CREATING THE WORLD OF 0W1 (PART THREE)

“Madness” (C) Geoff Hall, 2008. The Berlin Wall near the Topography of Terror Museum.

ASPIRATIONS

What should a writer aspire to? What is the measure of success, that they should be aiming for?

My aspirations with the 0w1 series of stories was driven by fear; the fear of blending in, of being seen as a writer of derivative fiction. Beyond fear, or maybe as a salve to it, my aspirations are: authenticity, to be accomplished and significant. These are my measures of success.

What are your aspirations as a writer? How do you see success? Do you have lucid dreams which are then crafted as your stories?

LUCID DREAMING COURSE

As you have probably read, 0w1 was inspired by a lucid dream. In trying to find out more about this phenomenon, I came across this online course on lucid dreaming, which I meant to start this year, but haven’t yet had the time to, here’s the link:

https://hemi-sync.com/product/lucid-dreaming-beginners-online-course/

But if you like the sound of this, please let me know how you get on and may it fuel your storytelling to.

COMMUNITY

To those three aspirations, I’d love to add another, namely; community. That readers of these books find a place here, to dwell, to share their personal stories, to feel a part of this ‘horizon of belonging’, to steal a phrase from Quantum Physics. This horizon is for people who feel disenfranchised by the politics of our day, or marginalised, disappointed, even alienated by the spiritual institutions.

In 0w1:believe we have a disparate group of friends who come together, through a common cause and their shared spiritual experiences. The common cause, is to subvert the power of an absolutist State; totalitarian in nature, but suffering from the same shortcomings of not being able to of their inability to control everything. - Here I was inspired by Baudrillard’s ‘cracks’ in ‘reality’ from his book ‘Simulacra and Simulation’. Simply as a metaphor and not follow the path of postmodernity. - Our Group of friends, where there to exploit those ‘cracks’ in the ‘vision space’.

This ‘space’ is not a cosy paradise-like realm, but somewhere which has a visceral quality; a sense of threat, foreboding and mystery, but also where their attributes such as Owl, Falcon, Eagle, shadow code and living images gave them the ability to confront this spiritual landscape head on.

NO ESCAPISM

It was important to me when writing this novel, that this element of the vision space was not divorced from their grey reality at the Saint George’s Project, in Bristol; a fantasy world where they could escape from that drab, cold and grey world, but from where they would have to return, to find that nothing had changed.

The vision space as personal fantasy or entertainment was not my resolve, for the attributes of each member are similar to those attributes of the saints and martyrs of Renaissance Art and are a means to identify the characters in the altarpieces as much as it is in the vision space. Most times the Group are transformed into their attributes when entering it, but not always, as I didn’t want to create rigid laws for this Universe and add predictability into this world.

I think it was the great Polish Director, Kieslowski, who said that you should set up rules for the universe you are creating and break them once. For in the breaking thereof, you create shock.

This realm was a means of confronting the dark Powers behind the State and also the State Church. Changes in this realm also had an effect on the political and spiritual ideologues in the absolutist State. This had to be the link between realms, this had to provide ‘skin in the game’ for The Group.

MATERIAL REALITY?

It also takes us away from the concept of life as being simply a ‘material reality’, a dour concept of life with a limiting view of the ‘here and now’ and nowhere else; albeit with the State attempting to manage a scarcity of resources in what is sadly called concrete reality. It does perhaps incite the understanding of this world as impregnable, unforgiving, unfeeling and industrial in its need to control, to order it.

Concrete reality, is what is left when ideologies focus on materialism, or the material condition of society and set out to socially engineer it by means of classes of people. In 0w1:believe, this is shown in the terms of The Group being drawn from the Menial Classes. Those whose education is limited to the age of 16, along with being told where to live and what job you would have after school is finished.

The horizon of belonging collapses and when there is no view of an horizon, no sense of aspiration, the psychology of the State is as the benevolent Master and maintainer of an oppressive environment, an atmosphere choked with political overreach and toxic pollutants.

This is a world-building project which was also influenced by my reading of Isaac Newton, who provides us with a worldviewish picture of the how the State sees itself as the Ultimate Reality, but in an Apocalyptic setting.

“The second beast which rose up out of the Earth…caused the earth and them which dwell therein, to worship the authority of the first Beast.” Isaac Newton, ‘Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of Saint John.

We have here a toxic apocalyptic atmosphere, in which the State is deified and a pledge of allegiance is demanded of its subjects.

COOKING BIG WORLD STORIES

Now, I’m not suggesting that the 0w1 series follows completely, the patterns and symbolic representations of the Apocalypse, but that the dish has certain spices added to it, namely an apocalyptic sprinkle of paprika and ginger.

There are certain conceptual motifs that appealed to me when writing the first book. In trying to create a wider world, for the following books, I drew from many diverse sources, including Oriental spirituality with Taoist and Shinto influences, along with Middle-Eastern Sufism, in the life and times of Jack, Shula and their friends.

This many-faceted influence allows for a BIG WORLD story to develop, not in a willy-nilly fashion; a pastiche of differing themes added for effect, but with systems and concepts that were consistent with the World of 0w1 as a dystopic State.

THE IDEOLOGY OF STATE

Strix and his friends are confronted with the ideology of a totalitarian State that considers its subjects as disposable.

They do not plan an ideological war against their oppressors, but seek to subvert its power, through being their bad conscience.

Consciousness isn’t an ideology, as ideologies are unconscious states of being - of humanity that has fallen into a void and cannot find the way out, for ideology is a spade and not a ladder.

“...the western world is brought to the brink of the void. The forces unleashed exhaust their fury in mutual destruction. Everything established is threatened with annihilation. This is not a crisis among other crises. It is a decisive struggle of the last days...The void towards which the West is drifting is not a natural end, the dying away and decline of a once flourishing history of nations...It is the supreme manifestation of all the powers which are opposed to [the Divine]...Its dominion is absolute. It is a creative void, which blows its anti-god’s breath into the nostrils of all that is established and awakens it to a false semblance of new life while sucking out from it, its proper essence.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ‘Ethics’, quoted in Stephen Williams, ‘In the Shadow of the Antichrist’.

Ideologies build walls and barbed-wire fences, to deal with the fear within and without the State. The State calls for it and the people pay for it with their lives. They are told that it’s for their protection from other corrupting influences - opposing ideologies - but some may say its to protect them from the truth. But, if you are inside of the wall, it probably feels like a prison, which shows the true nature of an ideology.

What comes afterwards? Memorials to those who were slaughtered by systems of suspicion and hate. If you have a choice, live outside of any such walls.

In the World of 0w1, what did this void give us, but a Corpocracy, a bland state of being, judged to be an advanced development of human thriving on the Earth. However, it is merely a transition and not a destination and the things held dear by the Masters and Subjects of this age of the 0w1, will be an embarrassment to their descendants. For brutalism’s other face is that of the self-satisfied privilege; an ostentation of the self as owner of all that they survey, when they are in fact tenants.

Jack and Shula know this and Strix will slowly become aware of it. He knows that he has a future and hope pulls him towards it.

MORE TO FOLLOW>>>>>>

Geoff Hall