Reality – The Word Worker

Most of us played with shape sorters as children. As part of learning the different shapes and creating the proper connections, we tried fitting shapes into holes they didn’t match. Some of those mismatches didn’t fit at all; the shape simply would not pass through the hole. The corners of a square, for example, will never fit inside the curves of a circle. Others, however, would sometimes slide through, or could be forced through, certain incorrect holes. A circle could actually fit through the square hole, even though its curves did not fill out the square’s corners.

From the time we are very small, our society pushes patterns of behavior on us. “Be normal,” we’re told. If we don’t fit the shape expected, we are labeled, separated, and therapied to death until we meet expectations or break. But who decided which shape is normal? When we played with the shape sorters, we might have begun by trying to fit everything into the same shape because we liked something about that shape, but eventually we learned that each shape had its own place. Can you imagine someone saying, “The only shape allowed in the world anymore is the square? Circles, triangles, stars – they are all wrong and must be redesigned into squares.”

Two terms that have become popular in recent years are neurotypical and neurodivergent. I understand the intent behind the use of these words, and occasionally use them myself in order to frame concepts in a way people can understand them. Unfortunately, these terms also reinforce the idea that only one shape is normal. Labels are created, therapies are invented, medications are prescribed. All of these have the purpose of making people with different shapes appear to be the preferred one. The focus is always placed on what is “wrong,” what is “abnormal,” that makes a person different then eliminating it.

But again I ask, what is normal? Just as every shape is unique and has its own place on the shape sorter (and it’s own mathematical purpose), every human is unique and has place and purpose. What is normal for one is abnormal for another. What one is capable of doing another is not. What one cannot accomplish another can. Corners and curves are both necessary; elimination of one or the other creates a world that cannot function.

What if, instead of looking for “normal” we strove to celebrate individuality? What if, instead of trying to shave off corners or flatten curves, we recognized the needed functions of both? It’s true that circles can fit within the square, but they don’t belong. Circles will never be able to reach into the corners and fulfill the purpose of squares. If forced to pretend to be squares, circles will always feel inadequate, and will never experience or even know their full potential as circles. Squares, on the other hand, can never fit in the circles as they are. They will either try to shave off parts of themselves leaving raw, gaping wounds in order to squeeze in, or they will be smashed against edges again and again until they break. Either way they lose their identity and their purpose and, like the ill-fitting circle, will never experience or recognize their potential as squares.

Our society has become adept at forcing round pegs into square holes. We admire the work and contributions of those circles who managed to find their circle holes and give us great discoveries or achievements, as long as we don’t have to acknowledge that they were circles in the first place. Because we carefully avoid recognizing the ill-fitting circles, we also prevent ourselves from seeing the broken squares. We have decided to be the infant trying to smash all the shapes into the hole that pleases us best, but unlike the infant, we don’t learn from our failures. We just keep smashing and screaming in frustration until everything is broken.

What if, instead of breaking others to look like ourselves, or breaking ourselves to look like others, we all found our own purpose as who we are? God doesn’t make mistakes. He made each of us exactly the way we are. He has purpose, specific and absolute purpose, for each and every individual exactly the way He created us. Imagine what we could all be together if every single one of us found our own.

All my life, I was given the advice to write what I knew and only what I knew. For a long time I thought that meant I should only write about real life things that I had experienced personally, and disagreed with the sentiment strongly. Such an approach to creation stifles imagination, and doesn’t allow for the capacity of the human mind to learn from the experiences of others. Over the years, as I have matured and experienced more of life, I have come to understand that this interpretation could not be farther from the truth.

Have you ever watched a child play? Who do they become? What experiences do they act out? At my house we usually get a blend of superheroes, cartoon characters, and book people. These favorites fight a conglomeration of enemies, get married, hold jobs, have children, and travel. They squabble about things of childish importance with admirably melodramatic adult emotions. This is human creation, taking what we recognize and blending it all into an expression of who we are.

This is writing fiction. Even if a book is about impossible creatures or set in outer space or full of unhistorical characters, it is a reflection of reality. Every headline, every story, every image, every interaction, every moment that left an impression on the writer bleeds onto the page of a new story. Every character holds pieces of the writer and of everyone he or she recognizes in real life. Perhaps those influences are carefully and intentionally journaled. More likely they simply become so much of a part of the writer that he or she subconsciously transfers them to the page.

Write your mage who doesn’t know which side of a conflict to join. Write your space battles between aliens so entrenched in their own ideas they can’t understand each other. Write your sweet but strong-willed heroines, and your misunderstood villains. Write the argument you had with your friend into a flirtatious budding romance. Write your snuggles with your child into a hero who longs for family. Write what you know, and create what everyone can recognize: reality fiction, the human story.