Hey Chuck, I forgot to say thanks!

I started this blog two Saturdays ago during my Statistics class but school work got in the way and I wasn’t able to finish even half of it. 

However, I want to talk briefly about my favorite author, Chuck Palahniuk. (Agatha Christie used to be my top 1 but then there came Chuck.) He’s a brilliant man, no doubt. But what stirs my curiosity about him is not the brilliance of his works but the reason behind that brilliance. Pure talent? Sure, he has that but it’s not the sole reason. I told myself, “There’s got to be something more”.

This is when I started to read several biographies of him. And found out exactly what my mind was leading me to and what my hunches have been telling me all along—a tragic back story. That’s the reason. He’s the product of the worst forms of both life and reality. His grandfather (paternal side) shot himself after shooting his grandmother. His parents got separated when he was fourteen. His father was killed by a jealous ex of a woman he was dating. It all seemed unreal, fabricated in a way but when I look at his works, the dark beauty of his pieces justifies the story of his life and vice versa. That back story, that burden of experiences handed over to him along with so much pain are the reason behind his brilliance. He’s writing from his own life.

I applaud the dark shadows and disturbing narrations that linger over his works, the harsh and direct statement of facts most often ignored by society, the smart play of comedy in presenting what needs to be known, the intensive research that goes behind the foundation of each novel. It’s just…amazing. I have to admit that I’m completely hooked and that meeting him is now part of my bucket list. 

Having read 5 of his books so far (looking forward to reading everything he wrote by the end of the year), I’ve confirmed thoughts of mine that I’ve dismissed previously in my mind. They are somewhat contradictions that came to me as realizations that I used to shrug off because I thought I was the only one thinking about it. But then came Chuck and as he said “There was nothing we could imagine that a million people weren’t already doing”.

First is the fact that a lot of people say that all our fate/destiny/whatever-you-wanna-call-it are pre-written, preconceived long before we were born. That nothing we do wasn’t thought out by our creator first. In that case, what are we? Puppets? A form of entertainment for the scriptwriter who already knows the story but for his mere amusement, wants characters to act it out. And if our lives have already been written beforehand, what’s this thing that people are calling as free will? If you have free will, then you have choices. And choices yield unexpected results. Deciding on something creates a million ripples in this world that makes it almost impossible to predict the result and extent of that decision. If even our choices are premeditated, if all our decisions have already been made, if our life story has already been thought out, if even our mistakes has already been etched then obviously, way before we were even born, where we go to, either heaven or hell has already been decided. And that would be unfair. However, if we go to the free will side, then how we live our lives decides where we go in our afterlives, heaven or hell (whether or not such places exist). And that is much more like it. So you see, I really don’t think that pre-written destiny and free will could co-exist in the same fabric of reality. It should just be either one—either you’re a puppet dramatizing a story or you’re a being responsible for your own story. And personally, I prefer the latter choice. I really don’t like the idea of being a puppet.

Second is a principle that was introduced in Rant (a novel written by Chuck), it goes something like “a lie isn’t a lie when a fair number of people believe it”. Mind you, that’s true. When a lot of people believe in something, even if it’s a lie, it becomes the truth, it becomes the norm. Now when someone speaks of the truth, he/she appears to be the one lying because what he/she is saying goes against the belief of a million other people. Now you see how the tables have turned. And turned quite unfavorably for the right side. If you’re familiar with Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, then you’re perfectly aware of what I’m talking about in terms of how truth-telling goes. I think people are naturally inclined to prefer illusions, the silver lining instead of the dark clouds, the petals of the rose instead of the thorns. And this inclination is what drives people to lie. To make everything seem and sound alright even when it is not. Everybody lies, that’s a fact and that’s what Dr. House always said (if ever you watched the series). Life, you see, gives you a million reasons to lie and just one reason to tell the truth. That’s why getting at the truth or even truth itself is never simple. One can believe a lie so much that it becomes his/her reality and that much belief can blind a person to everything else that moves on this green patch of earth. Don’t let that happen. Keep your mind open. Don’t be one of the fools blindly walking in this world. 

Third is love and did you know that people chooses to love the damaged ones the most? You see, we’re not looking for perfection in another person nor are we looking for someone to fit our so called “standards”. It’s just a hypocritical bullshit that people like to say. I want this and that in my ideal man/woman blah blah blah. Perfection is something that we appreciate but not fall in love with. What we really look for in someone is the same amount of weirdness and quirkiness that we have in ourselves. Someone whose humor is the same as ours. And I said damaged ones because really, we never look for what’s right in a person. What we look for is what’s wrong with them. Their mistakes, shortcomings, foolishness and even how they lie. Once we know what’s wrong with a person then we see if what’s wrong with them is a perfect fit for what’s wrong with us. Oftentimes, the best couples are not the ones with the same everything “same job, same talents, same principles”, no. The best couples are those who are different and opposite in almost everyway and yet what’s wrong with the first half is supplemented by the second half and vice versa. The mistakes done by these kind of couples don’t collide and crash with each other, they glide and fuse and form something beautiful. What makes a person unique are the things that are wrong with that person. That’s why we fall in love not with the right, sane parts of a person but with the wrong, mad parts of someone. Just like how the saying goes, “We are all searching for someone whose demons play well with ours”. 

With that, I end my blog. I can’t believe it took me two weeks to write this. But then again, I’m glad I finished it.