Raison D'être (or Why I Write) 

I'm sorry for any of the apparent braggadocio. Can't remember why I put it in (perhaps I'm just a braggart? Nahh...(braggart--). Oh...oh yes. That's right. I had written this for an ostensibly "intellectual" dating site called, that's right, Intellect.com. I got one response, but she wasn't "my type," as they say. I'm sorry! (to her. She didn't look all that happy. Poor girl--even though she was rather old).

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I have a BA in English literature from Cal/UC Berkeley--graduated in 1995 with high grades. Wanted to be a writer for many, many years--wrote a long imaginative story when I was ten--I'm probably correct when I say it was almost a hundred--but it stank. I'm glad I don't have it anymore.

I am hungry for success as a writer of fiction and poetry (but mostly fiction—novels) but I am concerned that my fiction at least can at certain times appear a bit odd, as it were. Definitely not commercial. I've had an interesting past and some of that translates into my writing, especially the experiential parts—I mean those in the mind. However, much else of my writing—at least the novel I’m almost done with now—has a lot of “normal” sounding stuff in it, as in straight narrative, character dialogue, internal monologues of a sort, not too much omniscience on my part, and a fairly linear progression to the story, as it were.

I live in Brooklyn—Park Slope to be exact—and I am seeking serious writers, by which I mean writers who are interested in discussing and exploring issues that are relevant to personal identity, psychological/mental conditions, suffering and joy, alienation, loneliness and deep despair, connection and compassion, speculation about the nature of human society and one’s place within it, and issues of doubt and cynicism as regards the various values that are espoused by our society but are nevertheless not necessarily abided by, in some cases to almost the slightest degree. In short, I am interested in writing about a man’s place in the world, and what it means to be who he is at this particular time in his life and at this particular moment—both in terms of the present and the past, i.e., history. What are we doing here, after all. I know. It’s been asked. But do all of us know? I think some do. (And I think I do by the way—at least somewhat. I’ve encountered certain ideas that have persuaded me of their validity. Maybe I’m wrong.) There are various strains of thought on the matter of what we are doing here, as it were. Some people say we are here for God, others for the primary purpose of genetic and species survival, others for beauty and truth and love and joy, and yet others for no reason at all--we are just whatever we make ourselves, as the French Existentialists said and as they termed the “absurd.” (I am not an academic philosopher—a disclaimer.)

I am not happy with remaining anonymous as a writer. I have a lot I’d like to say to a lot more people than myself (although there can be a few in there, can’t there). The world is filled, it seems, with unsatisfied and alone people—most especially the poor among us, and there are many of them. This is not to say that those that are well off are as happy as Santa Claus. No, I am not saying that, as I have been accused of having suggested by certain people I just happen to know. But I believe that there are different levels of opportunity for happiness depending on one’s political and economic circumstances. I don’t believe everything is “in the head,” and that if one just “sees things differently,” then one can adjust and even be “really happy.” Rather, I do believe that there are basic human desires and objective needs that almost absolutely must be met in order for a human being to feel like a human being, in order for a man to feel like a man, or a woman like a woman. So I am not entirely a “relativist” by any means, although I am in in a number of ways. Love, play, and work. I believe S.F. said that these were the essential elements to a being a fully healthy and dynamic person. How many people lack one or more of those? I wonder.

So I am interested in action—verbal, interpersonal, communicative action and am not interested in simply sitting around enjoying another person’s company endlessly—although of course I do enjoy certain people’s company a lot, but that can get tired if there aren’t other avenues for self-expression and outreach to others, and outreach for a variety of different reasons, I’d like to add.

I write with an eye towards experience, as in that awful word, reality. As most do believe and accept that gravity is a real presence in reality, so I, and others certainly, believe that there are real forces at work in our lives, for we are biological life forms who must ultimately succumb to the terminal reality of nature—at least for now. We live physically and die physically. Of course we have feeling and feelings and wonderful flights of fancy, and some would say God, etc., but it’s not all a matter of “it’s just the way you look at it.” I know from personal experience that there are certain things in life that one must have at certain levels and ages in order to feel like one is alive. I don’t buy the nonsense otherwise. A poor man or woman knows what poverty means in a person’s life above and beyond the mere lack of cash or high-falutin prestige, and that despite lectures and sermons from members of certain ideological persuasions who say that we must come to learn to live with less, that we’re selfish for wanting too much, and arrogant, and that we all should be perpetually grateful for either living in this country or just for the mere fact of being alive, and as though life and being were a great joy for everyone in every situation imaginable, and as though one would indeed be Icarus-like for expecting more from life than we are “supposed” to have.I'm sorry for any of the apparent braggadocio. Can't remember why I put it in (perhaps I'm just a braggart? Nahh...(braggart--).

I have a BA in English literature from Cal/UC Berkeley--graduated in 1995 with high grades. Wanted to be a writer for many, many years--wrote a long imaginative story when I was ten--I'm probably correct when I say it was almost a hundred--but it stank. I'm glad I don't have it anymore.

I am hungry for success as a writer of fiction and poetry (but mostly fiction—novels) but I am concerned that my fiction at least can at certain times appear a bit odd, as it were. Definitely not commercial. I've had an interesting past and some of that translates into my writing, especially the experiential parts—I mean those in the mind. However, much else of my writing—at least the novel I’m almost done with now—has a lot of “normal” sounding stuff in it, as in straight narrative, character dialogue, internal monologues of a sort, not too much omniscience on my part, and a fairly linear progression to the story, as it were.

I live in Brooklyn—Park Slope to be exact—and I am seeking serious writers, by which I mean writers who are interested in discussing and exploring issues that are relevant to personal identity, psychological/mental conditions, suffering and joy, alienation, loneliness and deep despair, connection and compassion, speculation about the nature of human society and one’s place within it, and issues of doubt and cynicism as regards the various values that are espoused by our society but are nevertheless not necessarily abided by, in some cases to almost the slightest degree. In short, I am interested in writing about a man’s place in the world, and what it means to be who he is at this particular time in his life and at this particular moment—both in terms of the present and the past, i.e., history. What are we doing here, after all. I know. It’s been asked. But do all of us know? I think some do. (And I think I do by the way—at least somewhat. I’ve encountered certain ideas that have persuaded me of their validity. Maybe I’m wrong.) There are various strains of thought on the matter of what we are doing here, as it were. Some people say we are here for God, others for the primary purpose of genetic and species survival, others for beauty and truth and love and joy, and yet others for no reason at all--we are just whatever we make ourselves, as the French Existentialists said and as they termed the “absurd.” (I am not an academic philosopher—a disclaimer.)

I am not happy with remaining anonymous as a writer. I have a lot I’d like to say to a lot more people than myself (although there can be a few in there, can’t there). The world is filled, it seems, with unsatisfied and alone people—most especially the poor among us, and there are many of them. This is not to say that those that are well off are as happy as Santa Claus. No, I am not saying that, as I have been accused of having suggested by certain people I just happen to know. But I believe that there are different levels of opportunity for happiness depending on one’s political and economic circumstances. I don’t believe everything is “in the head,” and that if one just “sees things differently,” then one can adjust and even be “really happy.” Rather, I do believe that there are basic human desires and objective needs that almost absolutely must be met in order for a human being to feel like a human being, in order for a man to feel like a man, or a woman like a woman. So I am not entirely a “relativist” by any means, although I am in in a number of ways. Love, play, and work. I believe S.F. said that these were the essential elements to a being a fully healthy and dynamic person. How many people lack one or more of those? I wonder.

So I am interested in action—verbal, interpersonal, communicative action and am not interested in simply sitting around enjoying another person’s company endlessly—although of course I do enjoy certain people’s company a lot, but that can get tired if there aren’t other avenues for self-expression and outreach to others, and outreach for a variety of different reasons, I’d like to add.

I write with an eye towards experience, as in that awful word, reality. As most do believe and accept that gravity is a real presence in reality, so I, and others certainly, believe that there are real forces at work in our lives, for we are biological life forms who must ultimately succumb to the terminal reality of nature—at least for now. We live physically and die physically. Of course we have feeling and feelings and wonderful flights of fancy, and some would say God, etc., but it’s not all a matter of “it’s just the way you look at it.” I know from personal experience that there are certain things in life that one must have at certain levels and ages in order to feel like one is alive. I don’t buy the nonsense otherwise. A poor man or woman knows what poverty means in a person’s life above and beyond the mere lack of cash or high-falutin prestige, and that despite lectures and sermons from members of certain ideological persuasions who say that we must come to learn to live with less, that we’re selfish for wanting too much, and arrogant, and that we all should be perpetually grateful for either living in this country or just for the mere fact of being alive, and as though life and being were a great joy for everyone in every situation imaginable, and as though one would indeed be Icarus-like for expecting more from life than we are “supposed” to have.