Any tradition not continuing to be enjoyed should be regulated to the refuse pile of its age. Any past tradition that looks enjoyable, but regulated to refuse should be brought back ONLY for its benefits, never it’s demands or obligations.

Traditions that provide a value function to society due to natural conditions, such as seeds should be planted now for the benefit of a god rather than the fact spring is the best time to planet according to all known agricultural groups of people should be recognized.

If traditions provide value real world help then they are NOT traditions, they are science, knowledge, and understanding of our world. If they DON’T prove a real world value then I revert to my original lines , with one addition to bring it back in line:

Traditions should only ever be one of three things:
(1) Enjoyed
(2) Discarded
(3) Repurposed

There is only on thing that gives Life meaning. One thing and one thing only, and that thing is Death. Death is what gives meaning to Life by being the one thing that Life isn’t. Or, more accurately, Death is all of the things Life isn’t.

But the basis for meaning is not the same as meaning derived from. The meaning of Life is that which negates Death, i.e. Living. All things Living. Every activity you do, every action you perform, every thought you think, every feeling you endure is a demonstration that you are changing, growing, becoming.

What gives a race meaning? The finish line, of course. But what is the meaning of running a race? Simply to run, to perform, to act, to live. A race without a finish line is just endless and ultimately unfulfilling.

Death is a phenomenon that can only occur to beings and creatures that have lived. If you were lucky enough to have lived, then you must accept you are lucky enough to have Death waiting for you. If Life is the meal, then Death is the desert. And you can’t have your desert until you finish your meal.

Be thankful for Death, because without it, Life would be devoid of meaning.

12 March 2025. ©2025 Del Pullen. All rights reserved.

My very first story from 2006 titled “Nemesis Returns” is available to read now.

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Once Upon a Spacetime Continuum

My collection of short stories set in the universe of The Analog Robot

By Del Pullen

For those unaware “narratology” is the study of narrative stories. This encompasses forms from simple prose of novels and short stories to the visual arts such as cinema, television, and graphic novels. While I intend to focus on the visual mediums, the entire field is lacking in proper terminology when discussing what I would argue are two of the three most important parts of any story: the beginning and the end. The remainder being the Logos (word or speech) or Narratio (to tell, relate, or recount), what is most commonly referred to as “the body” of the story.

While both are obviously important within a single subject, needing to be compared and contrasted, each also serves a purpose across all types of stories. We should be comparing and contrasting all beginning with each other and all ending with each other. We should also be looking at how beginning of and endings of a single narrative are and can be juxtaposed against others, both those like in kind and those from different genres.

And what about those beginnings and endings embedded with a larger story? For example, both Back to the Future and The Lord of the Rings contain three separate stories that combine to tell a larger narrative. A trilogy, by nature, contains four beginnings and four endings. Each segment must contain its own beginning and ending, as well as a beginning and final end for the trilogy. That means that the beginning of the first work of art must work as the introduction for the entire body, just as the ending of the third work must work as an ending for the entire collection of work.

Or does it? Do preludes, prologues, epiloges, codas, etc count? Surely they do, but for which grouping of the works?

It is for these reasons that the current terms used are wholly inadequate to be used in our future discussion of the beginning and ending of narratives. Therefore, I am proposing two new terms to be used exclusively in the field of narratology.

For each term I will discuss the reasons I chose these terms, the problems with my choices, and finally the reasons I push to use them despite the conflicts.

First, in the study of narratology, the word currently used to denote the study of the beginning is “exposition” which is wholly and completely not an appropriate use of that word when it already has uses in narration, basically as an information dump. I have also seen the term “protology” tossed about, however this term seems not only to not be of common usage at all, but when it is used, it is applied to the conception of ideas or the start of fabrication, hence the common usage of the word “prototype.”

As for the end of the story we might be tempted to use the word “eschatology” or the study of the end of things. However, this word, too, is weighed down with prior usage. Currently, it is usually used to discuss the study of the end of the universe, humanity, or world.

Another option is the Greek word for beginning: arché (ἀρχή), as in “archeology,” or “archology,” literally meaning “study of the start.” Now it seems to me this would cause immediate confusion with the field of actual Archeology, the study of the start of humanity and its past.

The Greek word for end is télos (τέλος), and again, any thinking academic would see this and be thrown into confusion with the term already in use: teleology, or the philosophical study of how things are intended to turn out.

Because both “archeology” and “teleology” are already in use, we can jettison them from our discussion.

Then what are the uses for the prefixes and suffixes in conjunction with the base “narration?” (Greek for the recounting of events; διήγησις)” Its noun form is narratio, the verb form is narrare, so we can propose the following that allows us apply our appropriate Greek affixes to both: We are now talking about the opening scene of any story utilizing the word “archenarritology” and discussing finale shot of a trilogy with the term “telonarritiology.” Both are phonetically and etymologically fraught.

Our situation is no different than coming up with a fantastic name for your company, product, or a title for your work only to find someone has used it previously. We are instead forced to make use of the terms and derivatives available to us in order to make ourselves distinct. Words are to work for us. They are our servants to be descriptively used, not demanding leaders.

I suggest the words “Prolology” (pro-LAWL-oh-gee) for the study of the beginning of stories and “Epilology” (ep-uh-LAWL-oh-gee) for the end of stories.

The etymological prescriptive accuracy is not important. Rather, the descriptive way in which I plan to use these new words is. And so, as I continue to discuss both the starts and stops of narratives, we shall continue to use the terms “prolology” and “epilology” and their derivatives such as “prolological” and “epilological” respectively.

And thus, I finish epilologically.

The Inversion lead directly to his concept of an idealized “The Good” which allowed for monotheism (which demands dogmatic truths) over polytheism (in which dogma cannot exist due to the many conflicting desires of the different gods).

A machine like a computer has no dedicated teleological task. It will simply do the calculations and actions requested of it based on a flow-chart-algorithm given to it. It is this lack of specificity that allows its much wider range of use than a single-goal machine such as the loom. The human mind is no different in this sense. Philosophy is the basic coding of HOW the mind should be used.

Assert that the mind should be used for serving a god and you will produce fundamentalists and religions. Assert that it should be used to understand the natural world and it will produce science and scientists keen to put truth over dogma. Assert that it should be used to create and you will get both artists and inventors. Assert that it should be used to strategize and it will produce generals, war plans, politicians, investors, and saboteurs. Assert that it should be used to build and it will produce architects, sculptors, carpenters, and the like.

Philosophy then is the paradigm under which the mind does its business. It is also the discussions of these paradigms including arguments for, against, combining, separating, extrapolating, and with which to dissect these paradigms. Understanding philosophy as a matter of subject as well as understanding those paradigms put forth by each philosopher allows one to decide for themselves how to program and use their own mind as they see fit.

Instead they wrote an essay that encouraged people to demand a system be changed, but when that system didn’t change, people had to pick up a sword and kill people until the system changed

We didn’t get America because Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense. Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense and that encouraged people to take up their muskets and shoot people in red coats.

The pen is the precursor to the sword, not more powerful than. The pen proceeds the sword.

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