Grrrog!

I was out with buddy Whitney last night, who was in tune enough to take me to the local pirate bar. Kitsch doesn't begin to cover it. With flags on the ceilings and skeletons and swords and olde maps on the walls, it looked like a dressed up storage facility for the Renaissance Fair. There was even, I kid you not, a fully garbed pirate, complete with an eye patch sitting atop his pirate 3-corner hat. I think there was a feather involved.

Sitting outside with some cheap grog (pirate's ale, definitely worth the money if you're looking for a reeling good time), the discussion of what one puts one's faith in came up. Whit had a customer the previous week ask her what she put her faith in. She replied, with a bit of trepidation, that she didn't believe in religion.

"That's not what I asked," he said. "I asked what you put your faith in."

Now THAT'S an interesting question. She has come to the conclusion that she believes in art; the ability to look at a sculpture or painting or what-have-you and see something personal, something inside your soul, at any given moment. She can explain better than I can.

I, on the other hand, have since worked out that I believe in (da-da-da-dah!): Narrative. I believe in stories, in metaphors, in comparing something to another and linking them with yourself. I believe in books, episodic TV, films, theatre, people's ideas in written form. I believe that all these things come together to help you understand the world a bit better. Or at least, manifestations of the world through the eyes of different perspectives. How you see the story, what you take away from it, is yours and yours alone.

There may be nothing new under the sun, but there's always that rock that no one has looked underneath yet.