Stories we tell ourselves

[sabrinamari]

I'm rereading a classic piece of science fiction from my childhood: Ender's Game.

Reading it, I realize why it had such a profound effect on me, and how it helped shape me while I was growing up. For those who haven't read it, Ender's Game is a classic work of outsider fiction. The story focuses on a boy who's taken away from his family---which, in itself is no picnic---and put in a continuously challenging set of circumstances that force him to shift, adapt and grow in order to survive.

It's a beautiful piece of work. Orson Scott Card captures perfectly the pain of Ender's isolation while fleshing out the depth of his attachment to the one bond that keeps him emotionally alive: his relationship to his sister Valentine. Despite the years he spends rising to the challenges of military school, he never loses his connection to her. I love the way Ender watches everything and everyone around him so carefully, enduring his torments in order to learn exactly what's needed to solve each strategic and relational puzzle presented to him.

Card clearly knows what it's like to move from a position of extreme isolation to one in which friendships are slowly created and powerful bonds are carefully formed. He also understands the benefits of suffering: the ways in which pain and loss can confer strength and the understanding that it is possible to survive and even thrive despite difficult external circumstances.

Though Ender's challenges were in some ways very different from my own, his experience of them wasn't. I recognized Ender's pain as my own, and sometimes I saw glimpses of my own strategy and resilience in his. I suspect that many of Card's readers felt the same way---after all, the book did win both a Nebula and a Hugo.

I wonder if my attachment to science fiction is partly about the way it so often takes the position of the outsider, the character who never feels at home in whatever world s/he currently faces. I am sure, though, that it's because the genre prizes resilient characters who understand that they always have to save themselves, that it's their job to give their lives meaning, and that the only secret worth knowing is that the ground is always shaky. Coincidentally, these are also among the core messages of Buddhism, a pragmatic philosophy that teaches one to relax into the knowledge that ground doesn't really exist.

As someone who craves solidity and loves all that grounds, it's especially important for me to remember the illusory nature of anchors.

***

A few days ago I was running on my elliptical and watching an episode of Buffy. It's Anne, the episode in which she runs away to a city where no one knows her. While she's there, she gets caught up in a series of mysterious disappearances (of course) and needs to step in and solve the puzzle.

What's important, though, is that she's continually contrasted with another character (Lily) who's depicted as sad, lonely, lost and weak: a nice girl who just can't seem to take care of herself. All through the episode, Lily leans on Buffy, who keeps trying to push Lily to take care of herself to no avail.

As the episode winds down, Buffy and Lily have fallen into another world: a work camp in which humans are forced to give up their identities and become worker drones for their alien captors. At one point, Buffy and Lily are standing in a line up while a mean-looking alien with a big club shouts out, "You are nobody!" As he faces each person, he demands, "Who are you?" When each luckless human answers with a name, he bashes them in the head. By the time he reaches Lily, she meekly answers, "No one". But of course, when he gets to Buffy, she answers, "I'm Buffy the vampire slayer," and knocks him right over. Turning to the others, she announces, "Anyone who's not having fun, follow me!" and leads them all towards the exit.

But that's not the part I like best.

While Buffy is formulating her plan, she asks Lily to help the others escape. Lily's afraid of the guards and doesn't think she can do it, but Buffy tells her she can and pushes her to go. Of course, Lily is captured by the leader and used to make Buffy put down her weapons. But the best part is this: it's not Buffy who saves the day.

The big bad alien is so confident that he shoves Lily away after Buffy puts down her axe. You get to watch while Lily slowly realizes that the bad guy is standing next to a ledge. You get to see her marshall up her courage and step behind him, pushing him right over that edge. I love her look of surprise as she realizes what she's done.

It's sweet, this little story of triumph.

It feels good to fill my mind with programming that tells me to believe in what I can do, instead of what I can't; in what I could be, instead of what I'm not. I love this genre and the lessons I take away from it.

Comments

[ixtli-awakening.livejournal.com]

i loved Ender's Game as a kid. must have read it a dozen times. then, in college last year, i saw it in the school library and couldn't resist. re-reading it, i found so much more in it as an adult. love it even more now.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

It's a powerful and complex book, with layers and layers of meaning. I too pulled a great deal more out of it when I reread it again yesterday afternoon.

[freefloat.livejournal.com]

Orson Scott Card wrote another book nearly as good: Ender's Shadow, I believe it's called. It follows the life story of one of the young shipmates (?) of Ender, a character who's really only peripherally mentioned in Ender's Game, but who turns out to have a fantastic amount of depth to himself as well. Not truly a sequel, the story's timeline kinda runs parallel to Ender's Game.

[eoma-p.livejournal.com]

It's about Bean, who is a very small character physically, but one of Ender's core group of comrades. Pretty neat book for anyone who hasn't read it.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

I think I'll read this one soon.

Memory lane stroll

[gwisteria.livejournal.com]

I never read science fiction at all till I was on my own. I never knew people who read them and most of my reading until I was 18 was borrowed books. I read alot of mythology and classics but it wasn't til I had access to bluestar trad mates books I read all 3 or 4 Enders series and stranger in a strang land all in the same month. All I can say is that all were of profound importance to what ideas catch my attention even today. Thanks I think I will go get Lu copies this weekend.

Re: Memory lane stroll

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

The world is full of an endless supply of people and situations with messages of "no, can't, stop and don't." Ah, and "unworthy"...especially "unworthy".

We can't avoid those messages entirely, but we can learn how to listen to them and more importantly, how to use them.

I think books, programs and even tossed off comments all get pulled inside of us and put through our most deeply placed filters, and whatever gets spit out is our view of reality.

Shaping those filters means co-creating the world in which we live---and *that* often determines happiness and openness to love and other good things.

One of the things I really like about my life is that I got a whole lot of experience in learning how to listen to "unworthy, no, can't, stop and don't" in the first few decades, and lots of practice learning how to hear those messages for my optimum benefit.

Reading was very helpful in this regard---I chose what I read carefully, and filled my mind with messages about being flexible, negotiating for what I need, exploring alternative pathways, shifting my approach as needed and sticking out serious challenges. This has served me well.

I learned that often, challenges are about as hard as you make them and there's never only one good answer to a problem. I learned that a shut pathway can often open unexpectedly, and that even the existence of a shut down path signals the possibility of others, just out of sight, that are just as good or maybe even better.

And if all else fails, naysayers are really, really good teachers. Their input is highly motivational---many of the great things I've accomplished have been spurred on by people close to me who've said I couldn't do them.

The best relationship I've ever experienced followed directly on the heels of the worst one. If you have the capacity to learn and stay flexible, monumental victories are the indirect results of serious disappointments.

And anything you can offer yourself and Lu to help grow this realization will be a beautiful investment.

My 2 cents, anyway.

[puckmls.livejournal.com]

I've never read "Ender's Game", and now I will HAVE to because of your post and the replies! (striking overly dramatic pose) ;-)

[spiffnolee.livejournal.com]

Ender's Game is still my favorite book.
Despite Card's politics, and his awful position on some issues, his writing speaks profoundly, and is a compelling argument for separating art and artist.

It's fascinating to see what you write about Ender, because of course I highlight different aspects of it, even while I recognize what you see.