, something personal, you would have a strong fundamental of writing characters, storylines, drama, action, jokes or whatever strange and surreal imagery that you may have swimming around that beautiful brain of yours.
Knowing what a script is will help you do all that, just like knowing what a house looks like will help you build one if that was something you needed to do.
If your going to write within a documented universe, then you should study the universe. I'm mostly talking about Spec script writing for a TV show, but should apply to anyone writing fan fiction.
'Why are you writing a Spec for on-air show?' You may ask, 'You should be working on original material.' You're right and I am, but the major network writing fellowship programs require a spec for a show currently on-air.
Luckily, I have some favorite shows that I am invested in and have some stories to tell within their universe. It used to be the standard in getting the job as a TV writer. Anyone who listens to Nerdist Writer's Panel have heard some of them from writers working today. One story I remember is from a lady, whose name I can't remember, getting a job with a spec script of Sex in the City.
Writing specs for current shows should be somewhat standard for learning to write a show. Why? Because it is a show that is on air, its on air for a reason. It's something you can watch and learn from, get the characters voices in your head and see how the story works in multiple episodes.
Then when writing something original, something personal, you would have a strong fundamental of writing characters, storylines, drama, action, jokes or whatever strange and surreal imagery that you may have swimming around that beautiful brain of yours.
Knowing what a script is will help you do all that, just like knowing what a house looks like will help you build one if that was something you needed to do.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)