Author: Mark Tiedemann

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Bending the Timestream

At the recent book release event at Left Bank Books, the question was raised if I am ever tempted to bend history. After all, I write fiction. I said no, that sticking to history is important to me.

Thinking about it since, I have to backtrack a little. I took the question to mean am I ever tempted to substitute a wholly fictional history for genuine history. I mentioned James Michener, who wrote dense, lengthy historical novels with such authority that one could be forgiven for believing things actually transpired that way. It is difficult to see where what really happened parts from what Michener intended as story. And surely here and there details get confused or altered or contoured to fit the narrative. Is this bending history?

History itself is somewhat malleable in the telling. Why else would we have so many books about the same events and periods? Interpretation of known events and extrapolation about the gaps in our knowledge occur all the time. What we think it meant plays a huge part. Is this bending history? How are we to regard those works that have been superseded by new information that overwrites what was once thought to be The Facts?

The challenge of historical fiction, it seems to me, is to be true to the spirit of a period. (In much the same way as in science fiction we strive to be true to the idea of science even when creating a whole new branch or reinterpreting for our purposes known science.) If there are events which occurred that form the background of our narrative, we are, I think, obligated to accept them as essential and not throw them out because we would rather something else had happened. If we occasionally put words in a historical character’s mouth he or she never said (because we have them talking to a fictional character that never existed in the first place) we have to be careful not to change that figure’s character. We’re walking on the eggshells of consistency and a careful tread is required.

I realized after the event mentioned above that I could have given a fuller answer. Because I have written alternate history, which is a form that not only bends history but quite often twists it all out of shape, supplanting what happened with a might-have-happened, I should have said that, yes, sometimes I am very tempted to bend history. Just not when I’m trying to write history.

Which leads me to another part of the conversation wherein I posited that historical fiction and science fiction can be seen as the same sort of endeavor, just taken in opposite directions. SF can be taken as history that has not happened yet. To a certain extent, it has to follow the same rules as historical fiction, namely period consistency. And it has to unfold the way we recognize as historically plausible. Furthermore, with historical fiction, it is not inaccurate to say that as we go back in time we are visiting another country. Go back far enough, another world. Further still, and we are in alien territory. The extrapolations necessary to create characters that live and breathe in the world of two, three or ten centuries ago are not that different from imagining humans in a very different world of a thousand years from now.

So a certain amount of bending happens, whether we wish it or not, in order to make room for the actual fiction. The best outcome is a work in which our fictional characters walk among the historical people as if they could really have been there, disturbing the timeline hardly at all. If here and there a bit of a tug or push is necessary to make the story work, well, we should bend it back by the end.

There’s more to consider in this and going forward I will be thinking about it. No doubt the history of my fictions will be bent a little in the process.

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Going Forward

The new novel is officially launched. Last night at Left Bank Books, in conversation with the owner, Kris, whom I am privileged to call friend, Granger’s Crossing was introduced to the public. The event was streamed and recorded.

It was a terrific evening. Good conversation, a good response from the audience, even a couple of new connections.

Now I have to plan on the next thing. I know what I want to do, the question is, as always, can I pull it off. I’ve already started work on the next Granger novel. As mentioned in the video, I’d originally intended a very ambitious series, but that was a decade ago. It remains to be seen if I have the time and energy to do that. All I can do is what I always do—start and see what happens. Everything I’ve done in this career has come down to a one-step-at-a-time approach that eventually results in something interesting, even special.

But I’d like to say thank you to everyone who showed up last night, both in the flesh and virtually, and further to say thank you to the amazing constellation of people who have helped me all these years. You stun me with your generosity.

Stay tuned. I’ll let you know what comes next. The minute I know.

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…And In Other News

A new look.

I know, important things happened, yesterday, today (someone got fired) but here is mine. New website.

Today is the release date for my new novel, Granger’s Crossing, and I feel like being symbolic. There are things I’ve wanted my website to do for a long time and never got around to actually figuring it out. Well, I didn’t this time, either. I must give a tip of the hat to Danielle, who has done this, and will from time to time help me tweak it to make it even more…what I want it to be.

With this book, I’m stepping outside my usual comfort zone. Historical fiction. Oh, I intend to continue doing science fiction, I love it too much, and the last couple of years have seen a renewed presence of my short fiction. But I’m excited about the possibilities going forward.

In time there will be better access to my photography as well. And maybe some other things will pop up. There’s sorting to do.

But in the meantime, please—treat yourself to my new novel. I’m already working on the next one.

Welcome to the new digs.

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New Stuff

So I had to replace my old phone. I am still a bit ambivalent about cell phones and I remain nonplussed at the gismos and gadgets (otherwise known as apps) available and the possibilities, but I now can’t really get along well without one, so…

I bit the bullet and bought a high end. One of the things I was always disappointed with my old one was the camera. I’m a photographer. I have standards. I suppose I could have learned to work with it eventually, but it never inspired me.

This one, though…

I went for a walk the other day and did a few images and played with them. I’d like to share. I’m more than slightly pleased with these.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Obvious Things

Another school shooting.

And inevitably the posturing of those grimly determined to make it about something else. Gun rights. The deaths are pushed to one side, because it’s the guns that must be protected, because they (so the excuse-making goes) are what stand between our freedom and a tyrannical government, and that any price is worth paying to preserve the means by which such freedom might be maintained, whether that freedom actually manifests as imagined or not.

At this point one thing should be obvious: for the Second Amendment Absolutist, no reasoned argument can be sufficient to change their position, because it is not about what is right, only about what they believe and feel. If it were possible to completely demonstrate and prove that the Second Amendment as written and conceived by the Constitutional convention of 1789 did not give carte blanche to gun rights, it would not matter. These folks want what they want and will not be persuaded, even by logical argument, demonstrable social science, or historical truth. You can make any argument you want, they will not concede that they must surrender what they are convinced is their deity-granted right to go armed.

This is very much akin to the stance of the absolutist anti-abortion advocate. No matter what might be demonstrated or argued in terms of biology or civil rights or medical necessity or any other argument one might deploy, they want what they want and will not be swayed. They are not looking to win the debate, they are looking to have their way, regardless.

So I say stop arguing. Those of us not locked into an ahistorical mode of thinking should do what we think best for the situation now.

The other day I saw a post listing all the things “we defend with guns” as if it all added up to a sound argument against those wishing to enact laws to curtail availability of certain types of firearms. It begged the question, of course—why should we have to defend all those things with guns? It was phrased as if guns were the only solution, which is on its face nonsense.

I hate to break it to them, but this is not freedom, so what is it they’re trying to defend? Because if you have to live your life prepared constantly to kill another human being just to keep your stuff, you are not free. That is a cage. The bars may be invisible, but they’re there.

Seems obvious to me that in this instance  Freedom has been confused with Power. Oh, they are related, but real freedom is living without fear. For yourself and especially for your children. And if you’re insisting that you have to be always ready to draw down on someone, you are living in fear. All the time.

It’s reasonable then to ask—do you want the rest of us to live in fear all the time, too? Because that’s the most effective way to keep us from sitting down at the table and coming up with something better.

The irony, of course, is that there are people less dogmatically dedicated to these positions who simply want control, and have learned how to use your fear to gain it and keep it. Some of them represent the very thing you claim to need your guns to defend us all against, but you see them as allies and advocates. The longer you can only see solutions as single objects, the longer they can play you and harm the rest of us. Because this is harming all of us, the idea that we can find no better solutions because it might mean giving something up. Something, by the way, which no longer has the utility you claim for it. If it ever did.

But I’m done arguing. Argument will not gain traction against the single-minded zealot who will bend and twist everything to suit a desired outcome, regardless of the damage it causes. It’s time to move on. Moving on, of course, means going back to some basic principles and re-examining the assumptions encoded within them, changing direction in more than just the surface of matters, and that is perhaps a bit scary for even those not locked into a one-mode-fits-all narrative.

In the past, major change came about as a consequence of major breakage. That entails other kinds of misery before repairs and solutions can come into play. I would like to think we are smarter than we used to be. On the other hand, maybe the sheer momentum of heading for the break point is just too much. I don’t know. But I do know trying to argue with those leading us to the precipice has gained us too little to date.

Just some thoughts in the aftermath of another instance of insanity.

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Eyes Open, Mind Engaged

To me, that is the definition of Woke. I’ve been bemused by the backlash of people who, without too much interpretation, are obviously complaining about something else loudly hurling “Woke!” as if it is a pejorative. It’s not that they have a legitimate argument, it is that they are discomfited by the implications and wish to go back to pretending there is nothing to be woke to. It’s not even subtle.

Consider one of the consequences of the backlash—the attempt to ban books. Now, this is nothing new. Banning books that unsettle the comfortable is a long American tradition, quite often less political than the kindred forms of censorship practiced elsewhere. We don’t usually protest books here because of political ideology so much as out of a reflexive defensiveness of cherished myths. Some of these are family stories left unquestioned for generations, some of them are the kind of origin stories surrounding the establishment of this or that institution. In most cases, people have embraced these stories and incorporated them into their sense of self, their identity, and when the story is challenged, their apprehension of Who They Are is called into question.

Somewhere along the way the practice of review has either been abandoned or was never inculcated. It comes as a shock that perhaps they should never have accepted uncritically all the things they were fed as children.

But I suspect the most violent reactions are coming from those who perhaps sense the truth beneath the myth and simply do not want to accept it. They do not want to feel responsible. Maybe their concept of a Good Life depends on those myths. Whatever.

Once, in conversation with acquaintances who were very proudly Catholic, the question was raised (by them) “just what was the Reformation all about?” I took it at face value and said, “Many things, but the trigger was over Indulgences.” “What are those?” When I explained what a Plenary Indulgence was, they regarded me with the blank expressions of the never-before-informed. They didn’t believe me. I had to be misinformed. Why would the Church do that? Why would people believe these things would work?

The facts opened a shelf-full of cans of worms that required a profound revision in their understanding of the institution in which they had invested a great deal. Delving into all that threatened their sense of well-being in their self-identification as Catholics. The fact that, as members of that institution, they not only did not know about significant parts of Church history but strenuously did not want to know, dismayed and saddened me, but it served as a good example as the kind of mindset we encounter in those most stridently condemning Woke-ism.

But I have rarely seen a clearer example of “getting it wrong” than this. It is sharper, more clearly delineated, than its predecessor, the rejection of so-called Political Correctness, which was also misunderstood, mostly by those who simply did not want their assumptions about history and culture and politics and personal identity called into question. They did not want to be reminded, held to account, called on the carpet, or simply be required to do the work of realignment necessitated by an acceptance of realities not in evidence in their own lives.  Political Correctness devolved at times into a game of constantly revising what things were called. That, of course, should have been merely a consequence of revising our understanding of relationships, taking into account the realities of others, but that’s complicated and tedious and hard and for people who never internalized actual learning but skidded by on doing well on tests and knowing how to interview successfully and going along with those in power just to get along, it was a slog and often resulted in long periods of just feeling like eggshells were everywhere in their path.

Woke—and, more to the point, being Anti-Woke—is less ambiguous. Woke is a requirement to not privilege ignorance over reality and Anti-Woke is a demand to enshrine specific kinds of ignorance in order to maintain privileged conditions. Every time someone stands up and opposes being Woke, I hear someone insisting on being callous and stupid.

Except for those in leadership positions. They are not stupid. Callous, certainly, but not stupid. (Clever, but not very intelligent.) They know their audience. They’re just venal. In order to attain power, they’re playing their supporters for saps.

The more you know, the more you can know. The more you can know, the less power demagogues can wield over you. The less power they have, the freer you are. The freer you are, the less you have to fear.

So wake up.

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Have I Mentioned…?

Did I mention I have a new book? It launches in April, the 25th to be exact, and I’d like to tell you something about.

Granger’s Crossing is a departure for me. At least, at first glance. After decades of writing and publishing science fiction, I took a shot at historical fiction.  In fact, this novel came directly out of another project, which was science fiction.

Quite some time ago I had an idea for an alternate history. I poked around for a good departure point and settled on the Louisiana Purchase. What if, I asked, it had never happened? What if Napoleon had never sold it to the United States? What if the continent had remained divided between France and the United States at the Mississippi?

After digging around I found what I considered a reasonable justification for this scenario and then went on to flesh out the novel, which took me in some fascinating directions.

One thing it gave me was more than a passing appreciation of early St. Louis history. After completing the first novel, I thought (quite arrogantly) hey, I could probably write a halfway decent historical novel.

On such unexamined assumptions surprising things are born.

This is NOT the alternate history. This one is the historical, though that doesn’t mean it is any less speculative.

One of the most under-attended periods of American history seems to be the Revolutionary War in the West. The eastern seaboard draws all our attention. That, after all, is where all the myth-making occurred—Philadelphia, Boston, New York, the Chesapeake, Baltimore. The prominent names are all  there—Washington, Hamilton, Greene. The West seems less important, but the Mississippi River was important and the proximity of Spanish Territory played into strategic equations more than is taught in the average high school history class. 

Even in my home I was surprised at how few people knew there had been a major battle. 

Looking into it led me into a deeper exploration of that whole period of St. Louis history and the shape of a story began to coalesce. 

I have never understood the general indifference toward history, particularly among people who otherwise love good stories. Pick up a volume of history and give it more than a little attention, and stories are everywhere. 

In constructing the plot for Granger’s Crossing, I found a cast of characters almost begging for attention. I had no shortage of actual people living in St. Louis at the time to fill out the substance and flavor of the village. 

At some point in the alchemical process of creating fiction, my hero, Ulysses Granger, took form. Step by step, I found cause for him to be there. I felt comfortable using a murder mystery template, at least to start the action, and once I found The Body, the plot began to take on a life of its own.

Given the circumstances—the Battle of St. Louis, known then as L’Annee du coup, in 1780—I had to establish a reason for my Continental soldier to either stay or return to St. Louis, which led to further research. The issues around the rivers at the time and the various interests involved, American, Spanish, French, British, provided the canvas on which to depict my characters, their motives, the challenges. 

Somewhat to my surprise, the world of young Ulysses Granger took on the familiar attractions of the worlds I had explored in my science fiction. In that, I find historical fiction mirrored by science fiction. In a way, both are history and both require an attention to detail and an ability to imagine displacements from the present. Halfway into the writing, it felt familiar, at least in the sense of examining places and people wholly unfamiliar to me.

(One of the curious things I found is that of all the things one might expect the “Americans” to have brought to the region, the one thing they did provide was record-keeping. A lot of it, although most of it appears to be a byproduct of, essentially, title searches.)

This is exciting. This is one of the chief pleasures of fiction, the chance to see life through eyes other than our own. This is a culture we can only assume to be familiar, but really it is in many ways quite alien and in that quite exotic. 

It took a few years to get this “right,” and by right I mean a satisfying narrative experience. Finding the beginning histories of my home town proved a delight and a pleasure. You can look at this place, where cultures met and intermingled in curious ways, and wonder how we came to be. As the population changed due to immigration and the long-distance decisions by powers not present on the ground, I found this period a kind of oasis in time, a singular setting for an evolving identity. Granger himself is very much an outsider, giving him a vantage point from which to see St. Louis as an observer. Though with Martine, the woman who takes center stage in his life, he is more intimately connected. 

It will be interesting (to me and hopefully others) to see how Granger changes at time goes on. Yes, that means I have more stories about him to tell.

I am delighted that Blank Slate Press is publishing the novel. Their enthusiasm has been infectious. My thanks to them all.

The official release date in April 25th. There will be a bookstore event at Left Bank Books in St. Louis. Call them for details (314-367-6731) and please consider attending.

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On Branding

A couple of recent eruptions over literary works have caused me to contemplate a curious aspect of the cultural situation. The move by Roald Dahl’s publisher to “bowdlerize” his children’s books, to render them more palatable to contemporary audiences, and the to-do over the creator of Dilbert’s public expressions of problematic attitudes. These are the most recent after a long string of reactions to artists who turn out to have opinions, beliefs, and political positions seemingly at odds with their work. Or not. Some of the review of said work has all the makings of a minor industry of reassessments based on the failings of the creators.*

There is a legitimate question of what then to do about the work itself once the creator is revealed to be some degree of objectionable. How does the revelation of an odious aspect of the writer/artist affect the work itself? If one once loved the work, what does one do now that one has been soured on the author?

Because the work is what is it is. It hasn’t changed. We enjoyed it once (presumably) and now, because of factors not in evidence in the work itself, it becomes problematic to admit to once liking it. Why should this happen?

I suspect what we’re seeing is a consequence of the way an artist is marketed now. We live in an age of Brands. To a certain extent, this has always been the case. The Auteur becomes the reason to not only buy the work in question but forms part of the pleasure we derive from it. We seek out that artist’s work because it is that artist. We’re buying the brand. The so-called Madison Avenue Effect is in full play. Marketing has centered not on a given work but on the artist.

In a way, this is smart, because no artist is consistently brilliant, and there has to be a way to sell through lesser works. You make it important that the work is by a brand you value. When successful, this branding can transcend an individual work and guarantee sales it might not otherwise garner. This is most evident when the Brand is sublet, so to speak. Authors become a name on a cover of a book written by someone else. Franchise work. We don’t buy those books because of the (considerably) lesser known writer who actually did the work, but because the Brand above the title promises something we value.

The successful branding has the shortfall that the value of the work becomes secondary. The question of how to regard the work in the event of a catastrophe loss of face is rendered awkward, because while a perfectly reasonable disclaimer that the artist is not the work may be valid on one level, if the value of the work has been displaced by recentering that value on the Brand and the Brand is inextricably bound up in the artist, then effectively we have accepted that the artist is the work. They are of a piece and public disgrace, for better or worse, does accrue to the entire package.

Because we have long lived in the age of the Cult of Personality, is should come as no surprise that the money behind the personality have refined their models to achieve the profits of successful Branding. But once done, then the separation of artist and work, at least in terms of popular acceptance, becomes impossible. We each individually must do the moral maths to determine where the value actually resides. If the artist willingly goes along with the marketing process and embraces the idea of Branding, then it should also come as no surprise when with scandal the work is debased in the same breath.

Is there a way out of this for the artist? I don’t know. If successful enough, other forces will come into play to make him/her/they a Brand. Control slips away. But. One can always just keep one’s mouth shut. Or try. The humility to realize that while you may be very good at this one thing such skill and talent does not translate across disciplines. You are not necessarily guru material. And maybe your feelings about certain things really are not elevated above the simply odious because your popularity has handed you a megaphone.

This requires some sorting out. By all of us, really, but very much so by artists with aspirations to Brandhood.

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  • Yes, we already have something like this, but perhaps not to the level of seeing actual university courses wholly focused on the subject and a burgeoning tell-all industry actively rewarding revelations of personal badness confined to personal opinion. It’s a massive seismic movement now that is largely opportunistic, but is well on its way to becoming a full-blown anti-PR industry.
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Revisiting

Nostalgia can be a narcotic. Lately I’ve been going through the accumulated evidence of 50 + years and wondering why I kept it even as each bit triggers memories I’m glad to have. Do I really need this gew-gaw? This piece of paper? This book or album? Part of me can’t bear to part with any  of it, but the practical side of me is starting to sort and allocate in anticipation of the time I just have no more room, no more interest, and no further use. I’m already cutting back on acquiring more. I have enough music on my shelves to last another couple of decades, by which time I could start all over. I don’t need any more. I’m trying to figure out how to arrange my days so I can hear more of it. As for books, well, good lord…

But getting rid of it?

I go through periods of expunging my belongings, making the hard decision that I will probably never read that book (again or even once), that I haven’t listened to that album in 30 years, so why do I still have it. I’m starting to be worried about my photographic archives, which are sizeable and I haven’t made much of a dent in digitizing them (too many other things to do getting in the way, time is finite, and so forth). Recently some opportunities have presented themselves that have taken a little pressure off.

The thing is, I’ve never been able to ignore the practicalities for any length of time and pretend everything will simply go on as it is now. I’ve always known I had to prepare for the time when I won’t be here.

Does that sound depressing? It’s not, I assure you. Better, I think, to know where everything’s going to be and manage to have less of it to deal with than leave a godawful mess behind for somebody else to clean up.

There are two writing projects I have on backburners for which I have a lot of research material to hand. One of them is actually written, but I haven’t found a publisher yet. The other I have to find some time to start. I have very practical reasons therefore for keeping all those books. Believe me, I would like to get them off my shelves, many of them are not the kinds of books I would bother to reread for pleasure.

But I have other sets of books about subjects that I have vague notions about using for future projects, and I’m wondering if I’m ever going to get to them. (As I sit here, I can look up at a row of biographies of American presidents. I had a notion once of reading through them chronologically, but I haven’t read a one of them yet, and I stopped collecting them. It’s not that I don’t know anything about these people, but what I have learned I gleaned from histories of the periods, not specific biographies. Am I ever going to get to them?) Part of my conundrum is that I do not read particularly fast. I have the Oxford Histories of the United States on another shelf, each volume covering a specific period and each one a brick. Reading one can take up to a month of my time. (Fortunately I’m usually able to keep four books going simultaneously, but even so…)

And then of course there’s the music and the movies and tv series…

I have a hunger to absorb as much as I can. I never thought about this for years, because there was always more time, but.

Nostalgia combined with dissatisfaction can be genuinely painful.

There was a time I thought—carelessly—that I could do anything. You can go through life thinking that as long as the things you do do are successful. If you never turn your attention to the rest, you’re never confronted with your actual limitations.

But once you are, you have some choices to make. Howl at the injustice, turn inward, resent the short span of life and the confines of your imagination, or—

Or take inventory, acknowledge reality, and embrace what you can. You might be surprised at just how fortunate you have been to do, be, and experience what you have. And that taking life as it comes without worrying about what won’t come leaves you with an open field for the next wonderful thing.

Clearing one’s inventory can make the coming experiences fresher. That whole Zen notion of letting go (more or less) and letting the past remain the past. There is one central question I’ve found useful to ask and answer, providing we don’t take it as some kind of final judgment.

Have we done what we’ve done as well as we could?

Certainly we’ve all left some things twisting in the wind. All kinds of reasons to walk away or, often, we are prevented from seeing something through to some ideal conclusion. But in the moment, did we do the best we could, honestly, and with care? All those things you wonder if you should keep—none of it has an answer other than to remind us of the question.

I’m not advising complete divestment. I love my books, my music, my home, my things. But certain of them I love more and maybe would appreciate better with less competition around them. Many of us use our possessions as markers, extensions of identity, augments to personality. That’s why getting rid of some things is so hard. But it’s not an accurate way to see things. They do not make us more, we make them important. It behooves us to choose carefully what we invest with that kind of authority.

Anyway, it is not my intention to be maudlin. I’m just ruminating n the midst of the archaeological dig of my life to date, and thought I’d share some observations. I’m going to go work on some fiction now.

Oh, and—yes, I think I’ve done what I’ve done as well as I could. To paraphrase Arthur Miller, I’m going with the idea that the goal is end up with the right regrets, the worthwhile second thoughts. Those would be those that add to the achievements not bury you in pointless nostalgia.

Anyway, be well.

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Year One

A year plus since retirement. October, 2021, I left the regular work-world. It was a harder decision than anyone knew, even me. I’d certainly given myself enough advanced notice, letting my employer know eight or so months in advance. Plenty of time to train replacements, let people get used to the idea. Even me.

Now it’s December of ’22 and I wonder at the time.

I’m sure most people have plans. Plans. “I’m going to do—.” Sure. And then reality swallows everything and what happens happens and maybe some of those plans survive. I’m looking around an office I had every intention of thoroughly cleaning, rearranging, and updating. Well, the piles are in slightly different places, and some of them are different piles than before, but in the main it doesn’t look like I’ve done a thing.

The same goes for the rest of the basement. Attempts have been made, but frankly I need a month in which nothing else makes demands on my attention.

I have, however, managed to clear some dust off my career (writing) and make some headway in getting it back on track. After my novel-writing period more or less crashed and burned, I finally decided to turn back to short fiction, and to my pleasant surprise things picked up. I’ve written and sold a score of new stories. And now I have a new novel coming out in the spring. (Not science fiction, which is a bit of a surprise, though very welcome. More about that later.) In recent weeks a few things have occurred to give me hope that matters will turn around even more. Allow me to leave that vague for the time being.

I include as an element of any advice I dispense to want-to-be writers that of paramount importance for a career is Persistence. Just showing up is inestimably vital. You cannot succeed if you quit. Persistence does not guarantee success, but surrender pretty much guarantees no success. I’m now of the opinion that this is a matter of playing in traffic. Put yourself out there, in the flow, and eventually something will hit you. Not the most coherent plan, but with few exceptions the one most of us are able to act on.

The thing I did not count on is the fading of desire. I remember the fire, the urgency, the firestorm of optimism, and the excitement at the creation of new work. The impatience with the molasses progress of execution. Why should it take so long to get these words down in the right order? Why did everything take so long…

And now, forty years after making the decision to pursue this thing, that burning eagerness has lessened. I’ve become a bit jaded and quite tired. Partly this is a kind of maturity that counsels me to use myself more efficiently, that the fire never added much to achievement. It still takes so much time to write something, to edit it, to shepherd it through the stages of getting it out into the world, and that now it seems to take the same amount of time as it did when in the grip of the fever. Calmer impulses marshal resources to better effect. 

But more than that, I simply don’t suffer from disappointment and disillusion as much. Rejections still hurt, but not as much, and there’s a muffling kind of acceptance that seems therapeutic now. If it will happen, fine, I can only work the machine the best I know how and wait.

I wonder if this is not just the result of callouses grown thicker and that I’m missing out on something that I once felt to be so significant, possibly even the point.

Still, I’m working. I believe I’m writing better than ever, the work that goes out is better. My impatience is the only thing that seems lacking.

And then there is the rest of life…

I’ve begun reading philosophy again. Once upon a time, I was a casual admirer of Ludwig Wittgenstein. I appreciated some of his approaches to what was known as Logical Positivism, part of the Analytical School of modern philosophy. Primarily, it was his (quite arrogant) thesis that all of philosophy’s “problems” stemmed from misapprehension and misconstruals of language. That if we just figured out how to be absolutely clear, we would understand. Granted, he realized later how simplistic this claim was and embarked on a deeper analysis of language structures and their application to questions of the real. 

I have believed for some time that science fiction is at base the most philosophical of literary endeavors, that the primary assumptions in most of it have no relevance outside an attempt at understanding the nature of reality in a unique way that emerges in the array of speculative presentations against which human struggle might be understood in evolutionary terms. In a way, the very idea of The Future has no actual meaning outside a philosophical framework. The best we can say is that something will follow the Now in which we exist. We call that the Future, but it has no material reality that we can examine. By the time there is something to examine, it is no longer The Future, and from our position Now we can only make assumptions about the Future because Now is the Future of a Past we can cite.

That is the exact sort of proposition that one would find in a good piece of science fiction. It is also the sort of thing that informs philosophical propositions.

It relates here, now, in this, because the day I retired I had a speculative framework of what my Future would be like. Ambitions, desires, expectations. (If you think about, life is a science fiction story.)

I haven’t attended to philosophy as such for some time now. It would be fun to get together a group (again) for regular discussions. The last several years have in so many ways challenged common agreements on causality, truth, and commonality itself, and it seems the only sane responses are either to yield to the impossibility of ordering the conceptions of the world (insanity) or work at better understanding in order to create conceptions that reduce the chaos. Ultimately we can only control our own reactions. 

Some of this, for me, comes from having reached a strange place in relation to those past ambitions. I am in many ways more comfortable in my own skin than I have ever been, but at the same time I recognize the world around me as a place I do not know how I found. I’m reading older books, my indulgence in history has increased, and yet I still revel in the new voices I encounter, even while the names on the spines fail to spark the kind of thrill I once had regularly seeing a new work by an author with whom I was familiar. I can see clearly how nostalgia can become a trap, one we may not wish to escape. The familiar has such gravity, increasing year by year, distorting our path.

It’s Christmas weekend. The landscape is punctured by rabbit holes. The people you surround yourself with (and who are likewise surrounded by you) are the only guidons to keep you on the solid plane of vital connections. The deep structures of reality (of perceptions) are anchors to a world navigable to the betterment of the soul. The hypotheses of conspiracy wonks are less than the shadows on Socrates’ cave wall. (I will not call them conspiracy theories—that elevates them above their utility and lends credibility where none exists—but at best hypotheses, at worst con games designed to distract from actual living.) I am still with my partner of over 42 years. Snow fell yesterday. The sun is bright today. I’m listening to some very good music (late period Herb Alpert, if you care to know—he seems to have left behind the heavy reliance on “catchy” tunes and clever hooks that made him so popular in the 60s but he is still one of the cleanest horn players around) and I have the capacity to speculate on matters of moment. The trick is to identify what matters.

Wittgenstein, as I noted, asserted that we need find the clearest way to express ourselves in order to “solve” the problems of philosophy. I have no real quarrel with that idea—after all, I’m a writer, story aside my work consists of trying to find clearer ways to say things that might lead to truth—but I would only add that life does not have A Solution. Living is a process, an evolving set of realignments, relocations, and above all recognitions (re-cognitions). There is no single answer, only the ongoing encounter and construction of an imagination that renders chaos meaningful.

Starting on that path can be as simple a thing as cleaning up one’s office.Â