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I've been observing and thinking wonderingly since birth. Earliest childhood photos show a tentative child; a child gradually becoming uncertain of the world he is living in. My response to the world around me caused me to cloister and is evidence my awareness, my ability, or quite possibly my inability, to reconcile my perceptions was unusual; my perceptive abilities were such that where others were unaware of life's threatening inconsistencies, I was inhibitively cognizant. I was not a painfully shy child. I was an agonizingly shy child. This churning within me begged for there to be some means to express it. I have been writing creatively from my early junior high years. My seventh grade English teacher, Mr. Zimmerman, drew attention to my attempts at imaginative expression. My eighth grade English teacher, Ms. English, was impressed with my non-typical interest in poetry. My high school teachers were impressed with my ability to express grand ideas with a conservation of language. As a result of Ms. English's recommendation, I was made a member of the exclusive Honor's English Class during my high school years; an early version of Advanced Studies respectful of higher order thinking skills. I was a less than impressive pupil in that class. I was not ostentatious. I was probably viewed as cloistered and odd; responded to with sympathy, or pity, and the thought: Where the heck did that come from! I was prone to approach the assigned projects from a decidedly less than politically correct framework. I simply did not belong to the status quo. Even at that point, I had no allegiances. I was adrift in a violent and impersonal sea. I was alone. I was isolated. I was an island. I had no country. I flew no flag. It was nothing to be admired. It was not the result of careful autonomous consideration. Social experience simply was not mine. My life experience allowed me to trust no one and no thing. Institutions and personalities were viewed as untrustworthy. As a result, my personal perceptions were relatively uninhibited. This pervasive insulation allowed me to see what I saw and think what I thought. There was no sense of elite illumintation.. It was painful; often times agonizing. Depression and thoughts of suicide were my reliable companions from my earliest years. It took fifty-four years for my life to jell. I am fortunate to have been born during this period of dynamic Accumulated Knowledge. History has not been kind to islands such as I am. Had I not experienced life during a period of this sort, it seems likely the unbearable pressures would have caused me to end my suffering by my own hand. Exuberantly, I inform you, I am no longer depressed, and when I die it will be a natural death. For most of my life I would have never thought it possible, but I will breathe my dying breath a confirmed optimist, a believer that there will always be a tomorrow! I hope mankind fares so well.
I have organized my writings in periods: Early Years, The Egg: 1962-1973; Middle Years, The Pupa: 1978-2004; Late Middle Years, The Chrysalis: 2004-2005; Jell-o Years, The Butterfly: 2006-?
I will make every effort to arrange the writings chronologically. Each entry will have a date. This is the point at which the piece had its beginning; the point of inspiration. However, it seems whatever I write is never safe from my editing. In general, if I haven't touched the piece for a year, I consider it pretty much finished. In truth, as long as the editor is breathing, so is his editing pen! |
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