My religion is Life
My race is human
My country is the Earth
My flag is the sky
That's not meant to be a poem, but it's what I most want to say to anyone who will listen.
Since I was 8 or 9 years old, I've wondered what I'm doing here and what this phenomenal reality represents, if anything and writing has been my response to it (not to mention the stupid and neurotic things as well, which should come out in my writing). I read the Bible from cover to cover by the time I was 12 and gave up on resolving its inconsistencies and going to church by the time I was in 6th grade. There weren't any answers there (in either church or 6th grade) for me. I don't mean to say there isn't some truth to be found in the Bible (or the 6th grade) but I also like to consult other traditions and mix it up with my own experiences and analyses. I like to incorporate the views of the Zen tradition, the Tao, the Dhammapada,the Bhagavad-Gita, Heinrich Zimmer, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Philip K. Dick, Shunryu Suzuki, Nikos Kazantzakis, Nick Hornby, Haruki Murakami, Erich Fromm, Stephen King (yes, he is a master of dialogue) and, well, you know it's an impossible task and name dropping is so...pointless in many respects.
I wrote my first full novel manuscript more than ten years ago when I was 26. It was largely autobiographical (of course) and in many ways poorly written and thus unpublished. I am sometimes embarassed when I read over it. There are certain passages which I think are absolutely brilliant and I can't believe I wrote them. I may have been high on acid at the time. Revisiting that manuscript will have to wait indefinitely.
Now I'm almost 40. I've been around. I've been married, divorced, become happily re-married, and have been a father for 10 years. I've lived and worked in Spain, Portugal, up and down the U.S. west coast and Hawaii. Now I'm a business English teacher in Korea. I want to return to San Francisco or Honolulu, but I've set the goal of moving back there after I finish the novel I'm working on now. I was a lawyer in Honolulu for a few months but I quit. Reasons can be found in my writings if you're interested.
I found out about everything2 when I was doing some light research on strip club names for the novel I'm working on now. I enjoyed the write up and linking around - so here I am. I hope to post chapters in a serial format once I figure out how to do it on this site. I want feedback I think I can get it here. I'd also like to get new ideas from you.
Namaste,
Now