So, mysticism is a word, and demystification is a word, but demysticism is evidently the illegitimate child borne of my imagination, tried and found wanting by spell check. It matters not; I use it anyway.

It's weird when you realize your parents are human. What's worse is to realize they've only been alive a little more than twice as long as you have, and you don't feel like you've been living very long. So, even if learning continues at a linear rate, while I think learning is more asymptotic than that, they know roughly twice as much as you do. And that might seem like a lot, but when you consider everything there is to know, particularly in predicting the best course of action and all the subtrees made by roads less traveled, they really don't know very much. Mathematically, it's same; they're one depth in the tree ahead of you.

It's surreal to me, to realize how little they know, and yet how much influence they have in my life, because I grew up idolizing them, deifying them. That, of course, is not to mean they are unwise, or that their opinions shouldn't matter.

I guess what I'm thinking most about is that they lived lives before I was born. Their experiences weren't in black and white. They weren't stories on pages. They were real, like mine are. My dad was engaged to another woman before my mom. That had to be an interesting story to live. But to me, it's the same as Moses parting the Red Sea, which I'm sure was even more awesome to behold, but I can't live that. In some sense, I think I comprehend it too well. I'm clearly not getting all the details if I think I understand it. And the same goes for my dad's life.

My mom's anecdotal story about buying her first car at sticker price was not something out of a sitcom. (It did happen in the West Wing though.) Her boyfriends were real, and I'm guessing all but one is still alive. When her boyfriend Bob died in a car accident, that must have been more traumatizing than any of the six or seven deaths I've dealt with in the last year and a half.

I can't seem to get it through my mind that they're just people. They lived twenty-seven and twenty-eight years before I was born, just doing what they felt right, or what they wanted to. They just lived, just like I'm living, and yet, when I was born, they where flat characters. They knew what was right, and their word was law. Now they're people again. They can be wrong, and their mistakes mean more to me.

I remember one time my parents got into an argument. They didn't argue very often, and my sister and I always liked to listen if we could. We rarely understood the arguments, and before anything really happened, they moved it into their bedroom, and we knew not to eavesdrop, so rarely did we get much of a picture of what was going on, but arguments were rare, and rare meant different, and different meant interesting (not to be confused with enjoyable). One time, my dad had had enough, and told my mom to go to hell loud enough that I could hear. My sister was probably at her friend's for the night, because I don't remember her being there. After the argument, I was upstairs playing Nintendo, and my dad came up and apologized for saying that to my mom, because she didn't deserve it and so on. I knew it was out of character that he would say something like that, and so I easily forgave him. Now I wonder if it was out of character. What is character if not the way we act and speak? Can we say something out of character when we're impassioned? What if he's just human, and he was angry? Of course he didn't mean that he wanted my mom to go to hell, but what if that's how he acts and talks? It might not be pleasant, but it's more real.

Now I think back to when my dad had his affair. Over the previous year or so, he'd slowly left my life as it was. He had just become a space that he used to fill, as he dealt with the things that troubled him. Within moments of him telling me what had happened, he went from being that void to being the antagonist. Only in the best of literature do you really get to know the antagonist, feel compassion for them, realize they're human too.

Ender's Game comes to mind because toward the end, you start to feel for the aliens. But then, the aliens never really were the antagonists. It was the humans that you really didn't feel for. Ender's Game was interesting, and made me feel something, but was not a book I'd call great literature.

Whenever I think about flat characters, I think of To Kill a Mockingbird, because that's the first time I'd been introduced to the concept, and Atticus is the epitome of flat. He was always right, always wise, always righteous. There are other flat typecasts. One of them is the antithesis of Atticus's. In that moment in my parents' room, my dad became that one.

On the other side is the round character, his daughter, whom you feel for, relate to, and understand as she deals with things. In my life, there is but one round character: me. I'd really like to change that. My parents are starting to warp, and that's a good sign. I think my sister is becoming rounder too.

I'm finding it's very hard for me to place myself in other people's shoes. I'm constantly trying to see how their position and actions relate to my own life, and what effect it will have on me. Oh, your boyfriend broke up with you? I'm sorry to hear that. How can I learn from his and your mistakes? I think it's good to learn vicariously, but I also think you'll do that automatically by thinking from their position, as you try to be there for them.

I remember feeling scared in the following months, scared that I'd follow in my dad's footsteps. I remember fearing I'd tear apart my family someday. What I dreaded most, I think, was to become flat. Flat characters don't get to choose. Of course, had I actually thought about it that way, I wouldn't have worried about it, because I won't become flat, not in my own life. In truth, none of us are flat. We all get to choose, and that's why life even matters. How boring it would be if we were all typecast.

But, as this demysticism is happening in my mind, as my dad becomes rounder, it's easier to have compassion for him. What he did was abominable, but he didn't do it because he is evil. He didn't do it because the author needed him to. He just makes mistakes, just like I make mistakes. He had twenty-eight years of experiences I never lived. And he's real.

This thinking also begs to consider mid-life and death.

Men (typically) go through mid-life crises because they feel their life is half over, and what have they accomplished? I wonder if mid-life crises existed before America, and its unhealthy fixation on accomplishment. We weren't put into life to accomplish; we were put into life to live. People are always searching for "the secret to life" or "how to be happy" and yet all they do is try to accomplish, try to achieve. You will never achieve enough.

There's freedom in knowing that. There's freedom in knowing that we don't need to achieve in order to be happy. That's not our purpose. Our purpose is simple: to love and try to understand God. If we try to understand God, if we try to put ourselves in his shoes, several things will happen.

First, we'll love God's creation because God is a creator and there is no creator better than he. (I have issues with people who say humans aren't creators, merely rearrangers. We do create. We are creative. God intended us to be.)

Second, it follows that since we are God's creation, we will love each other. We are God's greatest creation, valued by God more than the rest, so it only makes sense to love ourselves most. God has a heart for people, and so to understand God is to love people as he does.

Then we'll be blessed. It is more blessed to give than to receive, and if we love people, we will give. Giving doesn't have to be gifts. We can give time, and surely, love takes time. If you want to know the secret to happiness, then seek blessing -- give.

I've obviously not experienced mid-life yet, so perhaps I don't understand it all. After all, my parents are just being thawed from their frozen positions as gods. Still, I wonder what effect mid-life will have on someone that doesn't intend to achieve, but only wishes to seek God, and really know him. What will he see when he looks back on his life? Won't he just look forward to the next forty years? Won't death then be a continuation of life on earth, but in an even purer form? Eternity loving God, being loved by God, loving people, and being loved by people. Is there something better? Is there some number of achievements any of us would trade for that?

Anyway, I've yet again stayed up too late, and yet again avoided studying for my math. Tomorrow I won't have much time to study unless I skip Hime's Thursday night extravaganza, which I'd rather not do. I'll study between classes, I hope. After class, I'm going to attempt to go to Ella's birthday party. At the INN last night, it really seemed like she wanted me to go. Sometime this weekend I'm supposed to have lunch or dinner with Rosa. I'm looking forward to that.