I love America.

America is a big word. Not necessarily because it has more than three syllables and thus is difficult for my two-year-old to pronounce—America is a big word because it means a lot of different things.

Faith. Family. Hope. Liberty. Opportunity. Freedom of thought. Self-responsibility. Industry. Invention. Innovation. Exploration. Curiosity. Merit. Accomplishment. The United States of America. Equal treatment under law. Courage. Discipline. Individualism, self-reliance—and community.

Ideals.

The interesting thing about an ideal is that you rarely achieve it—except, perhaps, temporarily. An ideal isn’t necessarily a literal destination, but it’s a goal to strive for. An ideal is something made all the more valuable for the journey to try to obtain it.

An ideal must be out of reach for it to mean anything. In the same way that lifting only ounces of weight at a time is useless for exercise, striving for easy “ideals” doesn’t do anything to make us better, stronger people.

Maybe that’s what is really ideal in the first place: consistently striving to be better, whether or not best is achievable in mortal life, on an individual level or grand scale.

The Way of Kings depicts ideals perhaps better than any other book I’ve read, save for scripture—and I am not suggesting that Way of Kings is scripture, it is firmly fiction; and, as with all of the best of fiction, Way of Kings is first and foremost designed to entertain. It does not preach. But that makes its depiction of ideals all the more compelling, as we read well-rounded, deeply flawed (and often broken) characters striving to overcome themselves, to become better, one small step at a time.

Kaladin is a good example of this. At the beginning of Way of Kings, he is a bitter, broken, bigoted man. You could easily justify his many flaws if you wanted to—life had dealt him many rotten cards. But the bridgemen Kaladin finds himself surrounded by are good examples of where that would have left him: despairing, damned, doomed. He would have died insignificant.

He wanted something better. It took a little pulling from other forces at first, and he kicked and growled for a while, but he wanted more. He wanted to be better. So he changed. He set goals, he made vows (promises, covenants—oaths), and he progressed toward them.

Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.

Kaladin became a genuine hero, sacrificing so much of himself for his friends, setting aside his own biases to help those he had reason to hate. It was a long, slow, painful journey—

And in Words of Radiance, he went backwards. He began to forget his ideals. And it hurt. And he started to become that bitter, angry, confused person again.

There is no staying in place. There’s either improvement, or there’s backsliding. (And, thankfully, Kaladin provides an example of someone who backslid and then returned to improving.)

Way of Kings is not a uniquely American book, nor would I say that the book embodies uniquely American ideals. I bring it up because it presents raw idealism, in its most positive and efficacious form, so well. That’s why I bring it up.

America is a home to ideals. From the very beginning, from the men and women who first braved these shores and founded the thirteen colonies to our Founding Fathers, they were all driven by ideals that they sought to live up to, and it drove them to achieve incredible, amazing things. Our Constitution is an embodiment of ideals—notably, ideals restricting the government, rather than empowering the people (as power originates from the people). Through all of the ups and downs, these truths have not changed.

I don’t have a particular direction that I’m taking these ideas. I sat down and started typing. It doesn’t help that, as important as ideals are, and as imperfectly as I try to live up to my ideals, it’s difficult to say that I understand them well. Of course, nebulously referring to the very broad concept of ideals doesn’t help with that—more specific ideals are more graspable, much easier to make goals to help orient myself toward them.

Sometimes a hypocrite is nothing more than a man in the process of changing.

~Dalinar Kholin, Oathbringer (Brandon Sanderson)

Writing Updates

Last week I was at about 157,000 words in Hazel Halfwhisker. This week, after losing a few days to illness, I managed to drag myself to… 160,000 words. Not ideal. (Heh.)

I’m not setting high goals for word count going into next week. My family is traveling a lot this week—initially for work-related reasons, but my wife saw it as a good opportunity to visit family as well. I think I’ll be pleased with much of any writing time.

Send-Off

Speaking of visiting family—we slept over at my in-laws last night. My daughter woke me and my wife up several times last night, just looking for comfort in a new environment. Each time I got up, gave her a hug, and put her back to bed.

Until the last time, where she skipped mom and dad and went straight to grandma and grandpa’s rooms to get them up. That amused me. I imagine something in her little head went, “Well, dad keeps putting me back in bed when he gets up, so he’s worse than useless. Let’s see if grandma will do what I want.”

Have an excellent week!