For some, the existence of fate is a foregone conclusion. They know, by way of faith or some other such foggy mechanism, that their footfalls are preordained. They need only have courage to set forth on the path created especially for them. The unknowable future still daunts those of their ilk, but their minds and hearts are assuaged by knowledge that all matters have been arranged and will work out favorably.
Who has not heard the words, "Everything will be alright in the end. If it's not alright, then it's not the end." The bumper sticker summary for this rose colored world view.
I do not believe in fate or destiny.
I must have been ignorantly slumbering when they were handing out blush-tinted specs. By the time I awoke, all that remained were the thick, piercing, imposing lenses of skepticism. This is the glass through which I peer at the world. It is a harsh, windblown vista complete with skeletal trees and tumbleweeds. Instead of the warm embrace of certainty and security, I only know the bone-cold handshake of chance and accidents.
It was one such accident, almost 10 years ago, that inspired the novel that I wish to write.
But perhaps that is too tidy. The genesis of a novel is a tricky thing. So many weaving tributaries of experience contribute to the kernel of a story that eventually becomes a book. Still, one experience I had in college stands out as the fountainhead. It is tempting to romanticize the moment as inexorable. It was not. I could just have easily missed it all together. But I didn't and this is what happened.
I found my self in the labyrinthian halls of the sociology department. Not exactly the place you would expect to find a physics major. I was there on a fool's errand which explains why I would stop every couple of feet. A feeble attempt to still my thundering heart, to give reason a moment to make its case. But as is so often the result in these matters, reason got its ass kicked by infatuation and I took another couple of steps down the (seemingly) endless hall.
On either side of me were closed doors to the offices of the professors of sociology. Dr. So and So, PhD emblazoned on each one. Articles, political cartoons, flyers, research posters, and other hangings decorated the walls. Each time I stopped, I would glance over this material. I stopped and read for longer and longer periods of time as I got closer and closer to the door that I had come to knock upon.
Just before I reached his office, I took my longest pause yet. And that is when I saw the poster that I believe is the reason you are reading this post today.
Across the top in bold print it read something like: "If the world were a village of 1000 people...."
It then went on to describe what the demographics of that world would look like. How many people would be Asian, African, etc. How many would speak Mandarin, English, Arabic. How many would be women and how many men.
I was fascinated by this notion. If you had to take a small sample of people, and make it truly representative of the world's population, what would your resulting group look like? Could that really be done? And if so, could you really draw any meaningful conclusions from this sample?
I must have stood in front of that poster for something approaching 10 minutes. I wanted to see the calculations that led to the conclusions. I wanted to know where this idea had come from.
Finally, I snapped out of my deliberations and turned my attention to the open office door that was a little to my right. His door was almost always open. Taking a deep breath, I turned away from the poster, knocked on his door, and stepped inside where his familiar, jovial, erudite voice bid me welcome.
Hoping he could not see my hopeless crush written all over my face, I proceeded to ask for his permission to take his graduate level Globalization class next semester. As an undergraduate, I would need the expressed permission of the professor. When he agreed, my heart exploded with gratitude and triumph and in that moment I forgot everything but his smiling face and friendly eyes.
Well almost everything. I remembered the poster and I'm convinced that the potent mix of my romantic feelings for my sociology professor, combined with the mathematically intriguing nature of that poster combined in my subconscious leading to the genesis of my novel.
Oh and just in case you are wondering, nothing untoward happened between myself and the good professor. He was happily married, treated his wife like a queen and my school girl's crush was satiated merely by being in his presence and soaking up the knowledge he had to give. I got an A in his graduate Globalization course and went on with my life. (As did he, moving to another university at the end of that year.)
Still romance, in whatever form it takes, has a way of lingering and influencing. It wasn't long after that meeting when the flash of an idea for a novel lit up my brain. Perhaps it will come as no surprise that the novel grapples with unrequited love, mathematics, scholarship, and the relationships that exist between people.
It has taken me almost 10 years to finally begin work on this book. I do not know if I will ever finish this novel and I can't even imagine that it will ever be published. I have no illusions that I am somehow destined to become a great writer.
I merely have a story that I wish to tell. This blog is the story of writing that story. Enjoy.
