#like telling a realistic down-to-earth story or story inspired by real history or related to folks

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

chinese guzhuang fashion

[phemonoi]

The Thing About Myths — A Rant

This is a very complex topic. It is a topic I personally hate, and a topic that represents a barrier in the community. It is irritating, but it is necessary we address it. 

Myths are interesting sources of inspiration. They are interesting types of literature and they are impactful in each culture, a big part of what makes a culture what it is. Myths come in many ways; they are narratives that can express any truth, idea, or value a certain society holds. And sometimes they tell us a great deal about the idiosyncrasy of a people, which is incredibly useful for historians and sociologists. Myths can also be fun, but sometimes they can become... a tedious topic. In a religious level, I have noticed, myths can be come a hindrance between the devotee and the divine. 

In our path, myths are an important part of the history of our practices. Sometimes myths tells us about the way ancestors related to divinity, and the type of relationship they had. However, I must draw a line between myth as a form of exposition, and myth as a form of “truth”, to put it in some way. 

Let me be more direct: people fear the Gods because of their myths. They resent the Gods because of their myths. They adore the Gods because of their myths. Or they outright disrespect the Gods, and their devotees, because of their myths. 

A thing must be established very clearly right now: myths are not truth. Paganism is not known for being part of a tradition of “revelation”. The stories and the narratives we tell about our Gods, are ours. They’re not theirs. Anyone can write or rewrite a myth, and that doesn’t mean the thing they’re telling is a revelation from the Muses or a truth about the Gods. Mostly myths come from oral traditions, and they are deeply ingrained within the cultures that birth them; they change and evolve, they get adapted, their meaning and significance often changes as well. Myths are more cultural phenomena than religious revelation. 

Let me put it another way. In our western cultural background, dominated by religions of revelation (the abrahamic tradition), we are accustomed to seeing people belonging to these religions argue about their beliefs in reference to their myths, or their books of revelations. We often see them quoting them, and retelling the stories told there with passion, taking them as guidelines in their relationship to the divine. This is completely fine for them because that’s part of their tradition; that’s their method, and it serves a purpose in their spiritual path. However, this does not happen in paganism. 

Pagan religions do not have a book of revelations. In antiquity, the people who believed to hold absolute knowledge of the divine and preached it based on myths were mostly considered charlatans, or not taken very seriously. This is because in antiquity philosophy had the dominance over religious studies, and the philosophies available at the time considered myths to hold hidden meanings about the nature of the Gods. For example, Plotinus argued that one must not take myths in a literal way, but read them carefully and think about them metaphorically so that one could unlock the full meaning of their symbols, which often led towards a kind of platonic conclusion. Sallustius (a philosopher from the tradition of Julian, allegedly Julian himself) talks of myths as being important to our relationship with the Gods, but he doesn’t talk about that as myths being revelations, or prompting us to take everything a myth says as truth about the Gods. Sallustius was very well aware of the bad reputation myths give the Gods. They are rapists, thieves, cheaters, liars, and they often act cruelly and violently. However, because we worship the Gods, and that means being devoted to them, and that requires some level of loyalty and disposition towards them, then we must interpret these conflicting stories as more meaningful than just superficially immoral. Thus, the conflicting actions of the Gods in myths have been regarded as symbols of deeper ideas even before Plato, and even by the Stoics, and the Pythagoreans, and the Aristotelians, and what more. Even the Orphics themselves didn’t regard their myths as literal truth: one of the things one learned when being initiated was the “actual” interpretation of the superficial myth, which was more symbolic.

So this is the thing. Myths can illustrate philosophical ideas if we consider looking at them under the surface. Myths can tell us about a people’s specific values and customs depending on history. Myths can be enjoyable and fun. However, myths shouldn’t pose a conflict in our worship. 

You can do as you please with myths. You can follow Plotinus’ advice and have them be symbolical. Or you can ignore them altogether, as I do (I acknowledge the importance of myth in the plotinian tradition, but I just find them entertaining and that’s it, I don’t have enough interest in them to study them further). Or, alright, you can believe the myths and the actions of the Gods there as true in the context of our path. But then... ask yourself one thing: why would you want to worship the Gods? If you take myths as a guiding tool in your practice, and you do believe Zeus is a rapist, and Athena is an unfair bitch, and Aphrodite is a vane whore, and anything else, then... what’s the point of you praying? What’s the point of you having an altar? What’s the point of you wanting to connect to the divine through the figures of these Gods?

I mean, okay, I concede you can avoid worshipping the deities that you find to be morally conflicting altogether. But trust me; you will find immoral stories about every deity. You say, “alright, I will avoid worshipping the rapist and instead worship Hades, who is not like Zeus.” Surprise. You will come accross a myth that tells something conflicting about Hades. I promise. I don’t know any (because as I said, I ignore myths), but I PROMISE there is one. And you then will have to go through the burden of reexamining your relationship with Hades, the ways in which you disaprove of his actions in said myth, and perhaps even come to end your worship. Is this the type of path you want to walk? A path of fearing the Gods, of avoiding them, of praying to them to “stay away” from you? Really? 

OR you could just acknowledge that myths are not real. They are fiction. The Gods never commit the actions told there. Zeus never came down to earth in the form of rain to get Danae pregnant. Hera never actually made Heracles’ life impossible because of jealousy and rage. Aphrodite and Persephone never actually fought over Adonis. Apollo never really killed Orion or stalked Daphne. It didn’t happen. It couldn’t have happened, realistically speaking. So why do you believe it? Why do you choose to fear these Gods? You could simply take a myth and say, “well... this is bad. This does not align with my moral values. Good thing this is just a story rewritten by Ovid and not actual record of the activity of the Gods”. 

Myths tells us more about ourselves than about the Gods. Do not put yourself in the burden of having to hate the Gods because of their actions in stories. Do not be so immature and absorbed by our culture’s arrogance and end up “cancelling” the Gods for things a man wrote 2000+ years ago based on traditional stories, thinking of poetry and art, and not of religion. 

Stop fearing Zeus. Stop fearing Apollo. Stop fearing Hera and Athena. These Gods are much more than just figures that perform the worst acts of humanity. Give yourself the chance to have meaningful and loving relationships with them, and let others have that as well. 

I hope this post serves its purpose. 

[justgottafinishthischapter]

Worldbuilding Tips: The Five Visitors

You’ve done it. You’ve come up with an idea for your fantasy world, but right now it’s mostly curb appeal and decorations without much else. So, you have the skin and flavor of your fictional world, but what if you’re having a bit of trouble coming up with the meat needed to make your world juicy and delicious? Well, I have a little game that can help flesh out your world.

Imagine a ship or whatever other kind of vehicle arriving on the shores or outskirts of your fantasy land and from that vehicle emerges 5 people from our own mundane world: a historian, an economist, an anthropologist, a diplomat, and a cartographer. There are some other visitors, but these are going to be the most universally beneficial.

The Historian:

This person is going to be interested in the backstory of your world. They don’t need to know every minuscule detail (though they wouldn’t turn that much information down) and just a general overview would be much obliged. Many fantasy worlds such as Tolkien’s Middle Earth and Martin’s Westeros are far more rich and interesting due to the amount of effort put into crafting their world’s histories. If you’re stumped, look to real world history for inspiration. It doesn’t even need to come from the middle ages so long as it works for your story. You should be able to answer questions like: How long has the dominant civilization been around? What are the biggest defining moments in your world’s history? What things are common knowledge that every child is expected to learn (such as George Washington being the first president of the USA) and which stuff is known more by historians and social studies teachers? And as you’re discussing the rest of the visitors, think back on how the answers you give would impact the historical aspect.

The Economist:

You don’t have to know the exact cost of every single thing in your world, but have a good guess. Be able to at least have a scale of price. If someone can buy a loaf of bread for 13 of your world’s currency, but a house costs 17, that would mean that either that bread is very expensive, that house is very cheap, or each unit of your currency is equal to a lot of real world money. Whatever you use to refer to your currency, keep not only price scaling in mind, but economics. If you have a port city, there’s going to be a lot of merchants in that area. The first primary export you’re likely to see in such a port town would be seafood, but also keep in mind the things that are closet to that port, as well as the climate. Greece for instance is a very rocky and mountainous country, so while they can grow crops, they would not have been any match for medieval French Aquitaine, the crown jewel of medieval farming territory. It’s also worth remembering that food in the middle ages was far more valuable than it is today. There was an old saying that wheat is worth its weight in gold. It was southern France’s bountiful soil that caused it to become one of the richest and most coveted territories in medieval Europe.  So, keep in mind where resources would come from and where they would need to go, as well as trade that would be useful. A seaside farming town might not have any good access to raw minerals, while a city in the frozen mountainous north might not be able to grow crops, but are bountiful in minerals. The correlation of supply and demand now opens a vital trade route between them. This becomes more complex when the topic of war comes into play. The kingdom that supplies your crops and food is at war with your oldest ally. Now there’s a dilemma between having enough food to feed your people, or betraying the trust of a long time friend. Now your world building can be used as a part of your drama and narrative tension. The economy also impacts culture. What is considered a display of wealth, or is a common status symbol? What are the living conditions of the poor, the working class, the rich, and the aristocrats? Is there upward mobility? In the middle ages, you were what you were for the most part, especially serfs: peasants tied to their land. It was illegal to leave your territory, but there was a saying in the middle ages that “city air makes you free” that once a serf made it to a city, they’d be free of the life they’ve escaped.

The Anthropologist:

Every society has a culture. The way they act, think, dress, believe, talk. It’s all impacted by culture. Beliefs tend to be tied either to what has come before, or based on the world as observed. While many modern fantasy pantheons are based on ancient Greece, it’s not the only model to live by. In a loose interpretation, religion in it’s earliest stages was a rudimentary science used to explain why things happened. A culture that developed along rivers, sea coasts, and other popular trade routes are far more likely to be diverse melting pots due to the frequent traffic of people coming and going, and the common sight of foreigners choosing to set down roots. Meanwhile, a more out of the way and isolated culture is far less likely to have widespread cultural diversity. Tying back into history, a country that has experienced a number of successful wars may tend to think of themselves as invincible, or may try to police the issues of other countries, assuming they’re always on the right side, or that they can’t be defeated. The same culture may ask a high price of any other culture that asks them for militaristic support. Ask what things your people value, be they material or abstract ideals. However, try to refrain from creating a Planet of Hats, a trope often seen in Star Trek and similar Sci-Fi shows and even some Fantasy stories where everyone of a single race all have mostly the same skills, interests, personalities, and roles in the global culture. This is also the time to start thinking about myths, legends, folk heroes, and historical people and events worth celebrating, as this may be when you start to craft holidays or celebrations. This could also lead into discussing religion, and the gods or lack there of that might be celebrated by your culture. How does your society reflect itself in art, music, literature, dance. Does the way someone dresses tell you something about their place in society? Some taboos come from simple logic. The reason it’s frowned upon to eat a cow in India is the same reason it’s immoral to eat horse in western culture. Both are beast of burden livestock worth a lot more alive than dead. Cows produce milk, a source of nutrients and health. Horses are strong and were used in just about everything from plowing fields to pulling entire families or communities a great distance. Horses even became status symbols, as even in modern culture, owning a horse or pony is still considered to be (largely) a snobby rich person thing. Understanding not only what your people believe, but even just a vague idea why they would believe it is a vital aspect.

The Diplomat:

As this landing party is your fantasy world’s first contact with our own reality. How would they react to the newcomers? If there’s more than one society in your world, how would each society, country, kingdom, race, etc. react to something completely foreign? Would they try to forge an alliance? Open trade negotiations? Declare war? Prepare a feast? How would they feel about the way we dress? act? talk? How would they react to different levels of progression in technology? Could an unbiased third party from our world help two feuding sides come to peace with one another? How would they feel about knowing of a world beyond their own? Are there actions or behaviors acceptable in our own society that are considered offensive to them?

The Cartographer:

Although it’s not necessary that all fantasy worlds have a fully designed map, it is a good idea to have at least a rough idea of where things are in relation to one another. This can tell you about climate, resources, wildlife, natural borders, natural disasters, food chains, and more. It’s worth at least taking a crash course in understanding how geographical biomes tend to be laid out in order to make your world feel more real. Some authors claim that a world map is the single most important feature, others say it’s not that important. Frankly, trust your gut based on the kind of world you have. You may need a map, you may not. It really depends on the size and scope of your world. For instance, with Disney’s

Zootopia

, the entire world doesn’t matter. The audience doesn’t need to know where in the world Zootopia is, or what climate or biome it’s in. Zootopia itself is the world being built, and the separate districts and biomes of the city explain the world that’s being focused on.

Secondary Visitors:

They may still be important to your world, but are less likely to be universally helpful to all people.

Biologist: if your world has creatures beyond those found in our real world, it may be worth exploring how their bodies work on a more scientific level in order to give more realistic weight to their supernatural abilities.

Linguist/Translator: If you feel compelled to come up with a language no matter how basic or complex, it may be worth while to consider the problems with communication. this may also extend to unique idioms, colloquialisms, and slang native to your fantasy world.

Teacher/Scholar: Regardless of whether or not there is a formal education system in place in your world, a teacher may be interested in how knowledge is passed down, and what information the culture might have that would be unknown to people of our world. Whether that’s how to keep a wild animal from charging you, to knowing how to forge a mineral that exists only in your world, being able to readily answer questions is generally considered to be a good thing.

Healer: There may be healing spells in your world, there may not, but most fantasy stories tend to involve either action or adventure, both of which tend to cause fights. And since fights tend to lead to injuries, it’s important to know what can and cannot be treated, and how readily available these healing abilities are to the public.

[revengeisalwaysanoption]

Skam Meeting @ Gaystatale - Part 2

In PART 1 I forgot to write that, when Pietro was asked how much of himself there is in Filippo he said that inevitabily, since he is part of LGBT portaying a gay man, there’s a bit of Pietro in Filippo.

Back to the where we left off:

- So basically the question was if Ludo thought Italy was ready for S2, and he said that yes of course, there have been LGBT characters even on Rai (Italy’s national broadcaster) 

- So Izzy (the girl interviewing Ludo and Pietro) praised how down to earth and real the language feels in Skam Italy. Ludovico was glowing as said it was the best praise he could get, because making his characters sound 17 and from Rome when he 35 and from Milan... Then he admitted that he got there, to deliver that ‘realism’ thanks to a long process that he and his crew have been taught by the Norwegian team, through interviews and meetings. Still, the realness has also been brought by the actors themselves who had room to improvise (and Bessegato downright refuses to write “ao’ “ and “daje” on his scripts) and showcased their talent (ALL of them). 

- For the Pride speech, since he is a straight man, he felt that the best solution was to simply translate from the Norwegian and then let Pietro act it out as he saw fit. 

- The only one for whom it is a bit different is Beatrice, because Sana is very far from who she is as a person, so she needs a bit more guidance and to stick to the script.

- A lot of the moments and quotes that we love the most are improvised, a part from “zozzoni” who came from Bessegato himself. 

- He concluded by saying “c��è tanto dei miei ragazzi in quello che sentite” awwwwww.... (”there a lot from/of my kids* in what you are hearing”)

*kids as in a gender neutral version of ‘guys & girls” *

- Then the clip with the Gay Test was shown, and he repeated what he had already said in Rome: he got a 2, so he had to take the test a couple of times to get a 0 and direct Fede to do the same.

- The clip was used to introduce a question about stereotypes and how much Bessegato felt the need to go against them and if he felt like he succeded.

He said that he felt like he did and it’s one of the aspects he is most careful about in Skam Italia (avoiding stereotypes) especially because all S3 by Julie Andem was about breaking the stereotypes concering two guys falling in love and how a gay guy is supposed to be.

That led him to the choice of having the coming out while the boys where playing FIFA, because it felt like the symbol of “a hetosexual friendship between two guys”... But he is aware that now and then “qualche cazzata l’avremo pure detta” (we probably ended up saying some bullshit). 

The stereotypes can be true, after all, but it’s important to show some other aspects of reality as well.

And of course Filippo (and Pietro) listen to Britney Spears ;D

- And that’s where Pietro added his bit about not fighting the stereotypes by marginalizing/hurting/insulting those who fit them. If the message you are trying to deliver is meaningful, you need to handle the way you communicate with great care or it will get lost.

A gay guy who is a effeminate or a lesbian who is a butch, for example, should be admired because they feel comfortable in their own skin and by the way who are we to judge others without knowing about their journey towards acceptance.

And what’s wrong by the way, about challenging some heteronormative macho behaviour (he used manspreading as an example: if one wants to be a decent human being and sit properly, he should, without worrying about not looking straight enough or something). No man really fits into the ‘alpha male’ stereotype, but straight men probably feel less bound to challenge it. And whilst his straight friend only cries when no one can see, in his own room, he feels free to do it in front of everyone, after spending two years crying his eyes out towards self-acceptance

- Bessegato knows how important it is for the audience to feel that the characters are relatable (then why doesn’t he get the need for rep? who knows) so, unless it’s a reality that he knows well by himself, he always speaks to people belonging to that community so that he can give a realistic picture. He referred to Sana again (which made us start wondering if he’s currently writing her season, huh ;) ?), saying how he is consulting with a Muslim friend of his.

- Pride clip, and Pietro underlined again how making it resonate so much as has been a team effort from everyone (writers, director, Federico, etc.)

- S2 has been written AFTER the 4th of March 2018, when we had the elections that would lead to the Salvini-Di Maio government. Izzy asked why they left Italian politics out of the show, he basically said it’s more important to show people something about worlds/realities they didn’t know about before, making them deep and meaniful so that people can empathize. He got loads of messages from people saying that thanks to Skam they had the courage to come out to their friends and family, that’s the kind of response he wishes for.

That’s what bringing politics into a series like Skam means to him: affect the society around you by showing and encouraging virtous behaviours (one of the reasons he decided not to change the coming out scene, though he was tempted too). Showing good people, instead of wasting time critizing the bad. 

“I want to inspire, not to destroy” . And by the way, having a character insulting Lega (Salvini’s party) doesn’t do any good: who was already against him will say ‘yeah, I think so too’ and who supports him will go like ‘oh great, now they’re insulting me’ and it will only serve to radicalize the latter.

Again he talked about Sana and how to show a true friendship between her and the girls can come to be is more important than giving a judgement about our current political situation (giving how islamophobic Italian society can be, I do agree with him that Sana’s season is going to be quite important for our country)

- Pietro stressed that in our society, the coming out IS a political act. Trans’ bodies are a political act. Our identities, our lives... Just telling our stories is  a revolutionary political act. Every day we do politics just by being true to ourselves, not choosing a way that would be more comfortable and reassuring. Which doesn’t mean you are an asshole for not coming out of the closet, though.

- I don’t really know why he digressed by complaining about how we insult him and the cast when the clips don’t come out or things were better in the og and such, but he did.

- By the way they had Filippo saying “fascisti di merda” because Rome has a big problem with neo-nazis from Casapound beating people up in Gay Street, it wasn’t a jab to the government itself.

- Effettivamente: it was really important and meaningful clip for him. He was tempted to give it a dramatic turn, with Giovanni not accepting Martino straight away. He said ‘you generally use this trick: I’m not mad about the matter itself, but about you not telling me: it’s Fiction 101.’ and that it’s the kind of conflict that would be resolved pretty soon.

(Personally: I said that when Yann went to Lucas and said “tell us what’s wrong or solve whatever it’s going on and then come back to us”  he gave me the vibe of someone who would make a coming out about themselves, not necessarily in a bad way, but more like ‘why haven’t you told me before, am I such a bad friend???’ and I could tell without watching the show, but just that one clip... because it’s the way storytelling works)

- He praised David for changing the scene. He personally hasn’t seen Skam France - all directors basically mind their own business and take care of their own remake - but he gets that after SkamOG and SkamIT it was wise to have changes and that if it worked for Yann as a character then why not? The fact that we were still talking about it on Monday afternoon meant David’s change wasn’t that bad after all, huh?

He couldn’t go through with his idea because it would have been OOC for Giovanni to react that way, given how Ludovico Tersigni fleshed him out through S1 and S2 up to this clip.

Moreover, he felt like ending ep 6 on a sad note after all that happened to Martino at the end of ep 5 and up to Effettivamente would be too much.

Like Nicholas in the bloopers he said “He saw Rocco kissing his girlfriend”, instead of ‘Niccolò’, which made us all laugh ;D

- He said that he wants every remake of S3 to be loved and appreciated, given how important it is, that we shouldn’t make it into a challenge. The Norwegian team gave them Skam so that the message of love and acceptance could reach as many people as possible and that’s what all the directors care about (they sometimes give each other advice). So he personally will never take part in any feud against and back up who disses other remakes.

- Pietro: “there isn’t a ‘right’ formula. Personally, I cried while watching this clip. I wasn’t there when they shoot it so I saw it when it came out, just like you. Because its message is about the importance of communicating: Martino gets into a fight when he doesn’t know how to express his emotions, or he can’t, but then he bravely takes that little step that opens new scenarios to him... So, do we want to tell people that they are allowed to come out to their best friend and that the worst it can happen it’s telling them to fuck off? That sometimes people, even those you would never expect to, when they see that there’s something deep there, there’s a history behind it and a feeling and when you can get those emotions across to the ones you’re speaking to, then maybe it won’t result in being beaten up?

- Then every reaction, even a negative one, is still meaningful: it gives me more info about the person I came out to. Communicating opens the door to emphathy, which is also the reason why Filippo doesn’t take it to heart when Martino says those things during the Pride clip, because he knows Martino is in the middle of his journey and sees the potential in it. It’s about showing the shades of emotions that can happen while interacting. 

- Ludovico said that we should be forgiving with Martino’s dad, since his reaction wasn’t that negative from an estranged father who doesn’t really communicate with his son. He said we shouldn’t stigmatize reactions that are not immediately 100% supportive and ideal.

Thanks Ludo, but no thanks. He might not be homophobic, but he still feel like an asshole to me.

- To him the crucial message of Skam is: people need people. Talk to them, you’ll find them more ready to listen than you’d expect. People are the solution, not the problem.

- Yes/No question to Pietro about Emma’s words to Martino in the last clip of episode 5... He said no, of course. People still care if you are gay in 2018/2019.

- How do they choose the music for Skam Italia? Well, it a lenghty and expensive (in terms of royalties) process and sometimes the songs we hear are not even their first choice but the 4th or 5th. Some of the proceedings became urban legends, like going to LA to get Britney’s approval to use one of her songs... Some are chosen by the music consultants, some are suggestions from Bessegato himself or the cast.

- Question about MI: he approached it with care, as Julie did in the original. He got some pointers from a psychiastrist on what he should modify to tell his story... He still ended up receiving a letter, recently, from an association of doctors who deal with these MI (he said ‘doctors’ not psychiatrists) telling him that he mixed elements from BPD and the bipolar disorder (and pointing out the inaccuracies of the OG as well, before someone uses this to diss on SkamiT) but that the end of the letter they thanked Skam because, apart from the inaccuracies it is good that someone talks about MIs a bit more in depth and that it doesn’t label people with MIs as ‘crazy’, people that you don’t wanna hang out with because they aren’t right in their heads but it’s rather a situation that can be dealt with, that can be managed and that have different levels of severity...

I also walked up to him later on to personally thank him about changing Nico’s MI, because after we discussed it and complained about the inaccuracies - he smiled when I said that - it led us all to get some more info and a deeper knowledge of BPD.

Okay, now that’s all X°D

[idolizerp]

LOADING INFORMATION ON MAYDAY’S LEAD VOCAL, LEAD DANCE LEE JUEUN...

IDOL DETAILS

STAGENAME: N/A CURRENT AGE: 21 DEBUT AGE: 20 TRAINEE SINCE AGE: 15 COMPANY: MSG SECONDARY SKILL: N/A

IDOL PROFILE

NICKNAME(S): juju INSPIRATION: watching artist perform on the music shows as a kid. SPECIAL TALENTS:

Can count backwards from 100 in under 90 seconds

She can fit an obscene number of cherries in her mouth at once.

NOTABLE FACTS:

she came in first at a track meet in middle school.

it’s known she was a terrible at studying while in school, she often comments that she had ‘okay’ grades.

growing up she was a huge Jubilee fan & she owns an autographed album from a contest her mom entered for her.

IDOL GOALS

SHORT-TERM GOALS:

Jueun’s short-term goals may seem like company talk but she genuinely wants to see their group grow in popularity the year after their debut. A large part of this is personal, she knows how hard she has worked and now finally having debuted she doesn’t ever want to go back to the days of auditions. Another aspect of it though is knowing the company’s expectations for the group.

LONG-TERM GOALS:

ueun’s long-term goal is to become a lasting figure in the entertainment industry. She wants to carve out a place for herself whether that’s as a host, on variety,  actress, or otherwise she isn’t too picky. Ideally she’d like to stay in the industry as a singer but if she’s honest with herself she isn’t quite so confident in her skills to see it as a viable option – at least on a soloist level.

IDOL IMAGE

The problem, or perhaps the benefit, of having past failures is that it gives an easy narrative to those who want to paint it. In Jueun’s case the company decided to take her audition failures – and eventual success – to shape a story for her persona. It’s no secret that the public likes someone who works hard, even suffers a bit before reaching their goal. It garners sympathy with the public and inspires them to root for their success. Everyone can relate to an underdog after all. At least that was what they hoped for Jueun. While it’s true that she did fail to proceed at auditions with two other companies it was decided that the story would be played up and exaggerated for sentimentality. With this backstory Jueun was given the story of someone who might not be the most talented or the most beautiful but someone who overcame failures to reach her dream.

To coincide with this Jueun is also given the image of the kind, reliable, down-to-earth friend, doubling down on being someone who the fans can connect with. To the fans she’s not an untouchable goddess, she’s a girl who’s just like them. Someone who you could see as your best friend or a person you could meet casually walking down the street. She’s a good listener and someone you could tell your problems to. She wasn’t the crush but she was the kind of person a fan could talk to for advice about their crush. When it comes to things like variety she isn’t the one who is going to be wacky or witty, she’s seen as the normal one.

This image trickles down to what the stylist give her and how she appears during social media interactions as well. In instagram lives she would be dressed casually as if she might have just been lazing about in her every day life before deciding she wanted to see the fans.

In truth there are nuggets of reality in her persona when compared to reality – Jueun does think of herself as hard-working and she isn’t terribly up-tight or difficult to be around. In fact she often accepts things too easily, especially if it’s what the company wants. It’s a bit ironic she is seen as someone who listens well given in reality she’s often the one going to her brother for advice.

One major difference between herself and her image is the bit of selfishness that lies in her and rears it’s head when no one is watching. She wants to succeed and be a lasting entertainer and can often get frustrated when faced with reality that it might not happen. In a way her desire to succeed is in conflict with her image; she doesn’t want to simply be the normal friend who gets looked over every time, she wants to leave an impression.

IDOL HISTORY

i.

Jueun was born into a very stable household. Happily married parents, an older brother, and eventually a younger sister. It was also a very practical household, her mother was a middle school teacher and her father an officer worker. They didn’t have an extravagant living but she also didn’t want for anything growing up either. It was in this typical family environment that little Jueun was allowed to dream. Born in 1998 she grew-up in the perfect time, at least by her standards.

The entertainment industry was changing, becoming a production larger than life, and it was all taking place before little, wide-eyed Jueun as she sat in front of the living room television. By the age of six she was begging her mom for lessons but vocal coaches and dancing lessons simply weren’t in the household budget. It was one or the other and she chose dance lessons – after all, she could always practice singing on her own. And for the longest time that was that. Jueun lived a fairly ordinary life. She would attend her dancing classes, which fortunately she had taken a shine to being at least above average for her age group, but things like school and Sunday service came first.

Contrary to what fairy tails her dream didn’t come after she started working towards it. It was a bit of a bitter reality, even at a young age. However one benefit of youth was that she was not fully soured by the bitterness and cynicism of the world just yet. And while her dream might seem unreachable with each passing day, she was still allowed the luxury of dreaming.

ii.

By the age of fifteen it was largely assumed that any notion of pursuing the dream of becoming an idol had faded away with age. At least that was the case as far as her parents were concerned. Sure she continued to take dance lessons and sang in her room when they were trying to watch the television but as far as they were concerned these things were merely hobbies. Not to mention that her failure to be noticed or recruited to this point, for them, was a sign that a future in that profession simply wasn’t realistic.

And if in that moment in time Jueun was being honest with herself she’d confess to having similar thoughts. Soon she’d have to start thinking about other careers and singing and dancing might just have to be a hobby. With that in mind she made to deal with herself, she’d try for the next year and if it didn’t get her anywhere then she’d accept reality.

To say the early returns were disappointing would be an understatement. her first audition she didn’t make it past the first cut and the entire time she could recall noting how disinterested the evaluator looked. it was disheartening, even a bit humiliating, and she couldn’t help but wonder if it also was a dose of reality. Despite that feeling she pushed on, determined to keep the promise she made to herself.

There was a sliver of hope the next time around. She received a second audition but was ultimately cut again. It was here that Jueun began to think she was setting her sights too high; she came from a normal family. They didn’t have the money and influence that surely other kids had. And while she was an above average dance and okay singer; she was far from a prodigy herself. Auditioning for companies like Midas and 99 Entertainment? After two failures she began to view those chooses as foolish and feelings of self-doubt bloomed from these episodes.

These two failures left a significant imprint on her. Jueun had never just been flat out told she wasn’t good enough. That isn’t to say she was cocky and arrogant about her skill, she new her deficiencies, a better label might have been naive. She thought if she worked hard enough her effort would show through and that would be enough.

To this day those failures have made her a bit more cautious and self-conscious.  

At the time though it was a conversation with her brother and his advice that led her to try another audition, this time at MSG Entertainment. In his words if she was going to strike out she might as well do so swinging. At the time she thought her brother, who played baseball, using that kind of metaphor was lame but it got the point across nonetheless. So she practiced, waiting for the next time the company held auditions.

The day of the auditions she would never forget. For starters she spent the morning sitting by the toilet. Her father said it was good that she was ‘puking her nerves out’. Somehow she didn’t see how that was a good thing, especially because when she arrived for her audition she felt even more nervous than when she woke up.

Throughout her audition she tried her best to ignore the nausea in her stomach. When it was over she felt like she had done her best but past disappointments kept her from getting her hopes up too high. Jueun wanted to believe that her hard-work would show through and count for something; after all it was what her parents had taught her growing up, but how had that worked for her in the past? Therefore it was understandable that she had cautious excitement when they contacted her for another tryout. And when she was accepted she was bursting with joy, naively believing the hard part of the process was done.

iii.

Initially after being accepted to the agency there was a period of serenity. The joy of sharing the news with her parents and closest friends; the elation at having taken the first real step to achieving that dream she had as a girl. For all intensive purposes this was were the happily ever after would begin in a storybook ending. However this period of elation was quickly met with a harsh reality. While being accepted as a trainee was a big step for her personally, she learned it was a small step in the grand scheme of debuting as an idol.

Until that point her only formal training had been in dance, and while she thought she was a good singer her audience had only been her mirror and family at holiday gatherings. As her training began under the company she quickly learned that simply being happy to have made it this far wasn’t enough. In a company like MSG the trainees she had lunch with on Monday could be gone after an evaluation on Tuesday, and often times were. This was perhaps one of the harder things for Jueun to adapt to. To begin with she already wasn’t someone who easily made close friends; so to have those that she did get close to and hoped to debut with be dropped that easily was a sobering experience for her throughout her trainee life, but especially early on.

For all the glitz and glamour that she had seen and admired on stage, the process to get there was equally as grueling and trying – perhaps even doubly so. And for Jueun, like many, she was training and practicing with no promise of debut, no promise that this would payoff in the way she wanted. With that in mind it was after two years of being a trainee when her first breaking moment hit. She had them before, minor ones, often brought on by exhaustion after a practice or frustration at herself for not progressing the way she wanted to; but this was the first time she felt like calling it quits - that she felt whatever payoff would come from this training simply wasn’t worth it.

She was well aware that even among her fellow trainees there were those that had been around longer than she had yet she couldn’t put that into perspective. Two grueling years as a trainee with no news of debut was hard to stomach when she had friends who she remembered auditioning with preparing for debut with other companies.

She remembered this time vividly, in part because she remembered getting mad at her brother for not taking her complaints on the matter seriously. Instead of sympathizing with her he told her that she wasn’t the only one going through struggles.

At the time her seventeen year old mind took it badly, as if he was belittling her hardships. It wouldn’t be until later that she truly gained perspective on his words. The fighting though, did prove to be cathartic for her. All the frustration and emotion that she wasn’t allowed to show in front of her trainers seemed to come out and, despite his words, her brother allowed himself to be her verbal punching bag. It was just the relationship they had. She shared a closeness with her brother despite him being five years older than her and in moments like these throughout her life he was there w- even if she didn’t always want to hear it.

From then on it was a routine, a draining and tedious routine that required all her efforts and then some, but Jueun pushed on. Saying goodbye to friends didn’t get any easier and seeing her fellow trainees excel didn’t help her own inferiority complex go away either. She merely did her best to compartmentalize those emotions, or at the very least she’d try to ignore them.  In a weird way it was funny, as the years went by her dream of debut seemed further away than before she was a trainee. Back then she was allowed time to sit and think about it; however during those years between school and practice there wasn’t much time to leave her head in the clouds.

iv.

The day she was told she would be apart of the debut group was a day Jueun would never forget. The words barely registered with her at the time, it was almost like an out of body experience. When she called her mom to tell her, Jueun could specifically remember how her hands were shaking while holding the phone. Everything she had wanted since she was a little girl was finally coming true: she was going to be an idol.

Like with everything in her journey so far, reality soon followed after the elation. Jueun wasn’t blind, she knew both the success and criticisms that came with the company’s senior groups. Even without receiving much, if any, information on what their debut concept and image would be at the time there was a clear sense of expectation from management that, if she was being honest, scared her.

What followed was a blur for her; the long practices and various training for debut was like a whirlwind and quite frankly like nothing she could have imagined. It was different than being a trainee yet challenging in it’s own right, maybe even more so, and there were days when she was just happy to keep her head on straight.

She was told about the image she would play, a persona of sorts, and trained on it without much input. A fact that she, perhaps naively, accepted without any complaints or suggestions. One thing that did become clear to her throughout their preparations was that she wasn’t particularly high on the metaphorical totem pole within the group. It was something she expected, after all she had a gauge of her own skills after training for five years, but it was still a fact that she struggled with internally despite the smile on her face.

v.

For Jueun, the debut stage was something she would never forget. The lead up was filled with nerves and worries and afterwards her heart felt as though it’d burst from her chest, but for those few minutes on stage she was allowed to revel in the realitt of having achieved her dream – or at least the first step of it.

Of course it isn’t all honey and roses; among the joy of having debut the knowledge that success is a requirement doesn’t simply fade away. Being self-aware that she might not be the fan favorite doesn’t simply disappear, in fact it becomes even more glaring at their first fan events. She’s not going to be the first choice by the company or the fans but she told herself she knew that already.

Jueun’s way of coping was to work more on her image, to become the best version of their Jueun so that they would like her. It might not be a healthy solution but she found it freeing as the year went by. It was something that was helped by the constant social media content that was being pushed out as well, it allowed her to get practice.  She started to think that if she wanted to be long for this industry, or at least try to improve her popularity, that trying to convince the company she would be good on a variety show or in a small role. However, thus far her efforts have proven fruitless. In her private moments it has bred quiet frustration and there are times when Jueun knows she’d accept whatever was offered to her. She does view it as somewhat selfish of her to want these individual activities and praise, even on a small scale, and she isn’t sure if she should feel shame about that.

With all that beneath the surface, in 2019 Jueun does genuinely want their group as a whole to become more popular this year. After all her biggest fear is falling short of company expectations and the idea of them cutting their losses. She’d do anything to prolong this dream and that, she doesn’t realize, is perhaps the most dangerous part of it all.

[lets-get-fictional]

Hello! So I was scouring the Internet for advice today but I couldn't find any on this topic. My problem isn't that I don't have any ideas (I probably have too many) but the problem is that I don't LOVE any of my ideas. I like them. I think they're all fine ideas. But liking them isn't going to motivate me long enough to finish a novel. How can I give my ideas that extra uumph to make me love them? How can I figure out what's missing or why I don't feel this way about any of my ideas?

Hello, nonny!  What a challenging question… This one’s been in my inbox a couple days, just because it’s such a bigquestion.  But I’ve thought it over and I think I have some ideas for you:)

The Thrill Is Gone – How to Find It Again

So generally, there’s no one answer orcure-all to this problem.  I’ve had this issue multiple times, withdifferent causes.  My first novel didn’t have enough meat to the plot; mysecond novel had been over-planned in my head to the point that it no longerexcited me.  My third novel had way too much plot, sothat by the time I got ¾ the way through, I’d written over 200K words andfelt sick of the idea.  I started my fourth novel way too soon, and am nowgoing back and planning it more!  So there are obviously many differentreasons that a story doesn’t take off (or dries up eventually).

The first step is to figure out what’s missing, like yousaid.  There are a few aspects of your story to assess…

1. Plot

I’m discussing plot first because, to me, it’s the most importantpart of fiction.  Plot, conflict, and stakes are foremost to my stories. You could have the most complex and sympathetic characters, but withoutplot, they’re static and become boring.  But for some reason, this is thepart of story ideas that new authors neglect most!

So if your story has great characters and an immersivesetting, but you can’t get into it, try asking a few questions about your plot:

What is the point of the plot?  What’s the message you’re conveying in the story?  Even if your story isn’t an allegory or a metaphor or the next Chronicles of Narnia, there should always be a conclusion to which all plots arrive – otherwise, the story can feel aimless.  The best way to find your message is to look at the conflicts involved (e.g. Man vs. Man, Man vs. Nature, etc.) and find the “winner”.  What worldview, belief, or concept “defeats” the other concepts?  It can be as simple as Good vs. Evil, or more complex, like Loving the Sincere Drug Addict vs. Settling for the Selfish Dentist (provokes the question “Is love worth danger in relationships?”).

Does the plot have ups and downs?  And really consider both ends of the spectrum here.  Stories become dull if they are made up of victory after victory – or if they’re made up of nothing but loss and tragedy.  No matter the genre, you have to strike some sort of balance, lest the story become predictable and emotionally non-engaging.  Find victories and failures, even in unassuming places, to keep readers invested and hopeful.

Do you have a satisfactory ending?  Or do you have the ending     planned yet?  I’ve found that I can’t really commit to an idea unless I see a resolution – otherwise I feel too nervous to start.  If you do have an ending planned, make sure it’s the right ending.  It can feel like there’s one possible conclusion, and once you’ve found it, you stick to it – but question it, brainstorm it.  It may not be a happy ending every time, but when you find the right one, you’ll know it.

Do you have the right plot at all?  Look at your story as a whole.  Does it start too early or too late, relative to the real meat,     the real action?  Is it told from the most impactful POV?  Does the plot cover too much ground for one book, or is it not enough to fill the pages?  Consider all the characters, backstories, and subplots you have, and ask yourself if any of them are more interesting than the main plot.  If so, shift your focus.  Use them instead.

2. Characters

Maybe it’s not your plot that’s going sideways.  Maybeyou have it all worked out – the head, the tail, the whole damn thing – butit still doesn’t feel right.  It doesn’t feel like it’s coming tolife, somehow.  It feels flat.

That can be a character problem.  It would be likesitting by the campfire and hearing the most fascinating, horrifying story,except it’s told by a man with The Most Boring Voice Who Talks So IncrediblySlowly and Takes All the Fun Out of Everything.  An example: TheHunger Games.  Those books bored the crap out of me. Unless someone was being killed or Haymitch and Effie were interacting, Ijust didn’t care.  And those books had a great plot behind them!

So here’s what you need for a good cast of characters:

A solid protagonist.  Solid = three-dimensional,empathetic, and relatable; having a goal, an internal conflict, a self-image,and fears or shame.  They should have different facets of themselves –their head and their heart, their desires and doubts, and that little voice intheir head that says, “Give up on that.  Be realistic.”  Givethem strengths, weaknesses, and a couple of bad habits, for kicks.

A variety of supporting characters.  You don’thave to have thirty characters + six secret characters stuffed under yourtrench coat; but with however many characters you have, make them as differentfrom each other as possible.  Give them some similarities, of course, sothat they can relate to each other – but never make them so close togetherthat you have to decide, “Who should say this line?  Character A orCharacter B?”  Make them unique enough that the words come out of their mouths,instead of you having to decide where to put the words, yourself.

Relationships, relationships, relationships.  AndI’m not talking about romantic relationships.  I mean, sure, those too –but there are many different kinds of relationships to explore. Friendships, enemy-ships (?), parent relationships, sibling-ships, silentalliances, “annoying friend-of-a-friend”-ships, “my-ex’s-little-sister”-ships, “you’re-the-ruler-of-the-galaxy-and-a-Sith-lord-but-also-my-dad-please-stop-being-evil”-ships… You get the idea.  Make them unique, make them strong, and allowthem to evolve over the course of the story.

Diverse morals, interests, and personalities. My first short stories focused on white middle-class people who were culturallyand politically identical.  They lived in one house, usually, and watchedthe same TV shows and made the same references.  They had the same senseof humor.  They rarely disagreed on anything that wasn’t clear-cut(e.g. “You drank the last Pepsi!”  “I was thirsty!”).  So doyourself a favor and don’t make my mistakes.  Give your characters uniqueethics, cultures, backgrounds, personalities, goals, appearances, andconflicts.  You’ll be more invested by then, I’m sure.

3. Setting

Lastly, I’d like to add that while your characters and plot could be well-developed, there’s always a chance that they’re placed in the wrong setting.  This is why many story ideas can seem great, but won’t get off the ground – maybe they’re set in a pre-made universe like Middle Earth or Panem when they could be their own story.  Maybe your tragic romance is set in the middle of apocalyptic war, when instead, it should be drained down to a period piece.  Maybe your story is perfect, except you’re writing it too close to home – in the real world, in the present year.  There are a million factors to picking the right setting, including:

Applicable history and culture.  If you’re writing a story about someone who’s oppressed, or someone who’s a politician, or someone who’s a witch, you’re going to need to back that up with history.  Develop a history for the oppression or politics or witchcraft – where these things began, how they developed over time – and a culture for them now – how oppressed people survive and how witches in your world interact, etc.

Imaginative scenery, influenced by the characters.  Even if your story takes place in New York City in 2017, allow your characters’ living spaces and workplaces to have a unique touch – colors and quirks that your readers can see in their mind.  If even you can’t see what you’re writing, inspiration is going to be difficult to find.

A lifelike background.  Just because the plot focuses on your characters does not mean everything going on behind it should be quiet and dead.  Anyone who looks out a window in a city building can see other people living – people on the highway will see other cars taking other people other places.  Everyone who has a friend will hear a little something about their friend’s siblings, their friend’s friends, their friend’s neighbors.  Life and stories exist outside of your plot; make sure you’re not writing about a ship in a bottle.

An aesthetic.  That sounds gross and teen-tumblr-y, but let me tell you personally: I don’t feel truly ready to write (and love) my story until I can hear the music for the future movie adaptation – until I can see the kind of clothes the people wear, the games they play, the places they eat and shop.  I think of the colors and themes in my scenes (e.g. my first novel was set primarily at night in a grunge/city setting; my current novel is very green and outdoorsy and gives me that feeling of bonfires just after sunset).  Once you get that “feeling” from your story, you’ll know it.

Anyway, this reply took me like three days to write because I really wanted to get into it.  I hope some of this helps you to fall in love with one of your ideas, so you can get started :)  If you have any more questions, be sure to send them in!

(I have 26 questions in the inbox, though, so be patient with me…)

If you need advice on writing, fanfiction, or NaNoWriMo, you should maybe ask me!

[justforbooks]

Obama’s Secret to Surviving the White House Years: Books

Not since Lincoln has there been a president as fundamentally shaped — in his life, convictions and outlook on the world — by reading and writing as Barack Obama.

Last Friday, seven days before his departure from the White House, Mr. Obama sat down in the Oval Office and talked about the indispensable role that books have played during his presidency and throughout his life — from his peripatetic and sometimes lonely boyhood, when “these worlds that were portable” provided companionship, to his youth when they helped him to figure out who he was, what he thought and what was important.

During his eight years in the White House — in a noisy era of information overload, extreme partisanship and knee-jerk reactions — books were a sustaining source of ideas and inspiration, and gave him a renewed appreciation for the complexities and ambiguities of the human condition.

“At a time when events move so quickly and so much information is transmitted,” he said, reading gave him the ability to occasionally “slow down and get perspective” and “the ability to get in somebody else’s shoes.” These two things, he added, “have been invaluable to me. Whether they’ve made me a better president I can’t say. But what I can say is that they have allowed me to sort of maintain my balance during the course of eight years, because this is a place that comes at you hard and fast and doesn’t let up.”

The writings of Lincoln, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, Mr. Obama found, were “particularly helpful” when “what you wanted was a sense of solidarity,” adding “during very difficult moments, this job can be very isolating.” “So sometimes you have to sort of hop across history to find folks who have been similarly feeling isolated, and that’s been useful.” There is a handwritten copy of the Gettysburg Address in the Lincoln Bedroom, and sometimes, in the evening, Mr. Obama says, he would wander over from his home office to read it.

Like Lincoln, Mr. Obama taught himself how to write, and for him, too, words became a way to define himself, and to communicate his ideas and ideals to the world. In fact, there is a clear, shining line connecting Lincoln and King, and President Obama. In speeches like the ones delivered in Charleston and Selma, he has followed in their footsteps, putting his mastery of language in the service of a sweeping historical vision, which, like theirs, situates our current struggles with race and injustice in a historical continuum that traces how far we’ve come and how far we have yet to go. It’s a vision of America as an unfinished project — a continuing, more-than-two-century journey to make the promises of the Declaration of Independence real for everyone — rooted both in Scripture and the possibility of redemption, and a more existential belief that we can continually remake ourselves. And it’s a vision shared by the civil rights movement, which overcame obstacle after obstacle, and persevered in the face of daunting odds.

Mr. Obama’s long view of history and the optimism (combined with a stirring reminder of the hard work required by democracy) that he articulated in his farewell speech last week are part of a hard-won faith, grounded in his reading, in his knowledge of history (and its unexpected zigs and zags), and his embrace of artists like Shakespeare who saw the human situation entire: its follies, cruelties and mad blunders, but also its resilience, decencies and acts of grace. The playwright’s tragedies, he says, have been “foundational for me in understanding how certain patterns repeat themselves and play themselves out between human beings.”

Context in Presidential Biographies

Presidential biographies also provided context, countering the tendency to think “that whatever’s going on right now is uniquely disastrous or amazing or difficult,” he said. “It just serves you well to think about Roosevelt trying to navigate through World War II.”

Even books initially picked up as escape reading like the Hugo Award-winning apocalyptic sci-fi epic “The Three-Body Problem” by the Chinese writer Liu Cixin, he said, could unexpectedly put things in perspective: “The scope of it was immense. So that was fun to read, partly because my day-to-day problems with Congress seem fairly petty — not something to worry about. Aliens are about to invade!”

In his searching 1995 book “Dreams From My Father,” Mr. Obama recalls how reading was a crucial tool in sorting out what he believed, dating back to his teenage years, when he immersed himself in works by Baldwin, Ellison, Hughes, Wright, DuBois and Malcolm X in an effort “to raise myself to be a black man in America.” Later, during his last two years in college, he spent a focused period of deep self-reflection and study, methodically reading philosophers from St. Augustine to Nietzsche, Emerson to Sartre to Niebuhr, to strip down and test his own beliefs.

To this day, reading has remained an essential part of his daily life. He recently gave his daughter Malia a Kindle filled with books he wanted to share with her (including “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” “The Golden Notebook” and “The Woman Warrior”). And most every night in the White House, he would read for an hour or so late at night — reading that was deep and ecumenical, ranging from contemporary literary fiction (the last novel he read was Colson Whitehead’s “The Underground Railroad”) to classic novels to groundbreaking works of nonfiction like Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking, Fast and Slow” and Elizabeth Kolbert’s “The Sixth Extinction.”

Such books were a way for the president to shift mental gears from the briefs and policy papers he studied during the day, a way “to get out of my own head,” a way to escape the White House bubble. Some novels helped him to better “imagine what’s going on in the lives of people” across the country — for instance, he found that Marilynne Robinson’s novels connected him emotionally to the people he was meeting in Iowa during the 2008 campaign, and to his own grandparents, who were from the Midwest, and the small town values of hard work and honesty and humility.

Other novels served as a kind of foil — something to argue with. V. S. Naipaul’s novel “A Bend in the River,” Mr. Obama recalls, “starts with the line ‘The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.’ And I always think about that line and I think about his novels when I’m thinking about the hardness of the world sometimes, particularly in foreign policy, and I resist and fight against sometimes that very cynical, more realistic view of the world. And yet, there are times where it feels as if that may be true.”

Writing was key to his thinking process, too: a tool for sorting through “a lot of crosscurrents in my own life — race, class, family. And I genuinely believe that it was part of the way in which I was able to integrate all these pieces of myself into something relatively whole.”

A Writer of Short Stories

Mr. Obama taught himself to write as a young man by keeping a journal and writing short stories when he was a community organizer in Chicago — working on them after he came home from work and drawing upon the stories of the people he met. Many of the tales were about older people, and were informed by a sense of disappointment and loss: “There is not a lot of Jack Kerouac open-road, young kid on the make discovering stuff,” he says. “It’s more melancholy and reflective.”

That experience underscored the power of empathy. An outsider himself — with a father from Kenya, who left when he was 2, and a mother from Kansas, who took him to live for a time in Indonesia — he could relate to many of the people he met in the churches and streets of Chicago, who felt dislocated by change and isolation, and he took to heart his boss’s observation that “the thing that brings people together to share the courage to take action on behalf of their lives is not just that they care about the same issues, it’s that they have shared stories.”

This lesson would become a cornerstone of the president’s vision of an America where shared concerns — simple dreams of a decent job, a secure future for one’s children — might bridge differences and divisions. After all, many people saw their own stories in his — an American story, as he said in his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention possible “in no other country on Earth.”

In today’s polarized environment, where the internet has let people increasingly retreat to their own silos (talking only to like-minded folks, who amplify their certainties and biases), the president sees novels and other art (like the musical “Hamilton”) as providing a kind of bridge that might span usual divides and “a reminder of the truths under the surface of what we argue about every day.”

He points out, for instance, that the fiction of Junot Díaz and Jhumpa Lahiri speaks “to a very particular contemporary immigration experience,” but at the same time tell stories about “longing for this better place but also feeling displaced” — a theme central to much of American literature, and not unlike books by Philip Roth and Saul Bellow that are “steeped with this sense of being an outsider, longing to get in, not sure what you’re giving up.”

Mr. Obama entered office as a writer, and he will soon return to a private life as a writer, planning to work on his memoirs, which will draw on journals he’s kept in the White House (“but not with the sort of discipline that I would have hoped for”). He has a writer’s sensibility — an ability to be in the moment while standing apart as an observer, a novelist’s eye and ear for detail, and a precise but elastic voice capable of moving easily between the lyrical and the vernacular and the profound.

He had lunch last week with five novelists he admires — Dave Eggers, Mr. Whitehead, Zadie Smith, Mr. Díaz and Barbara Kingsolver. He not only talked with them about the political and media landscape, but also talked shop, asking how their book tours were going and remarking that he likes to write first drafts, long hand, on yellow legal pads.

Mr. Obama says he is hoping to eventually use his presidential center website “to widen the audience for good books” — something he’s already done with regular lists of book recommendations — and then encourage a public “conversation about books.”

“At a time,” he says, “when so much of our politics is trying to manage this clash of cultures brought about by globalization and technology and migration, the role of stories to unify — as opposed to divide, to engage rather than to marginalize — is more important than ever.”

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com