Reading Notes - The Color of Magic

The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchet. (1983).
ISBN 978-0-06-222567-2

"Oh, you know. Just men," said Rincewind. And before he could stop himself some part of his brain that had nothing to do took control of his mouth and added, "Heroes, in fact."

A lie so enticing to slip into, because the one you're telling it to would greatly admire it to be true. But as soon as you tell it, you instantly regret it, because you've trapped yourself in!

The first lie is easy. The more difficult ones come later. Your listener wants to hear more, and you have to invent more and more lies, more difficult ones, to cover up the first lie that was so easy to fall for.

The enormity of this lie was so great that its ripples spread as far as... the outer steppes where little boys listened to fathers tell stories by candlelight.

Rincewind often suspected that there was something, somewhere, that was better than magic. He was usually disappointed.

Imagination. Imagination makes reality more wonderful. It inspires what could be. It takes what IS and places it into a greater context of art. Takes something literal, something that can only be one thing - itself, and relates it to a family of things that are similar, that work together and fulfill complementary roles.

It makes the number five an odd integer and a prime. It makes a set of things a subset of a bigger set of things. Different elements within a relation are just manifestations of the same group, like an image of a person taken at different points in time or from different angles.

It is seeing more than what things are at an instant in time and space. It is seeing the entirety of its existence, what it was, what it is, and what it can be - as well as seeing its entire existence as a small representation of a greater entity.

I enjoy the parallels between Naruto, Jiraiya, and Rock Lee. Even though they have very distinct unique personalities, they fill the role of brash, fool-hearty determination within their respective three person teams. Using imagination is like that, being able to discern the connected nature of things underneath outwardly dissimilar manifestations.

This tourist is a thing that is out of place. One wanderer would not be allowed to return home bringing, perhaps, the disease of dissatisfaction.
Life was difficult enough. People ought to stay where they were put.

Life in a cage is the thing that is out of place. The thing that keeps people in the cage, is not knowing there's an outside. Organized ignorance-based faith, entertainment and distractions, intoxication and pleasures of the flesh - these can become curtain dressings of a window boarded shut.

Then what's on the outside of my cage, I ask myself? Do I know?

Nutrition. Environment. Fitness. Work - not necessarily job, mind you - work is something you decide to accomplish for yourself. Connecting to people who strive for common goals or uphold similar values - not because of peer pressure but of their own intent. Leisure. Growth: social, emotional, intellectual, physical -descending in difficulty for me. Artistic expression that endures past one's lifetime and can be passed on. 

Then its sluggish nervous system brought it the message that it was dead. It looked surprised and then toppled over.

Some things only stop us because we pay attention to them. We can run pretty far off a cartoon cliff, until we look down and realize there's been nothing underneath our feet the whole time.