Humanity's Characters

People are what make anything and everything worthwhile. Characters are what make a story meaningful. Unlike anything else, people are who we are rather than what we are. Yes, we all have our place in the world but our universe is beyond our little world. Eternity is beyond our moments of temporal melodrama. All that is real or imagined is born of mind and spirit. People, not energy, objects, animals or plants, are the only things that can make anything more than the sum of its parts. All else is flow, balance and entropy.

Humanity is creative. We do not merely fashion tools and artifices to suit our practical needs. Our art is not merely representative of stark reality. We ask "how?" but cannot be satisfied until we discover "why?" and are inspired by the answer. Our souls yearn for the fulfillment of spirit. Even if the needs of our bodies are met, we shall hunger, thirst and gasp for breath until the "who" we are is sated. In our hearts, whether we accept the reality of it or not, we know truth and life are but vanity without freedom and justice. Even our most wicked and depraved imagine themselves righteous. We believe there is a point to it all or we despair. Our efforts are always a striving for a sense of purpose. Our endeavors are always meant to be transcendental.

Reality is as all things truly are, regardless of our fancies and perceptions. Fiction is what we imagine. As art, fiction is our waking dreams made manifest. At its best, our unreal stories explore and articulate the unseen reality of spirit. Its characters are imagined personalities that experience this transcendental reality. Their lives are how we relate to the story. Their thoughts and feelings are the life of the narrative. A story without characters is dead and irrelevant. Without us, our reality is meaningless. Ultimately, truth and fiction have everything in common, for better and for worse.

 https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ShawnOToole