On the Current Cultural Decay

Today’s cultural climate is full of desensitized and inefficacious people who assume that things just “happen” to them. People who are inefficacious disgust me. I have always sympathized with the truly great Men who take action. I love Men who fight against those who try to stop their innovation. They have efficacy and, therefore, my undying respect.

I can still remember, having been raised Protestant, seeing men, specifically, in church kneeling and I cringed, even as a child. I thought, “How lowly and weak they look!” Fast-forward to college and another late night reading session for tomorrow’s class where I have the works of Milton’s Paradise Lost and Marlowe’s version of Faust in my hands, further empathizing with the devil and the snake and Man who desires knowledge.

My sense of life became clearer to me when I felt this ferocity rise within at Man who is refused the ability to know and refused to feel proud of knowing. After all, our tool of survival is our mind, our reason! Why must Christianity squash the very thing that makes us capable of living? I find it pure evil.

Perhaps this moment of fierce rebellion in my soul, sitting in my college’s library, is why I always seem to come back to motifs of snakes and birds, heaven and hell, God and Satan, and Adam and Eve in my work. I cannot help but rage against those who tell me not to know when I have spent all my life trying to know everything! I’ve always said that if I could have a chip inserted into my brain with all human knowledge known today, then I would.

My fear is that we can go backwards as a society. Literary fiction and other art dies in a bad or sick culture. Today, all literary fiction is tribalistic and not about morality at all. The Left has thrown morality away since they believe it is incurably tied to religion, while the Right has kept to their small Christian publishing presses to put out more of the same religious morality texts. But where, oh where!, are the secular moralists who are capable of shining through the rubbish? Where are the writers and readers who want to learn how to be better and happier living their ever-longer lives on earth?!

Why are publishers saying no to any books that are not liberal or tribalistic in nature? Why is there outrage over “literary fiction” books even existing anymore? Because our culture is dying.

I can blame liberal ideology and religious ideology to a certain extent, but beyond that I am unsure. All I know is that the worst thing an individual can do is desensitize themselves to life. And, yet, drugs, drinking, hedonism in general, even rushing from one loud event to the next or traveling all over the world without one moment to rest are causing a group of desensitized people to roam around the earth and teach their children the same. When the music dies down and the party leaves, people can no longer stand being with their own thoughts and so they repeat the numbing process over and over again in one endless cycle.

I remember when I was presenting my literary thesis to my professors in undergrad. When I finished, one commented about how they thought it was a theatrical performance because of the way I read it and openly mocked me when I said that the meaning of life was about happiness. My professors were a product, in the most extreme way, of a culture that is dying, if not already dead. They were cynical, could not take their own subject seriously, and believe that “Truth” is outside of reality. My rebellious heart raged that day, and I will never forget it. Yet, again, here is the Left telling me that I cannot know anything, just as much as the religious Right does.

Well, I refuse to believe that I cannot know how to be happy or that it is not a worthy goal. And I would rather feel too much anxiety about every little thing in my life than nothing at all. I would rather feel deep gratitude for what appear to most as “boring” or “inane” things; I would rather feel endless sorrow for a loss in my life than to drown them in drink; I would rather behave as innocently as a child, than as cynically as a manic-depressive professor. Life becomes more bearable when you know madness does not arise “out of the blue” but is built up by hundreds of little acts of transgression over time that you and the others around you never cared to notice. Being in a desensitized state is a killer to human beings; don’t let it get you next.

_____________________________________________________________

Views Expressed Disclaimer: The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent the postings, strategies, or opinions of American Wordsmith, LLC. Please also know that while I consider myself an Objectivist and my work is inspired by Objectivism, it is not nor should it be considered Objectivist since I am not the creator of the philosophy. For more information about Ayn Rand’s philosophy visit: aynrand.org.

On Writing and Why I Chose Literary Fiction

As far as my opinions on writing go and the way I write, I have a few tips, though I am still young and things may come into sharper focus as I age.

Ever since childhood, I have used my “microscope” to help me find the words to say. I can look at something that others would pass right over and by noticing what makes it special, then the words and ideas come. It sort of is like a meditative process. One word of warning though if you become “stuck” in this writer’s perspective, then going to overly stimulating places (which, unfortunately, so very many people are fond of today) may cause great anxiety. I cannot seem to come out of this mindset or attention to detail, so I tend to feel the need to prepare myself before attending anything loud or overcrowded (medication helps too).

By staying with these “moments,” there is in the nature of them a sense of urgency, so holding onto them with words is akin to catching them in a net. The best way to access these special moments is by becoming a soldier of the arts. You should get up and follow a routine every day that allows your mind to focus on the unique bits and bobs that stray from the norm. They become more obvious to you when you are not rushing around your house looking for the house keys before running out the door for work.

My sense of gratitude and happiness comes from the effort that goes into working with a purpose—not from sunshine and rainbows. I never aim to suffer, but I surely am willing to give it my full effort to achieve my goal that promises more of a long-lasting feeling of contentment and pure bliss.

In terms of more specific writing tips, I would say to never introduce too many characters early on (like Dickens). It becomes “crow-blowing” (unlike in Les Misérables when one character is described for many pages). Only when the readers grasp the present character can they then move on to understanding another.

I also believe that it is a corrupt idea to say that fiction does not mirror reality, but instead creates a “new reality.” Literary fiction is only meant to show how reality (singular) ought to be and what it truly means to be human. There is no “other” reality being created.

Also, in scattershot form: always give details to bring the reader closer to the perspective/experience/character; never become too focused on the environment/social over the individual; main characters without values are not worth writing about because they are unrealistic; always remember that the universe is benevolent! 

To be a great writer, one must observe the world, study it, and then integrate to produce a creative product.

I love writing stories because I can walk through a moral problem that I am having from a rational (not spiritual) perspective and come to a conclusion that is satisfactory. That is why I find that outlines never really helped me because I had to work from a single scene in a logical progression until, due to contextual circumstances, I could only come to a single conclusion and that becomes my ending. Personally, it makes a book more enjoyable to write when you are unsure what the main answer is.

Although, I would say that ideas have come to me in many ways for the books I have written so far: sometimes it’s a single scene or vignette floating around in my head for a while, or the first sentence, or the last, or even just an environment that embodies an entire idea. If the idea is strong enough, then I find that I do not even need to write it down as other ideas for the next piece just keep building on themselves in my mind.

Ultimately, my desire is to bring the body back into literature—bring Man back into literature. My novels range from exploring the worst evils to the highest good done by Man. However, the naturalist movement of the late nineteenth century ripped the story away from the romanticized individual and onto the piece of land being sown with seed. Well, I would like to be remembered as the writer who analyzed a few moral topics within the philosophical branch of ethics that is set down in Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. My goal in life is to teach people about secular morality by pointing to a time in history, such as mid-nineteenth century America, when I believe the culture was better. Literary fiction should teach and make Man better.

_____________________________________________________________

Views Expressed Disclaimer: The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent the postings, strategies, or opinions of American Wordsmith, LLC. Please also know that while I consider myself an Objectivist and my work is inspired by Objectivism, it is not nor should it be considered Objectivist since I am not the creator of the philosophy. For more information about Ayn Rand’s philosophy visit: aynrand.org.