Tag: overthinking

Anthro … What?

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 15 Comments

I hate being anthropomorphic.

No — that’s not a political state of mind, nor a medical condition. The word comes from Anthropomorphism. The attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities.

I am very anthropomorphic.

This is not to be a conversation/discussion of if and how animals think and feel. I will leave that to philosophers and researchers. 

I just hate feeling three-dimensional about animals. 

Most emotions are straight on. Agree, disagree. Understand, Don’t Understand. Understand yet don’t like, don’t understand.

Sifting through the emotions I feel when I see dead animals on the side of the road or in healthy zoo environments is not always an easy line for me to follow. 

I went to the zoo today with my family. The Zoo is a wonderfully clean and organized sanctuary for endangered and non-endangered animals. The animals have doctors, caretakers, chefs, and zoologists to take care of them — more than many of us have. If it were not for zoos many people would never know what some animals like rhinos or giraffes look like.

So I get it.

But when I look into the eyes of a gorilla or a seal I sometimes feel they are speaking to me. Talking to me.

And it creeps me out.

Thinking that orangutans are reading my mind or giraffes are asking to be set free in the wild is, for me, a step across the line. I mean, free the giraffes just to have them be eaten by lions or starve to death? Thinking the gorilla is wondering in human words “What are you looking at?” when he has no idea who or what ~I~ am, does nothing but arouse unneeded guilt, grief, and remorse in me. 

This cosmic picture is much bigger than I am.

I think this all goes back to the life and death and life-after-death thing. The one-minute-you’re-alive-the-next-minute-you’re-dead thing. I don’t deal well with that topic so I try to think about other things, which leads my wandering mind to think about others trying not to think about it either, including animals.

One reason I shouldn’t dwell on these things is that my mind is so convoluted when it comes to mixing reality and fantasy.

I’m glad I got to see the animals with my grandkids, and hope I instilled a respect and reverence in them for life in general and zoo animals in particular. Sometimes that’s all you can do.

Don’t overthink things. Don’t put your thoughts in someone else’s head.

Even if that head belongs to a giraffe.

 

 

Am I/I Am Overthinking

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 3 Comments

Sometimes I wonder just what kind of writer I am. I make myself laugh. In weird ways.

I’ve been writing all my life. I’ve written mostly fiction, although there have been a few non-fictions along the way. I have no problem inventing people, places, and situations in the fictional world. Even fiction in a non-fiction real world don’t hold me back.

Except this stupid novel I’m still trying to get off the ground.

I have actually started writing, having done a lot of basic research, and using everything from Google Maps to traveler’s websites to be as accurate as possible.

The story is fiction. About a non-fiction person. Me. Going on a vacation. Fiction. To a real place — Paris. Non-fiction. Visiting romantic restaurants and museums that really exist. Non-fiction. Running into manifestations of people who have passed on. Fiction.

In the past I have written about not being able to kill off people in my novels. I dunno — it’s just not me. Fine. Now I have to write a fiction book about things that never really happened as though they really did happen. But I want them to sound real.

Somewhere I’ve gotten lost between fiction and non-fiction.

I have no problem making things up if my work is considered fiction. The sky’s the limit. Right?

But when I really want to be as truthful as can be, I feel like I’m fibbing if I don’t exactly explain what this museum looks like or that restaurant feels like.

Why can’t I just pretend and be done with it?

Does it really matter in the story if Rue Saint-Guillaume actually intersects with Rue Perronet? I mean, I have one story about a woman being transported from Earth to a different part of the galaxy, for Pete’s Sake! Why does it matter if my character goes to a real live close restaurant or happens to walk a block or two to a place that, on a map, is three miles away?

I think I’ve got to get back to the basics of fiction vs non-fiction. That one is one and the other is another and you are either/or. That unless it’s 100% true it’s fiction. And no one cares.

As long as it’s readable and enjoyable, no one is going to care. After all, that’s how ~I~ read books. How do I know if the Barrymore Theater on Broadway is on 47th Street or 45th Street? Do I care, when the heroine is kidnapped by a Phantom of the Opera wannabe?

I know I overthink everything. I think many of you do, too. Not on purpose — it’s just that you want whatever you’re working on to be as perfect and “right” as it can be. Are you cheating on your stitching? Are you calling your work one thing when it technically should be something else?

Let it go. I have to just stop thinking and start writing. And you have to do the same thing. Stop overthinking everything. As long as you finish what you started, no one will know — or care.

And even if YOU do care, don’t. Don’t they say the best non-fiction is usually fiction anyhow?