Illusive Friendship

When I was in high school, I used to think that I was the way I was because I
was gay. I longed to meet another gay guy because I supposed that he would be
just like me and so, easy to spend time with. Resounding RONG!

Imagine my surprise as an adult when I finally had to admit that gays come in
just as many varieties as straights, and so gays are no easier to be with than
straights. Now I think that someone who is fun to be with doesn't happen by
accident but is a result of a sustained effort to grow closer. And that amount
of effort is just too much for me to put forth, with the dubious perceived
benefits of a friendship.

I have to admit. I'm uncomfortable around everyone except my immediate family
(wife & son). Is there really such a thing as a close friend, or are all of
these 'friends' just talking about their sports teams or something? Don't need
that waste of time. Not sure what a real friend consists of really. Maybe
there ain't such a thing.

Here's What to Do to Create Better Characterizations In Fiction

I'm pleased with my ability to write personal experiences. (I don't know if they'd be meaningful to anybody else but I enjoy recounting them.)  A character based on me would just be changing "I" to "John Doe".  I think that when I imagine what another person is like, I might have a very shallow view.  If I'm lucky I'll be able to pick out a salient characteristic in them, but then they become one dimensional personifications of that single descriptive adjective.  Like 'Tarzan Strong!'  or "Daniel Radcliffe charming!"  I sorta get stuck in a loop on one characteristic.  That makes my characters one dimensional and boring.  How can I remember that my characters can have other adjectives associated with them.  That gives me an idea.   I can have 3 categories of character.  A minor role would have say one or two characteristics.  A major player could have 4 or 5.  And a principle action mover should have as many as the length of a book will hold. I'm now thinking of enforcing that discipline on my writing. 

I've come to the conclusion that my character problem stems from the fact that I tend to dwell on a single characteristic of my characters.   They are, thus, one dimensional which is not at all lifelike and totally boring.   Now that I know it, it seems like it should have been obvious.  I do the same thing with restaurants.  Switch to a time lapsed movie of my mind.  'Found a few restaurants where I like the food.  Phew...that was scarey.  Now I can contentedly go to these same restaurants for the rest of my life without ever having to take a chance on a new one.'   Just call me Bilbo Beggins;  'An adventure, you say...no thank you.  Good day sir.'

THis is What's Wrong with my Personality

The bright lights of my homosexuality and autism have drowned out all my other facets.  They are there, but it is like chiseling marble trying to get them out so that I can see them.
Only 3 years ago, I found out what conjugal love really is.  Heaven knows how much of my life I am simply not aware of.  How does one wake up to truth?

The Great Honor of Being an Artist

Not when I was young but with the wisdom of age, I've come to believe that artists are the major movers of progress.  Artists do the really creative thinking;  they're responsible for all progress.  Would we ever have thought of going to the moon if it weren't for dreamers like Jules Verne?  And look how many inventions came out of pursuing that idea when we decided to do as the author said.  I sometimes think that man will eventually do all that he can think of;  all that his artists come up with.  Mankind just can't help itself but act upon ideas.  Artists provide the ideas.  They're the engine that moves the whole machine.  They knew it way back when they called artists shamans priests and seers, and respected those titles and the wisdom they represented, but today shaman priest seer are words used mostly derisively.   Such people get less respect than Rodney Dangerfield.  Everyone is too enamored of a science that may hold no truth at all but has been crafted solely to work in our microcosm.  I mean, this is our microcosm and all progress involves understanding and controlling it.  But there is a limit to thinking this way because once we escape our microcosm, the rules turn out to be different.  You can see it in quantum physics.   Things like that, in our world,  I can't be two places at the same time, but in the famous double slit experiment, a single photon passes through 2 sep[arate slits simultaneously.  In fact, Richard Feynman claimed that the photon not only took those two paths, but took all of the possible paths.  It was everywhere at once!  Enough. 

Society and Culpability

I think every artist contains a huge helping of Everyman.  In my book, that's how it must be.  I believe one is born a tabula rasa, freshly washed and ready for other people to write on.  If each of us is unique, then it is because each of us has adopted different fragments of the people we interact with or combined these borrowings in new never before seen ways. 

Interestingly, this causes me to question the culpability of anyone who does something bad.  I mean, ain't their fault;  It's just what life has taught them.  THat's why I'm against capital punishment and feel that everyone deserves humane treatment.  Yes, a person might be dangerous to society, but society is culpable.     I'm not saying that morality is relative.  I'm just saying that the world's evil tends to pool up in certain individuals.  These individuals should not be punished for the mistakes the world has made causing them to be that way. Instead, when a person has to be locked up because it's not safe to have him in 'free society", well then we should all feel some remorse for our sins of omission and commission that have likely harmed others, perhaps setting them on the path to a criminal life.  Really, does it do the world any good to point at some poor slob and say..."He is bad.  I know that because I am good and he is not like me.  Let's punish the motherfucker!"  Hell, I think that kind of thinking is at the basis of what's the matter with the world today.

Creating Fictional Characters

I've written a few stories based heavily on personal experience and I think they speak to me, anyhow, and help me remember the events upon which they are based.  But I find trying to portray a fictional character hugely difficult.  I mean, sometimes I can feel a character I write for a little bit, but they always escape me and become dry as straw.  My characters are written stickmen. 

Authors tell me that they make up characters based on someone they knew, or by piecing together mannerisms from various people they knew. I can't do that.  Maybe there has not been enough variety in the people I've known in order to find one to fit my plot.  Perhaps my knowledge of the people I've known has always been rather shallow.  I think I'd even have trouble picking out a salient characteristic adjective to describe most people.  I've written down lists of adjectives that I think would describe a character, but I've got no idea how to transform those adjectives into characters.  The only way I'll ever be able to do it is to take note of how other writers make characters and try to imitate them.  And I've got some catching up to do there, because I didn't enjoy reading any fiction until, like, the last 10 years.   Something tells me I'm decades behind in my reading.  Maybe by the time I die, I'll be widely read enough to make up a character.  Fuckin' forsooth.

The Reason I've Never Cheated on My Wife

I've never done it, because my wife is just too excellent to be treated like that.  Even a low-life perv like me can't spit in the eye of a love like that woman has.  I'll never know what she sees in me.