Dedicated to English majors - lived it, dumped it, back to it?
So, was a reader kid since Elementary, Saturday mornings at the library, checking out 4-5 books & finishing them off by Sunday night. On through Middle and high school, more and more getting the "review" and literary rating modes - who and which are "great" and reading by the ratings and reputations. Reading the "greats" and at that age of lack of life experience and context, "reading" stuff without really knowing what things were about.
And more and more the eventual English Major Trap - the lives of "Great Writers" - the suffering, the glamor, the survival, the redemption! And the high school English teacher annointing the potential - validation (of the delusion, fantasy, wrong motive) !
So flash forward to 60 years of telling self above anybody of wanting to be a Writer! Then in old age, among all the downsizing, also the one about illusions, so ditching the writer thing. Well, having passed through the latter day phases of - give it up, everybody lives everything, it's all been written before, who cares, STENDHAL's book described my early life perfectly no need for me to do it, the universe doesn't care, biggest life error taking life personally.
Late in life: One cousin successful materially but not academic, reacting to the 1970s beard, "Do you want to be a writer or do you want to look like a writer," yet later another old cousin saying, "You have a lot to offer."
And all the tips of writing: Just *do* it, don't talk it out, don't talk about it ...
Plus, all the Happy hours of cannibalizing life history for the thrill of immediate reaction from illiterates. And now the technologies that can write themselves.
So a turnaround, a Happy session of life Greatest HIts. The recipient was an ideal audience, oblivious to history, life experience, compass. It was all a revelation to the recipient, giving rise to the illusionist - maybe perhaps I *do* have something to say!
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