If I could only live at the pitch that is near madness
When everything is as it was in my childhood
Violent, vivid, and of infinite possibility:
That the sun and the moon broke over my head.
--Richard Eberhart, 20th century American Poet
If Frodo doesn’t get that ring to Mount Doom, it will be the end of Middle-Earth!! If the X-Men don’t defeat Magneto, all Earth will be enslaved to his will!! If Picard doesn’t convince Q that mankind has value, he’ll destroy all humanity!! If the Doctor doesn’t stop Davros, all of space and time will cease to exist!!
The highest of high stakes usually drive the tales we love. Epic, heart-lifting stories demand epic settings--we don’t long for the telling of the stirring saga of the struggle of Nicholas, Son of David, to get his homework done on Tuesday night. You’d think the High-Stakes Story would become a dull cliche (And we can all think of the times we’ve groaned at things like Armageddon or risible Bond villain Max Zorin. What are we going to do tonight, Brain? The same thing we do every night, Pinky--try to take over the WORLD! Mine is an evil laugh!!), but apparently we have a boundless not only tolerance but appetite for life-or-death challenges.
Some of that appetite is physiological. Military personnel and journalists can come back from war zones turned into adrenaline/dopamine junkies. Our bodies put the high in “high stakes.” Physically, mentally, and emotionally, we feel good when we are pressured to respond to extremely demanding stimuli. And when those stimuli are fictional, we don’t even have the negative aspects of stress and anxiety to take the edge off--just the thrill of having saved the world! Call of Duty? Nazi Zombies? Oh, yeah!!
The real problem, though, is the problem of civilization. For many people, life is made up of two intractable situations: everyday life can be mastered, but the stakes are low (Nicholas is in fact going to get that homework done on Tuesday night. And Wednesday night. And Thursday night. And next week. And next year.) and humanity’s larger problems carry very high stakes, but they cannot be mastered (I personally can’t stop global warming. Or save the whales. Or end economic injustice. Or reform factory farming. Or stop human trafficking.). Both of these situations are depressing--the scope of our personal lives can seem small and tedious, and the gap between our understanding of vitally important crises and our ability to address them is anguishing. All of a sudden, hopping on a rocket and trying to deflect an asteroid before it hits the Earth looks like a relief--at last a problem I can solve! Yippee-kai-yay!
That said, I am not trying to dismiss the romance of Saving the Universe as escapism for people who are discouraged by reality. On the contrary, I think many of us would in fact be willing to walk into Mordor, and long for the chance to be that heroic, to show our quality. And, in our adult lives where heroism is so abstract and the colors are muted and the unicorns and glitter can be hard to find, tales where the stakes are no less than all of space and time let us become again our mad, mad child selves, burning in the fire of infinite possibility, with the sun and moon breaking over our heads.
“Hello! I’m Jane, and I’m a . . . fan.”
(Support Group : “Hello, Jane!”)
I’m not asking what’s going on with people who feel an icy shock when the Doctor realizes that he not only can’t save Pompeii but in fact must destroy it; who debate for hours how the Romulans’ concept of honor differs from the Klingons’; whose email password is ash_nazg; who really don’t mind when things don’t end as hoped because it’s so much fun to have a legit opportunity to put your hands on top of your head and say “Well, that went well!”; who know that hiding something with a Somebody Else’s Problem field actually works great in real life; whose circle of friends all call each other names from the X-Men, Organization XIII, ST:TNG, or Winnie-the-Pooh (and the names of course fit their personalities); who have a lararium set up to Neil Gaiman with offerings of lime and falafel; and who stay up nights trying to rework Blade Runner in light of the Three Laws of Robotics.
I do want to know what’s going on with the people who are too cool to be excited about any of that--or worse, too incurious. How can people not be fans? of something? The world is full of the fantastic artifacts of the human imagination--Lascaux, Asgard, the Nautilus, the Forest of Arden, Tales from the Crypt, Sir Lancelot, Totoro--bursting with every emotion, glimpses of the transcendent, great ethical quandaries, unspeakable epiphanies. What kind of a life does someone lead in which they either never encounter anything entrancing or don’t invest any emotional energy in it? Are there people whose lives are so complete that they don’t need Mal or Jean-Luc or Henry V? Who are so sure of reality that Ford Prefect and Alice have nothing to reveal about negotiating the chaos beneath? Who don’t want to run away to sea or hide in a blanket fort or fly out of their bedroom window or journey there and back again?
My life has been enriched beyond all measure by enlisting in Starfleet, stowing away on Serenity, fighting for Narnia, and training my mutant powers. I’ve put sarcastic Wonderlanders in their place, made a huge mess with paradoxical time travel, represented the human race to Martians with John Carter, and fought alongside three-thousand-year-old Elves. I’m also under contract to take over Transfigurations when McGonagall becomes school head. Not only has this meant getting to have many lives besides the one I was dealt, most especially it has meant getting to know wonderful, wonderful people. Most are fictional, some are authors, but making an emotional connection with Commander Data or Gandalf, Neil Gaiman or Douglas Adams, is a source of knowledge, insight, growth, and joy, and that is the real engine that turbocharges fandoms. Then, the connections spill over into real life, and we find our tribe, our karass (Thanks, Uncle Kurt--you’re on the list too) when someone spots our Wolverine spiral notebook or lights up when we pronounce something to be “Shiny!”
And lastly, what could be better that liking things? Be the person who is excited about stuff! The one who always looks like they were just told they were going to a party and there were going to be cupcakes! With sprinkles! Let’s see some enthusiasm for enthusiasm! Fun is good--more fun is better! (Name, rank, and mission? The Doctor . . . doctor . . . fun) One of the most appealing things about the Doctor, in fact, is that he always looks completely thrilled to be wherever and whenever and with whomever he is.
Yeah, I’m a fan. And I’m going to write about what I like and how I think it functions and what connects to what and what it all might mean. Look for fun-sized snack essays, not massive dissertations that no one wants to read. It’s going to be heavy on the Doctor, because that’s what’s on my mind right now, but I’m looking for themes and connections and emotional drivers and heading into a big, postmodern web of ideas. I read a lot, I use the interwebz, I watch things, I know some stuff, and I know I don’t know all the stuff and hope people will have some thoughts to share. Come with! This is the blog you’re looking for . . .
