3/4/2018

“Shall I tell you about my life
They say I’m a man of the world”
So sang Peter Green when he was leading Fleetwood Mac back in the late Sixties. As writers, we usually tell about our life as it was or as it is, as events unfold the way we feel and see them. It is all our projections. Sure, this is no way a revealing or an unknown concept.
Usually, when we project the possible events or developments in our writing they call it science fiction. With the accent usually on science. It is mostly based on conjecture, and it can be more (often) or less (even more often) be based on science. Somebody recently wrote on Medium what (and if) science starts to imitate that kind of fiction.
But then, here’s another question — what if, and possibly when, our life, or the life of others, these immediate lives of ours, start imitating the fiction we write? It can, and certainly does happen. Just have in mind that Oscar Wilde quote: “Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.” Maybe just an opinion, but in these times, particularly political times, it has become a daily task to compare yesteryear’s fictional writings with the events that are evolving. Here’s an example from a few years back to which “New York Times” devoted a story:
With Conspiracy-Minded Intrigue, Life Imitates Fiction in Turkey
Hoping to slow the leaks and regain the upper hand, Mr. Erdogan's government has taken a series of authoritarian…www.nytimes.comWe can always ascribe such writings to clairvoyance and premonitions. It doesn’t really matter whether you believe in those or not. But with writing it is, always a matter of our personal projections, thoughts, feelings, moods… In many ways, it is connected with our, fifth, sixth or seventh sense.
But what happens when our written words have such an impact that they influence ours and actions of others. It is certain that finding ample examples of such ‘life imitates fiction” situations.
One thing though is certain. It is always an approximation, it can be quite close, but certainly an approximation, nonetheless. Things sometimes do turn out the way we wrote about them, always just to prove the rule. Even more, a reason to sing (and write) to sing your version of Peter Green’s lyrics.