"What is not in the open street is false."

"What is not in the open street is false, derived, that is to say, literature."
-Henry Miller, The Fourteenth Ward, Black Spring @1963

The technical difficulties of the last week put me off schedule with my newly resurrected blog. I think about this blog a lot as it is my latest writing project and therefore occupies a lot of time in the creative writing section of my brain. In fact, I have to be sure that life is relatively even in other areas of my world or writing obsession becomes the name of the game. When I was in my twenties, all I ever did was write. I ate, drank and slept writing- literature didn't help that situation much. In fact, I picked up Black Spring by Henry Miller yesterday and was sneaking in pages between rides all last night. There is something to reading a pocket size book by a quality author that draws me in almost without a fight, but Henry Miller always challenges me as to why there isn't a pen in my hand. An average week in my, say twenty-sixth year, would see my reading selection peppered with Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, Alan Ginsberg, Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath-did I mention I was an English Major? One day in my mid twenties, I woke up and realized that I hadn't created much of a life for myself as writing was my all. So, I put writing aside specifically to work on my real life. Do I have a real life now? I would say so- a loving, doting husband, wonderful pets, a job I like and every day, I have more a sense of peace in a crazy world. However, the twenty, thirty and fifty-year-olds whose lives are occupied by their occupation of our city, namely Occupy Memphis, have not seemed to be able to move past the starving artist syndrome. The need to suffer for your good is, it seems, ingrained in the human psyche, but does it need our worries in order to live? 'Never give up', 'Stay focused on your goal' and, the every popular, 'No pain, no gain'- some of these philosophies were proven ineffective back in the 80's, yet the idea of creating some peace on the inside and seeing it on the outside strikes the modern young adult as blasphemy. Security, materialism, hell, why not call it what it is- the external world is the end all, be all to the average person I meet. But it is the kingdom within that I feel is my calling, my career, my salvation. Without the ability, like Sandra Bullock's character in 28 Days said,"to just sit on a couch and be okay", to be and feel that God and The Universe approve, without in internal compass with Peace as it's True North, what does a mere human being have besides trying to stay upright in the world's tumultuous waves of fear, pain, doubt, uncertainty and all the other pressures that slam against us every day? Without God, without peace inside, without a real reality for life, what do we have? Do I sometimes have too much time on the carriage to think? Yes, yes I do. :) Until next time...