Characters

I once worked with a man that had a ‘different’ view of the world. He would filter everything and reinterpret it how he wanted. Let’s just say that working with him could be difficult.

If he were told to do a certain thing one way, he would think about it, then do it the way he thought it should be done, totally ignoring the directives that he had been given. This often resulted in the thing being done wrong and having to be redone. This guy was oblivious to the fact and never changed a thing. He was stuck on one worldview and would not even consider contemplating the possibility that he might want to rethink things one little bit.

His personal life, (that we heard about every day) was just as twisted. He had imaginary relationships that he would share with us in detail, as if telling us would somehow make them real. We all knew they were all in his head and would asking biting questions, but he would just ignore the sarcasm and answer as if it were all serious and real.

The saddest part was that he was functional in society and earned a reasonably good living.

He always made me wonder if we are all filtering what we see and hear to make it more digestible. In short, he always made me wonder if I was just as nuts as he was, just from a different direction.

I think that was his place in this world, to get everyone around him to question his or her own sanity.

Now we get to the interesting part of this story. I made it up. There is no such character. He is a composite of quite a few people that I have known in the past 20 years.

So let me ask you a question; if I give this tale a personality, am I making it a lie? If I take all these personality traits and create a new character that never really existed, am I lying to you?

I hope that you don’t feel that I am. For me, the truth is not in the character that I made up, but what we can learn by looking at his view of the world and his effect on others. Frankly, the people that I based the character on are dull and you don’t want to hear about them, but collectively, they have a point.

Let me interrupt myself and get on my soapbox for a moment; If you have read ‘A Million Little Pieces”, and “My Friend Leonard” you may have been caught up in the hoopla about James Frey telling the truth. (Oprah really beat him up on TV.)

I don’t care how many days he was in jail or any of that shit. There is truth in what he has written that far transcends the details. I can fully understand his changing details to protect the innocent. (and himself from lawsuit) Perhaps the books were marketed badly or misrepresented, but I think the truths contained in those books far out weigh the question of the difference between a memoir and a novel. (putting soapbox away and getting on with the show.)

So take what I say here with a grain of salt. I will not always tell the truth. I think there is as much to be learned in fiction as in fact. When it comes to people, even more so. If you see yourself here in some way, you are probably wrong. You may see things about yourself here, and you even may know me, but I probably am not writing about you.

And if I am, get over it. Like Douglas Adams put it, I am “Mostly Harmless”.