Umbratus
Umbratus is a story that has been rolling around in my head since I was about 14 years old so the theme is probably quite immature. I don't want to give away the whole story here because Umbratus lives in the dark and the shadows and needs to be discovered rather than revealed. I know you've probably already done a Google Search to find out what the heck Umbratus is... surely I didn't create the name myself. Nope, I sure didn't. Everything that you find on Google will give you clues about what it means within the context of the story.
When I was 14 and the story started to form in my head it was primarily inspired by the darker things that live in the hidden parts of our imagination that we don't dare disturb. It's like that creepy broom closet in your aunt's old house. It's deep and dark and you don't really know what's in there so you just don't open the door. Maybe you hug the opposite wall just a little bit when you walk past the door but not so much that you make your fear obvious. At 14 years old I was enchanted by the martial arts and I loved to read books about Karate and Kung Fu. They were mostly instructional books because I lived in a tiny village too far from a city to make practicing martial arts practical. As I got a bit older I had the opportunity to study a bit of Shotokan Karate and bit of Kung Fu (so little that I never did learn the exact style). Later still I managed to find someone who taught Ninjitsu but I was never able to stick with any of it because I let life (or what I thought was life) get in the way. Even so, the allure of martial arts remained and I was always fascinated with the stories and the people who could achieve the things I had only dreamed of.
Fast forward to my 30's and the love of all things martial arts remained but I also had an interest in understanding what made the world tick. I had now been exposed to some of the largest corporations in the world and I could see first hand how culture and society was manipulated by money and power for the sake of increasing profit riding on a wave of the dreams and desires of a sea of expendable people who were tragically unaware of their insignificance. I'm not talking about anything so romantic as the Illuminati or some secret society that controls the planet. I'm talking about the horrors and heartbreak that are the byproduct of greed and selfishness. I'm talking about about the seeds of desire for the meaningless things that are planted in our brains so early that they grow like weeds and quickly choke out our hearts before we even know that we have a heart beating in our chests. The parasitic ideals that leave us running around just empty husks with a small purpose and no thought greater than acquiring as much as we can to fill the spaces around us that we think we own. All the while we serve a master who we think we know.
Umbratus is about finding our hearts and about understanding life as it is not how we are told it is. It's about the realization that life is an experience unique to ourselves and that each of us is living a unique experience made possible by our connections to each other. But there are plenty of fights, explosions, car chases and breathtaking adventures that make up each and every life experience so it should be an interesting ride.
When I was 14 and the story started to form in my head it was primarily inspired by the darker things that live in the hidden parts of our imagination that we don't dare disturb. It's like that creepy broom closet in your aunt's old house. It's deep and dark and you don't really know what's in there so you just don't open the door. Maybe you hug the opposite wall just a little bit when you walk past the door but not so much that you make your fear obvious. At 14 years old I was enchanted by the martial arts and I loved to read books about Karate and Kung Fu. They were mostly instructional books because I lived in a tiny village too far from a city to make practicing martial arts practical. As I got a bit older I had the opportunity to study a bit of Shotokan Karate and bit of Kung Fu (so little that I never did learn the exact style). Later still I managed to find someone who taught Ninjitsu but I was never able to stick with any of it because I let life (or what I thought was life) get in the way. Even so, the allure of martial arts remained and I was always fascinated with the stories and the people who could achieve the things I had only dreamed of.
Fast forward to my 30's and the love of all things martial arts remained but I also had an interest in understanding what made the world tick. I had now been exposed to some of the largest corporations in the world and I could see first hand how culture and society was manipulated by money and power for the sake of increasing profit riding on a wave of the dreams and desires of a sea of expendable people who were tragically unaware of their insignificance. I'm not talking about anything so romantic as the Illuminati or some secret society that controls the planet. I'm talking about the horrors and heartbreak that are the byproduct of greed and selfishness. I'm talking about about the seeds of desire for the meaningless things that are planted in our brains so early that they grow like weeds and quickly choke out our hearts before we even know that we have a heart beating in our chests. The parasitic ideals that leave us running around just empty husks with a small purpose and no thought greater than acquiring as much as we can to fill the spaces around us that we think we own. All the while we serve a master who we think we know.
Umbratus is about finding our hearts and about understanding life as it is not how we are told it is. It's about the realization that life is an experience unique to ourselves and that each of us is living a unique experience made possible by our connections to each other. But there are plenty of fights, explosions, car chases and breathtaking adventures that make up each and every life experience so it should be an interesting ride.
Comments
Post a Comment