The nameless driver
The nameless driver
On how the ones driving this vehicle never see that the wheel they are holding is a toy. While seriously busy turning and stepping on the brakes, all they do is steer what will appear on the screen.
Like kids fighting over who gets to sit in the driver seat. Their hands white knuckled from squeezing the bright plastic circle. Others shouting instructions, trying to interfere with the reckless driving. They all want to be the wonderful wizard. It would be funny to watch. If the kids weren’t so smart. They hooked up the actual car, replaced the windshield with a big 4k curved screen and connected the electronics to the engine, and the wheels, and the ignition. Frantically working, cooperating, hiring the best to integrate every system. The vehicle game has become totally exhilarating since. Now we’re moving, they cry out, now it gets real! Now you can properly feel the bumps in the road! Let’s put the pedal to the metal and replace the combustion with a brushless. We are almost there!
Except for the screen. It is an integral part of the toy. It can’t go. It has to stay in place.
I have a metaphoric mind. You probably have too. There is a good chance it got buried along the way. It still lies underneath, breathing, waiting.
That faint whisper you sometimes pickup, the inexplicable inner noise, the mumbling of unnameable feelings that if followed gets you into trouble, distracts, leads you astray. The undercurrent that must be resisted to not be swept off your feet and dragged along and pulled beneath the surface. The deviation getting you off track and into regions unfamiliar.
There are measures that keep you safe from this lurking unknown. Positive thoughts, always positive, that swear off these ‘biases’. Attention to detail for example. Good habits is another great help. Order, cleanliness, precision must be on the list. And properly naming things. Using correct language that avoids ambiguity. And knowing the right answers is crucially important to hush that nagging noise in the underbelly. Keeping yourself busy. Sticking to the plan. Making decisions. Fold and iron the laundry. Only pay attention to the important things. Have it all sorted out. Oh, and do away with the negative people.
Is your metaphoric core protesting yet? Has it woken up at some of these familiar remarks? Are those fluffy inner ears upright by now? Good. Now we can slow down. Because that’s the sentiment you probably felt. Something like hold on..., wait a minute....
Did you feel like pulling the brakes, or at least considering shattering the glass to stop that train?
Can I explain what I mean with that phrase, metaphoric mind? Hardly, not if you want a definition. But if you’ll let me I will try and show. Not tell. Telling, strangely enough is not part of it. Telling is what appears on the screen, is what the printer prints, the action that the device exhibits. To show you how it does that, what it does to be able to do that is much more difficult. And despite the machine analogy it is not a machine we are dealing with. Not any way near as simple as a computer, a printer, a drill or an engine. You can look up the meaning of a word in some dictionary and it tells you the meaning. It takes a lot longer to really know. The word must be connected to the actual thing it points at. That shows you the meaning and then it becomes available, part of your toolset to communicate.
It does drive you. Wether you accept that or not. Despite the layers of denial, your mind functions at its core through metaphor. There’s good reason for that because we live in a place riddled with patterns, similarities, symmetries, mirroring, echoes, families, groupings, connected opposites, resonance. It is one big metaphor. Anything nameable has a billion invisible threads to other things that in turn have the same amount of vibrating connections. Everything is like everything else. It behaves like, sounds like, feels like. Not as some grey soup of sameness but highly specific. It sings with a very clear frequency that is picked up through the entire fabric. There are many frequencies. No number. It is analog. Infinite highs, infinite lows, creating an even bigger pile of interferences, of tensions and intervals. And it is all responsive. Trying to align, to escape, to attract and push away. It’s a mess. It is infinitely metaphoric.
Language acquires depth through metaphors, without it just points at separate things. If they do not reflect connectedness words loose all meaning.
We try. Our being tries. Does a pretty good job if we let it. It dances along fine in the apparent chaos of the big party. If it can hear the music of it all. Can you still?
Listening for the metaphors, looking out for the patterns of binding is a lifetime activity. And like what is printed it can take many, many forms. As long as the driver is allowed to do its job.
You could give that driver a name. You could find a workable image. You could write books, make paintings, compose music to represent the driver. To make it visible, bring it to the surface, to provide evidence. You could also just accept it is you. Simply you. The limitless you, without the physical restrictions, without the layers of inhibitions, the you without the clothes, the car, the friends, the gadgets, the problems, the questions, the answers. Without the likes and dislikes.
The strange thing is, the more you take away these defining features, the bigger you become. The expanse of you always embraces the specifics. The metaphoric mind lies very near the entrance point of the umbilical cord where the tiny you is connected with all else. It recognises the hands in your hands. It sees the child in the child. It knows the tree is not just the tree. It feels the wind for what it is. Is aware of the ancestors in the soil. The closeness of the stars. The endless travel needed to reach your love. If you need a container, that’s the one.
You have a metaphoric mind too. Allow it to speak. It has your voice. The nameless driver has your hands and feet and wings. That’s the vehicle you drive. It is untouchable and has the widest range. No need for a screen.
Although these first essays are mostly speculative wandering thinkpieces my love lies with fiction. I write longform. I am a serial writer.
Writing the big story allows me to take many perspectives, to use lots of different voices, to exceed the physical limitations of time and space. I go against the trend of pretending to tell the truth. Facts have no business in fiction. They become props as soon as they enter. Fiction has business in the real though. Storytelling, conjuring up a fictional report of the factual world, has a deep function. Besides its entertaining nature, the use as a vehicle for knowledge and as a form of bookkeeping, it has an essential quality often overlooked. It is very likely you read and hear more fiction than you are aware of.
I think deep down we still feel this when a story starts with the words: this is a true story. It should bring a smile to your face. Way too often it no longer does. Many tales are brought in all seriousness as fact, as this is what happened, as I am telling you how it is.
Stories are lies. And that is what they are supposed to be. Fabricating a version of what happened, is going to happen or could happen is the whole point. It gives agency to alter the facts. To rise above and see beyond. And more importantly, fiction gives us a means to live through many things without the actual risks, costs, consequences and results. What an amazing tool. Fast driving without the fatal crash.
A thought experiment told out loud brings the additional benefit of response. Of reflection. Of counter stories. A story is a meta-conversation. It is a song in essence. A song is not a vehicle of facts. It is capable of transporting, elevating, burying truths. It does so by faking it. By pretence. By imitating voices and places and processes. Story is the metaphor.
Please, next time you hear some teller claim truth in their tale, smile and nod. And know there goes another pretender.
From September on I will publish a chapter a week of a long form story. A true story in the sense that it never claims to be real. It does tell a few things by showing.
The title is abstract: TCOTNK
The narrative is not.
A stubborn girl leaves home, breaking loose from a life unfit. Cutting the faulty cable. Seeking the freedom to be who she is. What she finds are unbreakable bonds.
I hate how movies and books have picked up the habit of telling you in detail what it’s about in advance to sell you the product. The pitch. The packaging. The teaser.
I am not going to do that. I will just say this, it reaches for the heart. This story tells you why we have gathered round the fire to tell stories since the dawn of times and how this is being erased. The girl is about to find out what it takes to claim that back. Uncanny how it resembles what is happening for real.
Subscribe if you long to be part of her gathering.
September the third...
If you want to read more about what lead to this novel, and a bit of background read:
Haha I can see why you like my ‘surveillance capitalism’ type sentences. I used to be bothered because my dream language was so abstract it didn’t really have formed characters, like it already knew ‘this is a symbolic dance and we will cut to essences’ and I was like ‘but how come other people get to have faces and plot lines in their dreams?’ And when I asked for these, slowly the subconscious has decided to play along and it’s very sweet of it to throw a girl a bone now and then.