After October and my hard leftward jaunt into outré fiction for the Spooky Season, I have decided to swing back to center and continue my regular weekly essays.
With that in mind, especially in light of some of the recent national events, I will be writing less often (for now) about politics and religion. Not because these no longer bother me (they do) but because I am unable to find it within myself to adequately state how disappointed and frustrated I am with my fellow mammals. I may at some point be able to strike a solid note on these topics, but for right now, my anger is such that it would be the jangled, unhinged, desperate cacophony of a madman let loose on a grand piano. That helps no one.
Rather, I would like to try to keep my readers (you few, dedicated, wonderful ones) engaged with upbeat, thoughtful and hopefully interesting topics. So much of our reading and scrolling is doom and gloom. A light here and there might help to keep our eyes fixed on the benefits of free thought, free inquiry, free speech and find hope for the future.
So What Now?
This blog began as a way to catalog hikes, travels, books read, recipes tried, opinions spawned. I think it still works like this, for right now. Some things have changed. Hiking has morphed into running. Our travels have been decidedly narrow since we returned (almost 8 years ago) from the UK. I still read and will review books, but I'd like to add TV shows and movies to the list. I want to add the odd recipe here, or at least, speak about food more and my opinions will be, as usually is the case, decidedly my own.
I also want to write more about music. It is one of the center foundations of my life and yet, I rarely express my feelings about music in this format.
Growing Past Anger
In 2017, I took my last drink of alcohol and joined AA after a long and desperate battle with substance abuse disorder. In the last seven (and a half) years, my recovery journey has helped me deal with my deep-seated anger and pain from my youth and given me back a sense of mental and physical health that I once believed was gone forever.
In those several years, I learned to see myself as I am warts and all. Although I do not want to use this particular platform to talk about sobriety, I do want to talk a bit about some of the challenges faced and tools gained in that time that have helped me deal with life when it feels overwhelming.
I know how fortunate I have been, both with the support of family and friends. I hope to pass on what I have learned, hoping that it will aid in the stress of the times and maybe help someone feel that when life gets unmanageable, as mine had become, there is a way out.
Finally, The Academy or the Street
For years, as the world’s cultural tides have ebbed and flowed, I have taken part in discussions, arguments and written position pieces designed to open or broaden the public's mind. As I have taken up my trusty laptop to do this, I have tried to model myself after great writers and thinkers like Kant, Orwell, Thomas Paine, Socrates and Christopher Hitchens.
I believe in the intellectual powers and the critical faculties and though I do not have their reach or their scope, to me there are few activities more rewarding than trying to make a case for free thought and breaking out of the addictive and poisonous delusions that corrupt the human mind so easily, as those great writers also did.
From time to time, I am asked by one of the handful of people who read my essays if I would ever consider writing a book. Admittedly, though I write almost all the time, I find the idea both tempting and also well beyond my ability. The shorter “column” or “article” seems to—like with my fiction stories—fit my brand, such as it is.
It has been something that I intend to do, however, and it seems to me that a book of essays might gain me a slightly farther reach than this blog has managed. Either way, until we are picking up stones and fighting in the street against the powers of authoritarianism and hate, the best way, and the way I am most comfortable fighting is with the incendiary bombs on the page and in the essay. The martial skills learned in the academy are, for me, the ones now needed more than ever before.
A book might be in the future for both styles (fiction and nonfiction) even if either winds up being something more like an anthology. For right now, though, I am deeply grateful for your support and hope you will keep reading.
