Political Detour: The Two-Party System And You

That's right, kids, it's that time again. It's that special type of blog post where Matt looks at the country he's living in, and pukes in his mouth a little bit. You guessed it, it's another Political Detour...

So, everyone's all excited that the Republicans won every single one of the November elections. By "everyone", of course, I mean "not the Democrats". And by "won", of course, I mean "all the Republicans are acting like it's a done deal already even though a single vote has yet to be cast."

Ode to a Flying Horse

I was at work today, and I realized something: I'm part of something pretty special.
Let's rewind.

And A New Myth Of My Own.

Stories are alive. They display all of the characteristics. They are born as a sinlge thought, a spark of inspiration, a word on a page, a glance from a stranger. A moment that makes the storyteller think, "what if...?"
Then it grows. It gains complexity and new characteristics. It becomes a dynamic thing, ever-changing and re-defining itself. It's forming itself into the mature thing that it was always meant to be.
It grows, molds, changes, stretches, refines, bends, twists, flows, compresses, morphs, and becomes.
Like a human from a tiny embryo, the story no longer looks anything like it once did. It has been raised and nurtured into something entirely new, yet completely the same. It's ready to be set free into the world, fully matured, and ready to change other people's lives.
And so, it is let out onto the page, the stage, the screen, the instrument. It's no longer something that belongs to the storyteller. This living thing now belongs to the world, for beauty belongs only to the eye of the beholder, and all of the world is the witness.
The story lives and breaths, even as it has matured and been set free, it is still changing. Everyone that the story meets perceives it in a new and wholly unique and exciting way.
And the story never dies. While it may be forgotten, it is not dead, for at anytime, it may meet someone new who re-invigorates the story with new purpose.
One's life is finite, but one's story is immortal.

This is not how the world ends...

I stand here, within the walls of a shrine dedicated to stories, and feel completely at home. Images of timeless heroes and villains, gods and monsters, symbols and icons adorn the walls. Millions of ideas flow from the shelves in the form of words.
I'm at work. I work at Pegasus Books of Bend, a comic and bookstore in downtown Bend. No one is in the store, nor has there been for a few minutes. And yet I'm not bored. I always find something new in here to be fascinated by. I wish more people would realize that this store and others like it aren't just havens for nerds. This store contains entire worlds and universes within its pages. The imaginations and minds of countless people are captured in here. You could learn a lot about how the way people think in here, and the way that has changed over time. This is stuff you don't get in history books. Fiction teaches you the important stuff. Think about it. In school, when you learn about the Victorian era or the post-modern era in school, what class do you learn about it in? English. While you might get big political events in "history," you get what was happening with the real people in the stories they tell.
Want to understand your world?
Read a book.