Today you get to peek inside my brain! …okay this isn’t a picture of MY brain, just A brain. I don’t have a photo of my brain laying around.
As long time readers of this blog may know, it is a bit of a strange mash up. I go from writing about spirituality to brutal serial killers to strange psychological diseases. The genres that chose me might seem no less strange to an outsider looking in. In college I majored in biology, and I love all the sciences; they have a huge influence on how I think, and I believe they are very important to our collective welfare as a species. While I am open to the paranormal, and enjoy writing about it, I do not actively believe in it. Put short, I’m a very rational person (sometimes too much so!). On the other side of the coin, I am a very spiritual person. I am a practicing Buddhist, and I believe in peace, love, and kindness. While I do have a temper, I have never been in a physical fight and I would never deliberately harm someone with my words or actions. But yet I turn around and write about gruesome killers and monsters and battles.
Now, all of that might seem contradictory. And it is, to some extent. At the very least, it is unconventional. I was musing over this topic the other day and came to a couple of conclusions. One reason I write what I do is because I’ve always had morbid fascinations. Ever since I was a kid I’ve been into this stuff. A second is that it acts as kind of a release valve, a way to express more negative emotions in a safe way. But the primary reason I write what I do is the personal quality that led me to both science and Buddhism: curiosity.
I am an avid learner. I want to know as much as I can about this crazy world before I leave it. How we got here, why we are here, and why things are the way they are. Spirituality and science are two ways of knowing that, contrary to popular belief, do not have to be mutually exclusive. One explains why, the other how. You can do both at once–I am living proof of that.
But while that might explain the content of my blog, you might be asking how curiosity has anything to do with writing horror and fantasy. That is because curiosity comes hand in hand with another quality: imagination. The two are inseparable because curiosity inevitably leads you to ask questions about the world around you, and to question in the first place takes imagination. But eventually it takes you further than that–you begin to ask not about what is, but what could be. Could there really be a world where humans can fling fireballs and dragons take wing? If so, what would that be like? Or, what if ghosts were really real? What would be the implications? What if corpses could walk again?
With a head full of questions like that, the next natural progression is to go about answering them. For me that was a combination of reading stories in the fantasy and horror genres, and of course writing my own stories. Really, writing fiction is an act of discovery, another way that the human mind strives to understand both the world without and the world within. Careful though. This way, there be monsters.
As a Christian I have also gone through some of these same thought processes since I write about Serial Killers. I tend to look at it as a way to showcase hope. Hope burnes the brightest when it’s the darkest. :-)
Interesting perspective! For me, they’re just a part of life, if an ugly one. We need to embrace reality as it is, good bad and ugly, to function in this crazy world of ours, haha
I find writing horror cathartic. It releases the darker elements festering inside much as a valve releases steam. It also gives me a better outlook on the world, because it reminds me that there are considerably worse things in the world than whatever I am experiencing at the moment. Writing horror makes me realize just how good my life is. I believe strongly in certain philosophical principles of Taoism, particularly about how balance in life must be maintained. If writing horror does not help me find the balance between the good of my life and the evil of the rest of the world, then it helps me at least recognize it. Though I must admit, that there are times that the horror I dream up is so very dark that it scares even me. At those times, I put away the horror and relish the beauty of life.
Horror writing is indeed very cathartic. I agree that the darker impulses need to be indulged in a safe way now and then. I think that is part of why the zombie genre is so popular nowadays, especially in video games–it’s guilt free cathartic devastation. And you are definitely right that sometimes you need to shut the monsters back into their cages and take a walk in the daylight sometimes.
I enjoyed this post. I also have wondered why or how I or anyone can be interested in such morbid and sometimes vicious things. I came to similar conclusions in terms of it being a release valve and cathartic. According to Jung, we all have a Shadow side and it’s better we release it in a creative action like writing rather than harming someone. Also we are naturally drawn to the extreme because they are unknowns and we humans can’t resist a puzzle or a question without an answer.
Keep bringing the interesting content!
I hadn’t thought of things according to Jung, but that makes a lot of sense. It’s much healthier to just admit we have a dark side and manage it, rather than repress it. That’s why people who are in horror tend to be very compassionate, kind people. They have seen the monster, and it is us, as it were.