Zeitgeist: A Made-up Conversation about Real Stories
Summary: A friend is stuck while trying to finish writing a story. Disclaimer: I have no excuse. Names have been changed to protect the guilty.
Category: Ficmeta
Timeline: Written over the Season Four hiatus.
Characters: Dean and a writer friend.
Wordcount: 2200
Rating: PG
Written: July 6th, 2009
~
[July 6 12:37:26 AM] Muse Dean: So, how is the zeitgeist coming?
[12:38:27 AM] Ghost Writer: *googles* Dude ... I have no idea.
[12:39:57 AM] Muse Dean: *quotes Wiki* "The spirits of individual nations are both the articulations (Gliederungen) of an organization and its realization. The spirits of individual nations represent a segment of the World Spirit out of which emerges the unlimited universal spirit. A comparison is introduced here between the status of an individual and that of a nation's spirit. In the process of his formation the individual undergoes various changes without, however, losing his identity. As a part of world history, a nation exhibiting a certain trend expressed in its Volksgeist plays its part in the total process of world history. But once it contributes its share to world history it can no longer play a role in the process of world history. The submersion in the total process prevents a people's cultural rebirth, because it has exhausted its creativity in the historical growth of its guiding spirit."
[12:39:59 AM] Ghost Writer: I think the zeitgeist around here is pretty crappy, tbh, but I don't see that changing any time soon, lol ... Here's what I was thinking - originally, it is supposed to end with both the brothers whole again. But now I'm wondering if - having helped Sam save himself - Dean wouldn't just as soon live vicariously through Sam's redemption instead, leaving his own for a later date. Or something. That probably makes no sense at all, but again - sleepy.
[12:47:14 AM] Muse Dean: Dean's salvation IS Sam's.
[12:47:36 AM] Ghost Writer: Right ... The way it's set up though, it's like Dean can't come back fully unless SAM comes back first, because otherwise there is nothing to come back for.
[12:48:44 AM] Muse Dean: Right. Come back to where, though, is kinda the problem isn't it?
[12:49:31 AM] Ghost Writer: YES. Also, Dean being whole again seemed really important at the time, and now I'm just not sure. *Wince*
[12:50:16 AM] Muse Dean: Right. A zeitgeist.
[12:50:31 AM] Ghost Writer: (O.O) I ... get the concept, but writing it is a whole new ball game.
[12:52:10 AM] Muse Dean: I can see that. Dean's idea is that he's already outlived his own time, right?
[12:52:37 AM] Ghost Writer: Yes.
[12:53:05 AM] Muse Dean: He's felt that way since John gave himself up and pulled him back from the brink.
[12:53:17 AM] Ghost Writer: Yes, absolutely.
[12:53:18 AM] Muse Dean: He hasn't made a single choice on his own behalf since, unless it was to choose NOT to choose.
[12:53:43 AM] Ghost Writer: *nod*
[12:54:36 AM] Muse Dean: ...and he's already said that he just wants to go out swinging; that if Sam's done, so is he. So, if he's here at all, it's for Sam. So, what happens to Dean is gonna be up to Sam.
[12:55:21 AM] Ghost Writer: So, with Sam back in it, he would just choose to stay, just a while longer.
[12:56:05 AM] Muse Dean: *nods* Dean is chasing the definitive.
[12:59:09 AM] Ghost Writer: I guess the problem I'm having is I want to melt the ICE. And clearly, finding his own personal desire to live - any desire apart from because Sam needs him to - is like, anathema. So even if he chooses to stay and fight, he still isn't BACK, not really. And I'm trying to find a middle ground between the two of those - because I don't want to zap Dean with the magic wand, you know? I'm not trying to magically fix him. I want it to feel realistic.
[1:00:38 AM] Muse Dean: N'kay. How about this. Which one of you is real: the one who's living and driving to work or the one living and talking to yourself in your head?
[1:01:55 AM] Ghost Writer: LOL. Honestly? The one talking to myself is way more me than the one who goes to work, any day. :P She just pays the bills.
[1:03:10 AM] Muse Dean: Yeah, but you're still thinking and your existence has all the same drives and agenda.
[1:04:23 AM] Ghost Writer: Yeah, I guess so.
[1:05:13 AM] Muse Dean: It's why Dean is so entrenched in habit and traditions. He represents a finite time in history that was reacting as a counterweight to the happenings of the time. It's not because what happened was about Dad so much as it's because that's a reflection of the past. ... He's the mirror that everyone wants to break.
[1:07:37 AM] Ghost Writer: Yes. I just keep coming up with, he isn't going to ever be WHOLE until he can REST. And I have no problem with that, except that my prompter would probably die, and I just ...really can't do that to her. *headdesk* This is why prompts SUCK.
[1:09:08 AM] Muse Dean: LOL. No no no.
[1:09:13 AM] Ghost Writer: *grins*
[1:09:30 AM] Muse Dean: Dean's wholeness isn't in question. The question is: why can't everyone else see that Dean is whole?
[1:10:18 AM] Ghost Writer: Ok, see, that is what I need you to clarify for me, because I think alot of the Dean-being broken stuff was prompt related, and now I'm just like um ... what? *more headdesk*
[1:10:28 AM] Muse Dean: LOL. Um... maybe... maybe some of it. Dean was broken, for sure.
[1:10:58 AM] Ghost Writer: Well, yeah.
[1:11:10 AM] Muse Dean: But, the only people questioning whether Dean was whole or not was other people.
[1:11:29 AM] Ghost Writer: But, I mean are we talking 7 years bad luck here or do we just need to call the windshield replacement guy?
[1:11:56 AM] Muse Dean: Dean's only question for himself was whether his motives were right, whether he was reacting to the right things with the right solutions.
[1:12:30 AM] Ghost Writer: Oh. Same as Sam. *sarcastic shock*
[1:12:56 AM] Muse Dean: Right... but Sam thinks of it in terms of an outer world he has to save. To Dean, Sam IS the world.
[1:13:08 AM] Ghost Writer: Right. Yes. Ok, so, if Dean chose to forgive Sam, and saw that Sam was able to save himself due to that, then Dean would automatically feel that he is - what. Doing the right thing again? Worth something?
[1:14:36 AM] Muse Dean: Goethe says, through his mouthpiece Faust, that the spirit of the times is at bottom the spirit of those in whom the times are mirrored. Thus, this verse questions the reality of a “spirit of an age.”
[1:15:38 AM] Ghost Writer: Wait, it'd be -
[1:15:44 AM] Muse Dean: *quotes more* Heidegger put forward the notion that metaphysics established an epoch in time (Zeitalter), suggesting a certain interpretation of truth. “Modern times” in this sense is a period characterized by science, by technology, by positing the work of art as an object of experience; its feature is the disappearance of God or Gods. The general principle of the modern era is to look at the world as a Bild, not to picture the world but to take it as a picture. The whole is there only when human beings refer to it by way of representing it and establishing it. This description implied a criticism of the modern era as replacing the concern for the totality of Being with specialized research of scientific data.
[1:15:55 AM] Ghost Writer: - that he's Sam's BROTHER again.
[1:17:20 AM] Muse Dean: Hunters as a society hunt because of something that happened to them. ... but we are all hunters. We are all chasing the definitive.
[1:18:05 AM] Ghost Writer: Right.
[1:18:28 AM] Muse Dean: So, even if Sam changed again, do you think Dean would ever be able to just leave him behind? Of course not. They need each other. Dean is the zeitgeist of the past. Sam is the zeitgeist of the future. The future without the past is reckless. The past without the future is pointless.
[1:19:34 AM] Ghost Writer: *makes duh face* That I have no problem seeing. It's one of the absolute unchangeable truths of the fanfic universe.
[1:21:40 AM] Muse Dean: Yeah, but they don't really understand WHY.
[1:22:21 AM] Ghost Writer: So I just need to explain *waves hand all over the place* THAT to THEM.
[1:23:08 AM] Muse Dean: Once upon a time, an orange grew on an apple tree... *smiles*
[1:23:13 AM] Ghost Writer: *dies some more* lol, okay
[1:24:05 AM] Muse Dean: If you tell them something that's wrong, they'll see why it's right. It's inherent in people to argue. Dean's arguments with himself represent that shift within society to accept and assimilate the needs of everyone involved in its own existence. Dean's death is the end of an era, but it's not the end of Dean. Dean is still there, same clothes, same car, same music... but the meaning has changed. *peers thoughtfully* You already know all of this, though.
[1:27:15 AM] Ghost Writer: Yes. I'm struggling with what his new meaning IS. I think. Maybe I don't even actually know what it is. I spent most of s4 in Sam's brain. *ponders*
[1:27:59 AM] Muse Dean: It's simple. We all grow up thinking we have to save the world... when all we really have to do is save one person... the one you're standing next to.
[1:28:59 AM] Ghost Writer: *speechless*
[1:29:45 AM] Muse Dean: *smiles* You can quote me if you want. *winks*
[1:29:59 AM] Ghost Writer: LOL! Maybe I will. *grin*
[1:31:06 AM] Muse Dean: It's why Sam feels like he has to save the world - because he couldn't save Dean.
[1:31:37 AM] Ghost Writer: Yes, THAT, I knew. lol
[1:32:03 AM] Muse Dean: Yes, and that's why he's doomed to fail - it's why his logic is all screwed up. You can't save everyone you set out to save, and sometimes you just have to accept that you're the one being saved and not the one doing the saving.
[1:33:07 AM] Ghost Writer: Which Sam knows in his HEAD, but not where it counts (his heart).
[1:34:05 AM] Muse Dean: ...No, I don't think he believes that. For all his faith, Sam thinks he's not worthy enough to be redeemed. But you can't EARN something like that.
[1:34:58 AM] Ghost Writer: So, in the story, by accepting that Dean is saving him, Sam is also saving Dean in return? Okay. ;)
[1:36:12 AM] Muse Dean: So when Dean questioned his own resurrection, it was because he thinks that he couldn't have done anything to earn it. Sam, on the other hand, went straight to that line of thought: that Dean must be special somehow. See?
[1:37:17 AM] Ghost Writer: Yes. Totally opposite takes.
[1:37:47 AM] Muse Dean: But, as far as Dean's concerned, he's just a guy and there's no amount of good works that will change that.
[1:37:54 AM] Ghost Writer: But Sam has always thought that Dean was special, anyway.
[1:38:08 AM] Muse Dean: Yeah, but Sam thinks he's special, too.
[1:38:12 AM] Ghost Writer: hm.
[1:38:50 AM] Muse Dean: When that shouldn't matter.
[1:39:00 AM] Ghost Writer: Right.
[1:39:23 AM] Muse Dean: Because look what eating of the Tree of Knowledge did for Sam.
[1:39:43 AM] Ghost Writer: Sam has always struggled for the right to be his own person - he's rebellious by nature.
[1:40:07 AM] Muse Dean: In Dean's mind, Stanford or doing research or taking charge or whatever, was all just Sam's way of being special in another place. It wasn't really any different.
[1:40:22 AM] Ghost Writer: Okay. I see. So ... I have about 3000 words to cut. I think. But ok. I can do that. It'll come to me sometime when I'm not in a coma. *wink*
[1:47:11 AM] Muse Dean: It will be better for it.
[1:47:42 AM] Ghost Writer: Yeah, I know it will. Thanks. : )
[1:55:47 AM] Muse Dean: No problem.
[1:56:10 AM] Ghost Writer: Anything else we need to go over before I pass out?
[1:59:57 AM] Muse Dean: One more thing.
Ice doesn't just freeze - it preserves and suspends, sometimes quite literally. Superman's palace of ice for a dead civilization was the same analogy.
This whole story is a metaphor - a zeitgeist: Sam also represents the people of the world and Dean also represents the culture that's created based on the ideas and experiences of those people. It's the action and the reaction. It's why Dean can't change the present - what Sam does - he can only reflect his choices.
But if there's one thing that life on earth requires, it's change. Seasons, elements, laws, free will: it's all about the rules of engagement. Ice can't make fire. Fire can't make ice. Fire always melts ice... and fire always dies when the ice dies. But it's an eastern philosophy that pure creation only begins in the wake of absolute destruction. The only survivor is hope.
When Sam comes to a full realization that this fire is his - no one else's - and when he decides to control it (and where and how and why he does that) instead of letting it manipulate him, THAT is the new age. I'll just come out and call THAT the apocalypse because that's what it is. The question is, will the world learn from and appreciate the past, or will it let it just melt away like so much collateral damage and in so doing, destroy itself?
Goodnight.
Category: Ficmeta
Timeline: Written over the Season Four hiatus.
Characters: Dean and a writer friend.
Wordcount: 2200
Rating: PG
Written: July 6th, 2009
~
[July 6 12:37:26 AM] Muse Dean: So, how is the zeitgeist coming?
[12:38:27 AM] Ghost Writer: *googles* Dude ... I have no idea.
[12:39:57 AM] Muse Dean: *quotes Wiki* "The spirits of individual nations are both the articulations (Gliederungen) of an organization and its realization. The spirits of individual nations represent a segment of the World Spirit out of which emerges the unlimited universal spirit. A comparison is introduced here between the status of an individual and that of a nation's spirit. In the process of his formation the individual undergoes various changes without, however, losing his identity. As a part of world history, a nation exhibiting a certain trend expressed in its Volksgeist plays its part in the total process of world history. But once it contributes its share to world history it can no longer play a role in the process of world history. The submersion in the total process prevents a people's cultural rebirth, because it has exhausted its creativity in the historical growth of its guiding spirit."
[12:39:59 AM] Ghost Writer: I think the zeitgeist around here is pretty crappy, tbh, but I don't see that changing any time soon, lol ... Here's what I was thinking - originally, it is supposed to end with both the brothers whole again. But now I'm wondering if - having helped Sam save himself - Dean wouldn't just as soon live vicariously through Sam's redemption instead, leaving his own for a later date. Or something. That probably makes no sense at all, but again - sleepy.
[12:47:14 AM] Muse Dean: Dean's salvation IS Sam's.
[12:47:36 AM] Ghost Writer: Right ... The way it's set up though, it's like Dean can't come back fully unless SAM comes back first, because otherwise there is nothing to come back for.
[12:48:44 AM] Muse Dean: Right. Come back to where, though, is kinda the problem isn't it?
[12:49:31 AM] Ghost Writer: YES. Also, Dean being whole again seemed really important at the time, and now I'm just not sure. *Wince*
[12:50:16 AM] Muse Dean: Right. A zeitgeist.
[12:50:31 AM] Ghost Writer: (O.O) I ... get the concept, but writing it is a whole new ball game.
[12:52:10 AM] Muse Dean: I can see that. Dean's idea is that he's already outlived his own time, right?
[12:52:37 AM] Ghost Writer: Yes.
[12:53:05 AM] Muse Dean: He's felt that way since John gave himself up and pulled him back from the brink.
[12:53:17 AM] Ghost Writer: Yes, absolutely.
[12:53:18 AM] Muse Dean: He hasn't made a single choice on his own behalf since, unless it was to choose NOT to choose.
[12:53:43 AM] Ghost Writer: *nod*
[12:54:36 AM] Muse Dean: ...and he's already said that he just wants to go out swinging; that if Sam's done, so is he. So, if he's here at all, it's for Sam. So, what happens to Dean is gonna be up to Sam.
[12:55:21 AM] Ghost Writer: So, with Sam back in it, he would just choose to stay, just a while longer.
[12:56:05 AM] Muse Dean: *nods* Dean is chasing the definitive.
[12:59:09 AM] Ghost Writer: I guess the problem I'm having is I want to melt the ICE. And clearly, finding his own personal desire to live - any desire apart from because Sam needs him to - is like, anathema. So even if he chooses to stay and fight, he still isn't BACK, not really. And I'm trying to find a middle ground between the two of those - because I don't want to zap Dean with the magic wand, you know? I'm not trying to magically fix him. I want it to feel realistic.
[1:00:38 AM] Muse Dean: N'kay. How about this. Which one of you is real: the one who's living and driving to work or the one living and talking to yourself in your head?
[1:01:55 AM] Ghost Writer: LOL. Honestly? The one talking to myself is way more me than the one who goes to work, any day. :P She just pays the bills.
[1:03:10 AM] Muse Dean: Yeah, but you're still thinking and your existence has all the same drives and agenda.
[1:04:23 AM] Ghost Writer: Yeah, I guess so.
[1:05:13 AM] Muse Dean: It's why Dean is so entrenched in habit and traditions. He represents a finite time in history that was reacting as a counterweight to the happenings of the time. It's not because what happened was about Dad so much as it's because that's a reflection of the past. ... He's the mirror that everyone wants to break.
[1:07:37 AM] Ghost Writer: Yes. I just keep coming up with, he isn't going to ever be WHOLE until he can REST. And I have no problem with that, except that my prompter would probably die, and I just ...really can't do that to her. *headdesk* This is why prompts SUCK.
[1:09:08 AM] Muse Dean: LOL. No no no.
[1:09:13 AM] Ghost Writer: *grins*
[1:09:30 AM] Muse Dean: Dean's wholeness isn't in question. The question is: why can't everyone else see that Dean is whole?
[1:10:18 AM] Ghost Writer: Ok, see, that is what I need you to clarify for me, because I think alot of the Dean-being broken stuff was prompt related, and now I'm just like um ... what? *more headdesk*
[1:10:28 AM] Muse Dean: LOL. Um... maybe... maybe some of it. Dean was broken, for sure.
[1:10:58 AM] Ghost Writer: Well, yeah.
[1:11:10 AM] Muse Dean: But, the only people questioning whether Dean was whole or not was other people.
[1:11:29 AM] Ghost Writer: But, I mean are we talking 7 years bad luck here or do we just need to call the windshield replacement guy?
[1:11:56 AM] Muse Dean: Dean's only question for himself was whether his motives were right, whether he was reacting to the right things with the right solutions.
[1:12:30 AM] Ghost Writer: Oh. Same as Sam. *sarcastic shock*
[1:12:56 AM] Muse Dean: Right... but Sam thinks of it in terms of an outer world he has to save. To Dean, Sam IS the world.
[1:13:08 AM] Ghost Writer: Right. Yes. Ok, so, if Dean chose to forgive Sam, and saw that Sam was able to save himself due to that, then Dean would automatically feel that he is - what. Doing the right thing again? Worth something?
[1:14:36 AM] Muse Dean: Goethe says, through his mouthpiece Faust, that the spirit of the times is at bottom the spirit of those in whom the times are mirrored. Thus, this verse questions the reality of a “spirit of an age.”
[1:15:38 AM] Ghost Writer: Wait, it'd be -
[1:15:44 AM] Muse Dean: *quotes more* Heidegger put forward the notion that metaphysics established an epoch in time (Zeitalter), suggesting a certain interpretation of truth. “Modern times” in this sense is a period characterized by science, by technology, by positing the work of art as an object of experience; its feature is the disappearance of God or Gods. The general principle of the modern era is to look at the world as a Bild, not to picture the world but to take it as a picture. The whole is there only when human beings refer to it by way of representing it and establishing it. This description implied a criticism of the modern era as replacing the concern for the totality of Being with specialized research of scientific data.
[1:15:55 AM] Ghost Writer: - that he's Sam's BROTHER again.
[1:17:20 AM] Muse Dean: Hunters as a society hunt because of something that happened to them. ... but we are all hunters. We are all chasing the definitive.
[1:18:05 AM] Ghost Writer: Right.
[1:18:28 AM] Muse Dean: So, even if Sam changed again, do you think Dean would ever be able to just leave him behind? Of course not. They need each other. Dean is the zeitgeist of the past. Sam is the zeitgeist of the future. The future without the past is reckless. The past without the future is pointless.
[1:19:34 AM] Ghost Writer: *makes duh face* That I have no problem seeing. It's one of the absolute unchangeable truths of the fanfic universe.
[1:21:40 AM] Muse Dean: Yeah, but they don't really understand WHY.
[1:22:21 AM] Ghost Writer: So I just need to explain *waves hand all over the place* THAT to THEM.
[1:23:08 AM] Muse Dean: Once upon a time, an orange grew on an apple tree... *smiles*
[1:23:13 AM] Ghost Writer: *dies some more* lol, okay
[1:24:05 AM] Muse Dean: If you tell them something that's wrong, they'll see why it's right. It's inherent in people to argue. Dean's arguments with himself represent that shift within society to accept and assimilate the needs of everyone involved in its own existence. Dean's death is the end of an era, but it's not the end of Dean. Dean is still there, same clothes, same car, same music... but the meaning has changed. *peers thoughtfully* You already know all of this, though.
[1:27:15 AM] Ghost Writer: Yes. I'm struggling with what his new meaning IS. I think. Maybe I don't even actually know what it is. I spent most of s4 in Sam's brain. *ponders*
[1:27:59 AM] Muse Dean: It's simple. We all grow up thinking we have to save the world... when all we really have to do is save one person... the one you're standing next to.
[1:28:59 AM] Ghost Writer: *speechless*
[1:29:45 AM] Muse Dean: *smiles* You can quote me if you want. *winks*
[1:29:59 AM] Ghost Writer: LOL! Maybe I will. *grin*
[1:31:06 AM] Muse Dean: It's why Sam feels like he has to save the world - because he couldn't save Dean.
[1:31:37 AM] Ghost Writer: Yes, THAT, I knew. lol
[1:32:03 AM] Muse Dean: Yes, and that's why he's doomed to fail - it's why his logic is all screwed up. You can't save everyone you set out to save, and sometimes you just have to accept that you're the one being saved and not the one doing the saving.
[1:33:07 AM] Ghost Writer: Which Sam knows in his HEAD, but not where it counts (his heart).
[1:34:05 AM] Muse Dean: ...No, I don't think he believes that. For all his faith, Sam thinks he's not worthy enough to be redeemed. But you can't EARN something like that.
[1:34:58 AM] Ghost Writer: So, in the story, by accepting that Dean is saving him, Sam is also saving Dean in return? Okay. ;)
[1:36:12 AM] Muse Dean: So when Dean questioned his own resurrection, it was because he thinks that he couldn't have done anything to earn it. Sam, on the other hand, went straight to that line of thought: that Dean must be special somehow. See?
[1:37:17 AM] Ghost Writer: Yes. Totally opposite takes.
[1:37:47 AM] Muse Dean: But, as far as Dean's concerned, he's just a guy and there's no amount of good works that will change that.
[1:37:54 AM] Ghost Writer: But Sam has always thought that Dean was special, anyway.
[1:38:08 AM] Muse Dean: Yeah, but Sam thinks he's special, too.
[1:38:12 AM] Ghost Writer: hm.
[1:38:50 AM] Muse Dean: When that shouldn't matter.
[1:39:00 AM] Ghost Writer: Right.
[1:39:23 AM] Muse Dean: Because look what eating of the Tree of Knowledge did for Sam.
[1:39:43 AM] Ghost Writer: Sam has always struggled for the right to be his own person - he's rebellious by nature.
[1:40:07 AM] Muse Dean: In Dean's mind, Stanford or doing research or taking charge or whatever, was all just Sam's way of being special in another place. It wasn't really any different.
[1:40:22 AM] Ghost Writer: Okay. I see. So ... I have about 3000 words to cut. I think. But ok. I can do that. It'll come to me sometime when I'm not in a coma. *wink*
[1:47:11 AM] Muse Dean: It will be better for it.
[1:47:42 AM] Ghost Writer: Yeah, I know it will. Thanks. : )
[1:55:47 AM] Muse Dean: No problem.
[1:56:10 AM] Ghost Writer: Anything else we need to go over before I pass out?
[1:59:57 AM] Muse Dean: One more thing.
Ice doesn't just freeze - it preserves and suspends, sometimes quite literally. Superman's palace of ice for a dead civilization was the same analogy.
This whole story is a metaphor - a zeitgeist: Sam also represents the people of the world and Dean also represents the culture that's created based on the ideas and experiences of those people. It's the action and the reaction. It's why Dean can't change the present - what Sam does - he can only reflect his choices.
But if there's one thing that life on earth requires, it's change. Seasons, elements, laws, free will: it's all about the rules of engagement. Ice can't make fire. Fire can't make ice. Fire always melts ice... and fire always dies when the ice dies. But it's an eastern philosophy that pure creation only begins in the wake of absolute destruction. The only survivor is hope.
When Sam comes to a full realization that this fire is his - no one else's - and when he decides to control it (and where and how and why he does that) instead of letting it manipulate him, THAT is the new age. I'll just come out and call THAT the apocalypse because that's what it is. The question is, will the world learn from and appreciate the past, or will it let it just melt away like so much collateral damage and in so doing, destroy itself?
Goodnight.