Streams of Consciousness

Revolution

        A circle is a strange mathematical concept. It is said that a circle is a shape, one that consists of infinite points on a plane, the points that are at a given distance from a given point. The circumference of a circle is the reality of these infinite points, and it is seemingly crazy and unpredictable, a shape of pure chaos.

        There is much argument to the existence of this point, but for the purpose of knowledge, there is one thing that can possibly stand true about a circle. Every circle has a beginning, and an end. The beginning and end are the same point. The beginning and the end can be any point, they can be a boundless number of points, but they are still concrete.

        Much like a circle, a story has a beginning and an end. A story, any story, begins in a certain way, and ends in a certain way. People can write beginnings to the end of time, or endings from the beginning of time. All stories, whether it seems possible or not, always end the way they began. The end becomes the beginning. In some way or form, the beginning is the end.

        Like a circle, a story has a broad arc. An arc for a circle is part of the circumference. If more than half of the circumference is the arc, that is the major arc. If not, that is the minor arc. A story arc is a path that the story follows. The main story is the major arc. The side stories are the minor arcs. These add up to become the entire story, also known as the circumference.

        Now, what may have been said about stories ending and beginning in the same place may have been a lie. Not all stories are that of the hero's journey. Some stories start at a point of chaos, and use flashbacks to explain the chaos. Some stories start at birth, and go through the entire life of the story, and end at death. Some stories have multiple storylines with multiple characters, each story starting from one event. Some stories are changed by the readers themselves and the options they chose.

        Then again, why bring up the fact that the circle has a beginning and ending in the same place? And that this is the same as a story? That's because the arcs of a story are like puzzle pieces. They twist and turn out of place, rotate to fit into places previously unimagined, all to make the story make sense.

        The hero's journey is already a circle, no explanation needed. The story that is a line can bend into a circle, the events changing places to connect it all. The stories with the multiple storylines started at the same place, but if you twist and turn individual stories, you start to see how they all line up, and how they mention what started their journey, and then that story can also become a circle. A story controlled by a reader has multiple endings, so all the readers that choose each ending can twist the story into a circle, each choice either a beginning or an end, but each choice has a previous one, and in the end they all lead to the same place.

        Now take this story into mind, and you start to see the elliptical feel, the ovoid of the literature, the bend of characters and their will. The major arc has the main story, and the minor arcs explain motives, they explain the sequence, and they explain most of what people want to know.

        This story has not ended yet. That is obvious from the readers' perspective. This story has not come full circle, it has more to say. If the author so felt like it, this story could end here. The readers could be left in confusion, left to wonder how the rest of the story was to play out. Why leave a reader with only so much of a circle? What does the author have to gain from this?

        Nothing. There is nothing to gain from trying to prevent the ending of this story. The readers will come to their own conclusions. The writers among them will write their own endings. The artists among them will draw their own interpretations of the characters, and then how they see the ending. So in the end, the story will end. All stories will end, as long as there are people who wish to end them.

        Some people may never reach this point in the story. This story may be long and confusing. It may make no sense, the wording may be too complex, the plot may be too diluted with side stories, and the idea of the story doesn't match the name of the title. Some people may have not even picked up this book. They may have seen the cover, and thought it was uninteresting. They may not have liked the genre, because it wasn't the type they enjoyed reading.

        Then there are the people who have reached this point. The readers who found interest in Brock's journey, and are trying to piece together all the stories. The friends, and the editors, who have scoured through the words, and found all the errors. And hopefully, someday, the future generations, who either see this story, this work, as genius, or see it as a token of humanity's failure.

        Life, like stories, is also a circle. All you have to do to have the same point, is to invert life and death. Some say that they are complete opposites, that they are true balance. That life is all the good in the world, and death is all the darkness in the world. Life brings happiness, and death brings mourning. But there are other ways to see this polarity.

        Life is a beautiful lie. It is full of hardships, of darkness, of pain, suffering, corruption. It puts people in easy beginnings, or in hard blackened places. It puts innocents in times of sickness, times of genocide, times of purity, and times of rebirth. Life is the ultimate divider, the true cynic, the greatest tyrant.

        Death is the painful truth. It is the inevitable end. It makes all evil men and all good men equal. It makes all races, all genders, and all ages equal. Death takes all the monetary value from a person. It takes all the security and all the knowledge, and gives freedom. Pure, and absolute freedom. It removes all fears, and gives everyone certainty.

        Knowing all this about life and death, we can see that in the end, they are truly the same thing. They are the same entity, the same concept. Two sides of the same coin. And we as people, we walk the edge of the coin. Every decision we make while walking the edge is a flip of the coin. The death side is the heaviest, so it causes the center of mass to lie towards itself.

        Most decisions are small enough that they continue our lives. The decision to brush your teeth in the morning, the decision to walk to school, etc. Then there are the instances that lead to death. The decision to let go after so long, the decision to sacrifice yourself, the decision to use your body as a weapon of terror, so on and so forth. In the end, everyone goes through a full revolution, and ends where they began.

        In the lives of humans, circles are very relevant. They are everywhere, within everyone. Atoms, the building blocks of everything, are just third dimensional circles. On a larger aspect, planets, stars, and even galaxies are circles, even if they are misshapen, or disconnected. For certain periods of our lives, we move in a circle. Some may start at home, then go to school, then return home. The same can be applied for with a job. Our lives are just circles within circles.

        Humans have tried to interpret the circles in nature in many ways. Ancient humans carved them into rocks. Circular things were seen as a symbol of safety. Our eyes see through a rounded edge, distorting our vision similar to a fish eye. Then we made things to represent this circular feeling. The clock to represent the orbit of earth. The glass to distribute liquid with a wide flow and to fit our own mouths.

        Then there was math, proving the importance of the circle's constructs. Then science, showing us the circles around us. Art showing the nature of the circle and the beauty it holds with the wheel of covers and all colors leading to the next. Music, using a circular shape to reflect sound waves, and affect the strength of resonance. Grammar using the circular shapes of most letters, and the phonic sounds, as the basis of all communication. Literature, and the use of stories and poetry to show all of the above.

        It all leads back to the circle. The circle of life, from the grass to the cows to the mouths of humans and back to the ground. The weather cycle, where bodies of water are thrown into the sky, then thrown back to the ground. The circadian rhythm of our bodies, from waking up and energizing our bodies, to using that energy, and falling asleep. Over and over again, round and round, revolution after revolution. That is the nature of all things.