The Big Pic

You sit down across the dinner table from your neighbor, friend, parent, child, or sibling. You're looking forward to a delicious meal. The lush scents from the kitchen whet your appetite while a top-notch bottle of wine stands uncorked and ready to pour. In a cooler nearby, an array of craft beer lies waiting in a bed of ice. Life doesn't get much better than this.

Then, perhaps because the assemblage has run out of bad jokes, pleasant trips to describe, or compliments on the host's recent redecorating, the lethal descriptors emerge: conservative or liberal, right or left wing, socialist, capitalist, libertarian. Say anything tinged with politics, economics, or religion; the evening loses its flavor and descends into shouting or surly silence. Too often we've learned to accept such results. But do we have to?

Let's consider the issue under a somewhat expanded concept of "genre." Each of the deadly conversation spoilers falls into a genre (or category) just as stories can. As with stories, the genres can divide into sub and sub-sub genres, probably ad-infinitum. Given the capacity of the human brain for division and fortification (once we've found or created a comfortable space, we often feel bound by duty and self-preservation to defend it), each genre (literary, social, economic, religious, or political) can provoke extreme reactions. Attack my fortress and I may defend it to the death of our dinner invites; I might even sell my home and leave the neighborhood unless you do so before me. I might move from city to suburb or the opposite. You might leave a red state for the apparent safety of a blue state only to discover that you and others like you have turned your new home purple (proving you were actually redder than you imagined).

Moreover, anyone who's been isolated by disability, pandemic, or war soon learns that a fortress can also be a prison. On a somewhat less grievous level, a talented, skilled writer can feel trapped in the safety and creative limits of a crisply defined and defended genre. So, how do we escape from our perceived safe havens (or genres) and the anxiety they can produce.

It's been my experience that nature--of which we toddling humans are, at best, a recently spawned and experimental sub-genre--often provides knowledge and understanding.

Let's look at the photo above, taken at Lassen Volcanic National Park in California.

The upper part of the shot shows a snow-capped mountain skirted by thick green forest and rising into an aqua-colored sky. On the left, below the forest, an area of shorter, lighter colored growth provides an elegant contrast to the darker green. Even within the shorter growth, the heights and colors vary. At least one tree, starkly white among its green neighbors, reminds us that even where life seems full, varied, and rampant, death, dying, and difference are unforgettable and essential elements of the whole. Rather than diminishing the entire picture, the dying, dead, or merely different tree makes the life around it appear more glorious and itself more exceptional.

The lower part of the photo is the lake's reflection of the scene above.The reflected sky is a deeper blue and the snow on the mountain is reduced to a few scattered patches. The colors of the forest and shrubs are slightly less intense, the shapes much fuzzier.

In the upper part of the picture, we might envision a white-haired, well-muscled fellow wearing a crisp, neatly shaved beard; a few strands of white add a touch of character. He's a handsome guy, aged just enough to be intriguing.

In the lower part of the shot, we find a guy upside down, mostly bald with a few wisps of white. His beard looks stringy and unkempt; the white strands look more like a milk stain than a hint of maturity.

Let's see what happens if we slice the photo at the water line and separate the parts:

Then eliminate the upper part:

And turn the remaining part 180 degrees:

I'm willing to bet that most viewers seeing only the upside-down bottom picture would assume that it's actually right-side up and the fuzzy trees are either accidentally or deliberately out of focus. Any way you slice it (pun intended), the picture conveys meaning.

Nonetheless, though each section of the original photo has value--even turned on its head--no section provides the complete impact of the original or the scenery that inspired it.

What does our little experiment demonstrate? Though a literary genre or sub-genre may produce beautiful, meaningful stories, its borders, if too strict, can be problematic. Until tested in the open field where all stories and techniques battle for attention, writers can hardly be sure which tools and tactics will work best for them. The same, I believe, can be said for readers. Likewise, opinions, political or otherwise, right, left, or center, should not be based only upon choruses of and documentation from the like-minded.

If you want your writing to impress me, show me you can step beyond the comfortable fortress of your genre. Demonstrate that even when you work within it, you command the variety of words, phrases, sentences, twists, and deeply faceted characters that not only invite me to dinner but keep me there through cake and coffee.

If you want me to listen to your opinions with a degree of interest, show me you've done the research that supports them and cite your sources precisely (no "they" said or "everyone" knows). Make sure your sources include those from beyond your fortress, even from the other side or sides of the battlefield. If you can demonstrate (again with specific, cited evidence) that only your side of the battle deserves the win, don't just say it; prove it!

What's the bottom line? Looking at half a picture may be fun, but, like eating only the lighter half of a chocolate and vanilla ice-cream cone, it leaves a good deal untasted--and untested.

Not sure which, if any, slice of a picture or bit of evidence is most reliable, which elements of what genre best serve your soul? When possible, seek out and cherish the original source. Re-read the first story that piqued your interest and figure out why. Take a trip to Lassen Volcanic National Park. See the mountain and the lake for yourself!

.