Meaning: “conveying a significance that is not directly expressed . . .”
I think Richard’s head is still hurting from last Blog: Word Problems. Perfectly normal! I’ve told him to take 2 aspirin and call me in the morning! Not really, but he won’t mind me making this little joke because he knows I think such suffering is a prime example of complexity as an onerous burden—at least until one becomes acclimated to juggling it. As my editor, he suffers through a lot of complexity, I assure you!
On a more carefree topic, give this a thought Attentive Reader: Meaning-making offers the challenge of good-ole adventure not just hard-going complexity and/ the other challenges listed in Blog #146. That could be because adventure is frequently a puzzle alive with many meanings and colorful possibilities.
Adventure can also involve the inner-workings and intangibles of the mind, heart or imagination. Adventure routinely includes spectacular opportunities to explore terra firma or the infinite cosmic potential and phenomena of the great beyond. Exploring, delightfully enough, whether mental or physical is the “hot” verb upon which everything about adventure hangs.
And though more concrete adventure of the Indiana Jones sort is a number-one choice among adventurers, it has even been said that adventure is a state of mind, and I think primarily so. And rightly so. An adventurous sort, after all, has a fairly identifiable profile. She/he manifests a certain attitude and behavioral set, a certain eagerness and curiosity. Both will have a . . . je ne sais pas, une joie de vivre (you can always tell when I have been watching a string of the magnificent Hercule Poirot Mysteries on PBS, my French leaps into gear).
Adventure is a long-standing favorite category of mine—in film, literature and life. I avoid the glum, assiduously. To me, pursuit of misery is entirely unnecessary, it comes looking for one. Thus it is only a gratuitous self-indulgence, a form of self-flagellation or masochism, if you will, to go looking for it.
My one exception to abhorring truly dark writing is Dean Koontz. I have found that many Christians read Koontz and I know why. He expounds succinctly and terrifyingly on the nature of evil—almost a lost art in our time. The “hell-fire and damnation” preachers of early America kept the vision of evil alive and stingingly well in their time (Johnathan Edwards, 1703 – 1758, for one; http://www.ravenhill.org/edwards.htm ); but today, evil is a subject rarely heard much of, at least from the pulpit. Frankly, I find that quite agreeable, if not particularly realistic.
At any rate, Koontz will curl your hair. And most happily, he will also gift you, within the covers of the same volume, with some of the most appealing, fresh, innocent and believable characters and situations you can ever imagine.
Koontz’s point and counterpoint are classic engravings of innocence versus evil. His main point? In comparison to real, malevolent evil, the human being (despite the stain of the “fall”) always appears noticeably innocent, or certainly innocent enough, and naive enough to be believable as easy prey for such malignant force.
Let me assure you though, Gentle Reader, I only a few times have and do not now read the pages of Koontz’s books that go into the evil elements of the story (as I have said before, some adventures are just not for me), not since I sampled those icy waters long ago in the before-I-knew-better years. One shiver of premonition that those pages are approaching now sends me immediately to page hopping to the “good” parts. I do that hopping by reading one sentence every two pages and it is truly amazing how much continuity such a practice enables. One would never think so!
But now, returning from my digression . . .To be continued . . .
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