The Epic

What is epic? What defines it? What makes it up?

For me, it is something that is on a scale so grand that at times it feels as if something unattainable is now within reach. It's something you have to feel. If you can't live it, it's not epic. Sure, that's kinda vague... but whatever. And I don't mean actually live it... I mean feel it, relate to it, experience it.

Then again, there is another side to that coin. Maybe the epic is something that reveals to us something new, something that we couldn't feel until it came along.

Epic is all about personal interpretation. It's like classic. In school we have to read classics, or books of "literary merit." What's the point of categorizing literature in this way? Just because a bunch of old people on an awards board decide that The Scarlet Letter is a good book doesn't mean that I will. Go ahead, make us read whatever you want. But to call anything classic is to deny that very title to anything else that others might enjoy. I don't see anybody teaching Jack McDevitt anywhere. Oh, but that's because he writes science fiction. There are no morals, character development, or themes in science fiction. And for God's sake, Earth Abides? That book is amazing, and I hadn't even heard about it until a friend showed it to me. Why is that book any less classic or epic than another? Because it's a post-apocalyptic fiction novel? Please.

Danger is when you do something and you don't understand why.