Okay! It's now time for a spot of metaphysics! I'll begin with the following. . .

"I believe that the Subconscious works from a position of Total Perspective."

Sure! --And I mean it in a very literal sense, too.

Right. Literal. Need a little more there, pal.

Hold tight. Ideas like this take some warming up to. . . Like, oh let's see. . . Okay! Got it. --For instance, the last book I bought had Heath's name penciled inside the front cover. A book entitled, The Shuttle. --It was one of those old hard cover books printed nearly a hundred years ago. It had a color plate of a beautiful woman pasted inset on the front cover, illuminated with decorative line-drawings of ivy and such. Right up my road. Cost me eight bucks and change at the local used book store. I had no idea who the author was or what the book was about. Books printed almost a hundred years ago don't come with sales copy and helpful descriptions on the back cover the way books do today. These days, very few modern writers interest me at all, and conversely I usually find myself disappointed and irritated by many of the so-called, 'classics'. As such, some time ago, I completely gave up on using the typical methods of finding books to read.

I work on whims these days. Or rather, on instinct. --Far more reliable than reading dust jackets and ad copy. (Dust jackets and ad copy can be relied upon to always give glowing self-reviews no matter how pedestrian the authorship happens to be. Waiting for dust-jacket honesty is like waiting for a fast food chain to run an ad telling us that their burgers are full of shit.) --As such, I especially like old books without descriptions or any indications of what the heck one is buying, and where I honestly have no idea what I'm getting into until I've read twenty pages in. And somewhat surprisingly, (or not depending on your view), I've been batting 1000 since I started reading books in such a manner, letting them find their way to me rather than forcing the issue. This particular instance happened to be one of the more resounding, where the perfect book picked out from all the hundreds in front of me was also the first my hand fell upon. --Well, it was the second, actually. The first one felt ugly and wrong, so I put it back immediately. But the second one my eye fell upon I knew the instant I saw its spine that it was the one I'd come to get. I pulled it off the shelf, gazed at the cool cover, flipped it open, and there was Heath's name written in broad pencil.

"B.P. Heath -1944"

Don't know who B.P. Heath was. Probably some fellow, from the look of the handwriting. Heath is a last name, after all. But that's not the point. It's about being aware of the hints and tips the Universe speaks to us in.

Oh yeah. The very first paragraph was cool, too. A real sledge-hammer. Hold on, I'll just key it in here. . .

"No man knew when the Shuttle began its slow and heavy weaving from shore to shore, that it was held and guided by the great hand of Fate. Fate alone saw the meaning of the web it wove, the might of it, and its place in the making of a world's history. Men thought but little of either web or weaving, calling them by other names and lighter ones, for the time unconscious of the strength of the thread thrown across thousands of miles of leaping, heaving, grey or blue ocean."

"No kidding? Well then!"

As it turns out, this book deals with and expounds upon very specifically a couple of very personal life issues I am directly working through at present. --As has every book I've picked up on instinct since I started reading in this manner. It's a very useful trick. Try it sometime.

Anyway, at this point I should probably write a few words about, 'Fate' before I go any further.

--As we all know, such a concept has a way of eliciting a great deal of strong emotion from a lot of people. For some, the concept brings a sense of comfort, assuring that things in life happen for a reason, while for other people Fate is a revolting idea which if taken to heart suggests that free choice and individualism mean exactly zero. Such debates can often devolve into a desperate battle where even the most intelligent people have lost their composure and wound up name-calling. Others actually feel shy and uncomfortable on a gut level when asked to even just consider such matters. A very touchy topic to say the least.

So I'll be brief. . .

I don't subscribe to either approach these days. --The best way I saw my favored version of it described was this. . , "Fate is like a broad highway. The traveler can veer left or right, making all manner of choices, experiencing all manner of things, but in the end will reach the same general destination and hit all the intended landmarks."

--As an addendum to that, I'd like to say this, "The more in tune you are with your pre-determined travel plans, the more smoothly the journey will go. The further off course you get, the more you dally and obsess over hiccups in the road, the more difficult the trip through life becomes."

Okay. Enough unprovable metaphysics, and back to. . , er, more unprovable metaphysics.

Where was I. . ?

Right. The Subconscious having a global view.

When I say that, I mean that the subconscious mind seems to be able to see the whole highway all at once. From Beginning to Destination, and all the important stops along the way. The number of times I have done or prepared or experienced things in the past which become directly applicable to future turns of event I could not have ever expected. . . Well, it happens all the time. Connections. In fact, here's another one for you. . . Quinton is the sort of character who unwittingly understands this aspect of reality and who uses it to his great advantage. I've been writing him this way for years. Long before I realized that there might actually be something to it.

And yes, I know all the counter-arguments. Self-delusion. Skeptic's Dictionary stuff. And that kind of thinking is fine, (even if the presenters of such arguments are often as deeply flawed in their logic and just as plainly biased as the very arguments they aim to combat), and to be perfectly fair, the Skeptic's approach is largely applicable in many cases. The human brain is without question infinitely able to fool itself into seeing all manner of things it wants to see but which aren't really there. Though, as I am fond of pointing out. . . Just because people are mistaken some, or even most of the time, it doesn't mean they are mistaken all of the time. To insist such a thing, by absolute neccessity, requires a strong degree of. . , --wait for it-- blind Faith.

But since that's only a stone's throw away from name-calling, (and sometimes even actual stone throwing!), I'll quickly get back to what I was saying. Especially now that the pot is sufficiently warmed up.

Here's the connection I just made an hour ago. Don't know why I didn't make it before.

Ten years ago, for some reason which I recall feeling uncertain about at the time but decided to go with anyway. . , when I first began writing T&K I set the story in the city of Oceansend with the aim of giving the audience an internal view of a once-happy and prosperous kingdom which was in the process of rotting from within. Specifically, Oceansend was in the process of being taken over by charismatic but very nasty people who managed to hypnotize the populace into going along with an evil, empire-building war waged upon the rest of the world.

Sound familiar?

Of course, direct and specific parallels are generally dangerous things to look for and I wouldn't recommend doing so. It's the overall effect which counts.

It happens to all the most tuned-in writers. Channeling stories from the subconscious. Read Bone again sometime to see what I mean. It struck me last year when I finally sat down and read through all of the TPB's Jeff Smith's people gave to me some years ago. (Of all the many, many respected cartoonists I've had the pleasure of meeting since beginning my own career in comics, I have never actually exchanged a single word with Jeff Smith, and also strangely enough, despite all the hundreds of comics I've read over the years, I'd only read about two or three scattered issues of his excellent work. Shame on me. But now I think it was probably quite deliberate in an unconscious sort of way.) Indeed, it soon struck me while finally reading Bone that Smith and I were writing a remarkably similar story in many fascinating regards. --Right down to sorceress-princesses living in the woods, sisters of vast power striving against one another, Dragons being ancient protectors of world order, and magical main characters of true-hearts who it turns out are not really the focus of the story but who have come to protect those who are. After I got to the part where Thorn started wearing the shadow's cloak over her eyes, I put the book down with a shiver and haven't read any further.

I know where Katara means to take things, and I mean to travel with her on that journey without Jeff's version of the story affecting my hand. (I also find it interesting to note that I don't actually own any of his books past that point. Convenient.)

Okay. Enough. That's a whole lot of metaphysics for one morning I think! I have a painting to finish, after all.

Cheers!

Mark Oakley

Jan 13th, 2004
Wolfville, Nova Scotia

(If you haven't been here in a few weeks, then you might want to check the News Archive. There have been several entries recently.)