Last time I posted on this blog, X was called Twitter.
I have a couple of steaks I'm gonna have for dinner as soon as I finish writing this post. Which is a polite way of telling you you're between me and my steak dinner. Not to shove you out the door or anything, I always love having guests.
This particular blog has been a pretty stop/start affair ever since I started it back in… what, 2021? Or was it '20? And I'll be honest, blogging has never felt like a natural medium for me. I'll try to stick it out this time, honest, but blogging just irks me. At least with a novel you get to live with the thing for a few months, or a year, or even longer, so there's none of that feeling that you're constantly having to come up with a topic for a new post.
(Yes, this is going to be another blog post where I complain about the whole concept of blogging.)
It's dead, anyway. Blogging, that is, or the written word, or Western civilization, or whatever you like. Probably I'm dead, and you're definitely dead. Dead dead dead dead dead.
You'll excuse me, please. All this is really so much throat-clearing before next week, where the good posts start. Just have to burn off the dead wood. Sort of the way when you turn the heater on for the first time in the winter the whole house smells weird and maybe your fire alarm goes off. Or is that just what I've stuffed up the air vents at work?
Anyway, all that talk about the written word being dead wasn't just empty blather from me. A few months ago when that ChatGPT stuff was going on it really got to me. Nothing serious, just oh my God they're gonna make a machine that can do the thing I've dedicated my life to better and faster than I can. Which, you know, didn't happen that time but could very well happen at any minute. Such is life.
And I tell you, I mean maybe this is all post-hoc rationalization, but it really got to me. As in, bad enough that I didn't do any writing at all for several months. And you know me, when I'm not writing I'm actively coming up with ways to destroy myself. Hell, even when I am writing it seems like I'm apt to come up with more baroque and surprising ways to destroy myself. (And that's not just shooting the bull, either, believe you me. These last couple of years I've written myself into some of the most bizarre situations I've encountered in my journey through this vale of tears. I'm sure I'll tell you about it sometime, in some form.) And when I end up despairing over my calling in life and thinking well, what the hell does it matter, anyway? I end up drinking.
And I'm sure some people can drink in moderation, or only on occasion, but I don't seem to have the sort of nervous system that allows for that. Wasn't quite drinking every night, but some weeks it almost got to that point and… well, I'll spare you the sordid details. Nothing really scandalous, unfortunately. Just sordid.
So around the middle of August I start to claw my way out of this little hell I'd made for myself. With journaling, naturally. Start painstakingly working through everything I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and all that fun stuff. Which took a while and it's an endless process (at least until the grave, that is, can't forget the grave), but hopefully I'm in a better place now and ready to get back to walking the path.
I've been reading Rilke lately, as always. And there's a passage in Letters to a Young Poet–one of the famous passages, I'm sure you've seen it around somewhere. He's talking about how you know if you're really meant to write. And I don't remember how it goes precisely, but it basically amounts to: if you're at all capable of living without writing, don't write. If you need it and have to do it, you'll need it and have to do it. But it's no escape from life and it's not the kind of thing to just casually do because you have to do something and hey, might as well.
But if you gotta do the thing you gotta do the thing. And if some asshole in Silicon Valley makes an AI Tolstoy that can spit out War and Peace every hour on the hour till Johnny comes marching home, so be it. I'll still be here, spending a year or more on writing a novel till they put pennies on my eyes. Like that guy who looked like Humphrey Bogart said, you gotta pretend rolly-rock man has a smiley face.
But enough about me, how about you? I've missed you so much. You look good, I hope you've been taking care of yourself, especially these days. Lord knows it can be hard sometimes. For all of us. And I know I can be difficult sometimes, always using you as a mirror to gauge who I am, but it's just that I'm unsure of myself. And I know that doesn't excuse things, but maybe you'll understand it. I do care about you, you know. We have to support each other in this life.
So, where does that take us? As far as the nuts and the bolts are concerned, I'm aiming to have a book of short stories up on the Kindle store by the beginning of December. I've had that on ice for a good many months, always hesitating to take the leap. But if I mean to commit to this life–and I mean that in every possible sense–I have to be willing to take those uncomfortable steps along the way. And believe me, when the self-doubt comes a-calling I have all the familiar nasty thoughts coming in to peck at me. That internal critic has pretty sharp claws, you know.
Who do you think you are? Don't you know nobody's ever going to give a damn about your writing? If you were a real writer you wouldn't stoop so low as to self-publish your work. And the moment it's out there people are going to see all the nasty thoughts going around in your head and they'll judge you and hate you and run you out of town and you'll die alone in a cave somewhere where nobody even knows your name. Do you really think you'll ever be able to make a career out of this? No, first of all because it's impossible and second of all because even if it were possible a craven little self-loathing creep like you wouldn't have the strength for it. So you might as well give up now and resign yourself to working 40-hour weeks to make some rich guy richer for the rest of your insignificant existence. Just go crack open a beer so you can stop thinking for a few hours, it's all a weirdo like you deserves.
I'm sure we all have some version of that voice in our heads sometimes. And what can you do? Learn to live with it without being limited by it. Understand that it's trying to protect you in its own perverse way–make you feel small so you'll stick with what's comfortable and familiar. Realize that just because the thoughts come it doesn't mean they're right. Gradually come to know when and how to go against that sadistic voice telling you to silence what's true in you.
So that's where I am. Working on getting those short stories out and building up some steam for the blog. I promise not all the upcoming posts will be quite as navel-gazing as this one–but we have to make a start, don't we? And looking forward to the new year, I expect to follow up that short story collection with a couple of novels. I have two of them well under way, and I'm aiming to have a first draft of at least one of them completed by the first of 2024. Working titles are Nothing Collapses and Whether I Be False or True. Can't offer any hard dates at this juncture, I'm sure you'll understand, but I wouldn't be much surprised if I managed to release both of them sometime next year. So there's something to look forward to, if you look forward to things.
Speaking of which… well, it's hard to say, exactly. But recently I notice I've been reading a lot of Christian-themed texts. For my birthday my sister got me a copy of an astrologically-themed commentary on Dante's Divine Comedy called Between Fortune and Providence by Joseph Crane. And it's been pretty enlightening–most of the astrology is over my head, but the reflections on sin and virtue have given me some serious matter for reflection. What is it in me that's envious of others, that even enjoys watching their misfortunes and seeing them suffer? It's not something that just happens, it's a pattern of resentment that I've in some unconscious sense chosen and can (with difficulty) learn to undo.
It sounds strange to use this language, but I've been trying to pay more attention to my soul. To get away from thinking that the things I don't like about myself are just the way I am. To try to understand and embody the ways that we can improve and become whole.
Which brings me to something else I've been reading lately, an old classic: Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan. In some ways it's the most beat you over the head obvious allegory you've ever seen in your life–the characters have names like Christian, Timorous, and Mr. Worldly-Wiseman, for crying out loud. And the story isn't exactly what you'd call intricately plotted. Christian finds out that the city he lives in is doomed to destruction and hears (from a man named Evangelist) that the only way to escape the destruction is to get to the Celestial City, where the King offers a paradisal life to his true pilgrims. And the story is mostly about Christian trying to get there and the troubles and obstacles that come up along the way.
So the allegory is a little heavy-handed, maybe. And some of Bunyan's theological axes to grind don't exactly speak to me. And to be perfectly frank, I don't think I believe in God. Sometimes I try, but even when I try I feel like I'm faking it. Maybe God really is dead, who knows.
But for all that, Pilgrim's Progress is a profound book. More because the situations that come up in the book are so universal–even if you're not a Christian, who hasn't been snared and led astray by temptations we all know very well don't do us any good? I know I have.
I'll give you just one example, and then we'll wrap things up for now. But the book is full of them.
At one point Christian is walking along the way with Hopeful, and he thinks he finds an easier path for them to take. They hop a fence and take this shortcut, and after a while it becomes clear they've gone the wrong way and need to return to the path. And on their way back they cross the grounds of Doubting-Castle, ruled over by the giant Despair. And the giant, finding them on his land, captures them and throws them into his dungeon. For many days they remain in there without food or drink, and eventually the giant Despair comes and beats them almost to death with a club.
Then, I kid you not, the giant tells them they should kill themselves because they're never getting out of the castle. And they're sorely tempted to do it. Christian gives up hope and keeps telling Hopeful that they need to face reality and give up. Just kill themselves. But Hopeful talks him down, and eventually they do manage to escape and get back to the way.
Which, you see what I mean when I say the allegory is kind of heavy-handed. But at the same time… isn't that such a powerful image for those times in life when we lose hope? We make a mistake, and when we realize it we fall into despair. And very often we lose hope, thinking we'll never get back on the right path. Depression can be like that, of course–where it gets so all-consuming that it feels like we'll never be free of it. But we have to keep up hope. We have to keep up hope.
So I'm not sure how to tie off this meandering little thing with a neat bow. I guess I can say I've had a rough time of it this last year or so, but I'm hopeful that I've made it back into the right way. And I hope you're doing well, that you're loving those around you, and that you're meeting the trials of life with grace and with courage. It's hard sometimes, God knows it's hard. But I hope we do all we can to live beautifully.
All the best to you in this coming week.
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