{"id":8238,"date":"2015-08-21T11:14:33","date_gmt":"2015-08-21T15:14:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cemeterydanceonline.com\/?p=6776"},"modified":"2015-08-21T11:14:33","modified_gmt":"2015-08-21T15:14:33","slug":"what-i-learned-from-stephen-king-an-introduction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/what-i-learned-from-stephen-king-an-introduction\/","title":{"rendered":"What I Learned from Stephen King: An Introduction"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"JSechrest-webbanner5\"<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the horror story is our rehearsal for death, then its strict moralities make it also a reaffirmation of life and good will and simple imagination \u2013 just one more pipeline to the infinite.\u201d \u2013 Stephen King, <\/span><\/i>Danse Macabre<\/span> \u00a0<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\"skpic2\"Wisdom can be found in the most unlikely of places, and it is often within the greatest darkness that we find the greatest light.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alright, alright. I\u2019ll admit they\u2019re clich\u00e9s \u2013 but like most clich\u00e9s, they also happen to be true. Anyone with a modicum of introspection and a rear view mirror will tell you that it\u2019s the tough times in life we seem to learn and grow from the most. It is the darkness that makes us reach for the light and propels us to examine the human spirit and reevaluate our place and priorities in the world. <\/span><\/p>\n

If there is anything I learned from Stephen King\u2019s first foray into non-fiction, <\/span>Danse Macabre<\/span><\/i>, it is that those of us who love a good fright flick or scary read are attracted to the darkness for a wide variety of reasons \u2013 many of which leave us with a greater awareness of our inner fears, a questioning of our own mortality, and an increased appreciation that all of our limbs are still intact \u2013 or at the very least that our ankles aren\u2019t being hobbled today. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With this in mind, I would like to say hello, introduce this monthly doo-dad I\u2019ve been asked to pen, and make an arguable statement. <\/span><\/p>\n

Hello, I\u2019m Jason Sechrest. I\u2019ve been reading Stephen King since I was 10 years old, and I am a Stephen King addict. <\/span><\/p>\n

For 25 years I have been a proud reader of King\u2019s novels (he refers to folks like me as \u2018Constant Readers\u2019) and as I have grown with them, I\u2019ve noticed something: For all the scares King packs with a punch into his stories, there are equal parts wisdom, spirituality and life lessons if you care to look for them. <\/span><\/p>\n

I do. <\/span><\/p>\n

I do, and I\u2019m going to share with you what I\u2019ve found. What I\u2019ve learned from Stephen King. <\/span><\/p>\n

It has been noted in several interviews that Stephen King doesn\u2019t think of himself as a horror writer. He tells stories. Sometimes they\u2019re scary. Sometimes they\u2019re not. What they are, always, is about people, the human condition, what makes us tick and what makes the ticking stop. <\/span><\/p>\n

Between the lines, you\u2019ll find that <\/span>Carrie<\/span><\/i> speaks of the dangers in giving absolute power over to our religious convictions, while <\/span>Firestarter <\/span><\/i>softly whispers warnings of handing that same power over to our government. There are hard truths about the formation of societies found evident in <\/span>The Stand<\/span><\/i>, which serves as a battle ground between two camps for good versus evil. That same war is waged internally instead of externally, within one man in fact, in <\/span>The Shining<\/span><\/i>. <\/span><\/p>\n

If Stephen King is the master of horror (and I believe he is), it is not just his monsters that have made him so, but the reflections of ourselves that we see within his many works. <\/span><\/p>\n

As King himself writes, \u201cWe need ghost stories because we, in fact, are the ghosts.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\"thestand\"It is not my intention to fill these installments with psychology, philosophy, academic thesis or even bumper sticker inspiration \u2013 though I do hope you\u2019ll forgive all these things and more occasionally. I\u2019m just going to share some stories. Stories about those moments that Stephen King\u2019s books have, for lack of a better word, \u201cawakened\u201d things inside. Sometimes those things inside are ghosts, haunted memories not quite through with us. Sometimes they are monsters, pieces of us that are better left sleeping. More often than not, however, they are something like angels. Not the fragile ones with their halos and harpsichords, but the strong winged servants of creation that grab you by the shoulders and lift you high enough to see a clearer picture of yourself and the whole darn planet in all its intricate interconnectedness. It\u2019s these awakenings that make us stop to think about the way we see ourselves and those around us. <\/span><\/p>\n

I would also very much like to hear from you. That\u2019s what the comments section is for, and you will find it below. I hope you will share with me your own stories of how Stephen King\u2019s books have affected you, and feel free to sound off in criticism, be it constructive or otherwise. Or just leave a nice note if you have enjoyed, so that I have a better idea of what you\u2019d like to read more of in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so, fellow Constant Reader(s), I invite you to join me on a journey into that dark tunnel of self-discovery. I promise I will try to keep our trek a fun one. There will be several laughs, and plenty of scares. Please leave your flashlights, torches and candelabras. You will not need them here. <\/span><\/p>\n

You can learn a lot in the dark. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I Learned from Stephen King\u201d is a Cemetery Dance Online exclusive series of articles about the wisdom, spirituality and life lessons found within the works of Stephen King. Jason Sechrest began his career at 15 years old as a full-time staff writer for <\/span><\/i>Femme Fatales<\/span> magazine. His writing credits include <\/span><\/i>LA Weekly<\/span>, <\/span><\/i>Frontiers<\/span>, <\/span><\/i>Entertainment Weekly<\/span> and more. He tweets as @JasonSechrest<\/a> and posts often on Facebook at\u00a0Facebook.com\/JasonSechrest<\/a>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIf the horror story is our rehearsal for death, then its strict moralities make it also a reaffirmation of life and good will and simple imagination \u2013 just one more pipeline to the infinite.\u201d \u2013 Stephen King, Danse Macabre \u00a0 Wisdom can be found in the most unlikely of places, and it is often within … Continue Reading! “What I Learned from Stephen King: An Introduction”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[387],"tags":[294,42,386,388],"class_list":["post-8238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-what-i-learned-from-stephen-king","tag-columns","tag-featured","tag-jason-sechrest","tag-what-i-learned-from-stephen-king"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat I Learned from Stephen King: An Introduction - 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