A writer must respect his own vision, follow it, walk its gangplank, find it within, adopt few others but broad ones into which you fit. That's what a book should be, the pursuit of a vision.

One reads Hemingway with a sense of nascent vision. It seems he had one, but he doesn't elaborate. There's evidence, and even action toward vision, hints, trails, and even maybe just the Zen of it. Old Man and the Sea seems too story-like, fabled, mythic. But, he felt the exuberance of discovering the secret of writing. And if anything, that exuberance, of a soldier's populism, bottles clinking beneath his hospital bed, rubbing elbows with his new buddies in Europe over campfires, is close to being the core of his vision. His stories are descendent of Melville's ship.

A significant part of Hemingway's vision seems to have also centered around an element of self-promotion, an emphasis on self that a Buddhist or a more modest person would not be comfortable with. However, it's fair to say that his work added to us, that his form of sunlight is by its nature a positive force for humanity, by more than sheer force of intellect and capturing of detail. There was a generosity to the man. As my Polish neighbor tells me, he loved life. And what the hell, if writing is good for your morale, on a daily basis, good for you, Ernie, you go, man.

That exuberance is akin to Shakespeare's secret, unknown, of late nights, theater people, Falstaff actors; thus Hemingway's fanciful comparison of boxing with Ol' Willy. (Shakespeare should be synonymous with the battle against ego, egos within and without.) The recognition of another lively soul, another person who edges into wanton behavior, boyishness. The writer recognizes that connection of getting easily excited about something. We read what we read because we feel the craving for life experiences, the indulgent edge that makes perfect sense.

Still, though, beyond his jocular love of writing prose, a final word on Hemingway would be to give him credit for his recognition of the state of 'beaten but not defeated.' That's close to a recognition that life offers constant change, thus to the Buddhist a suffering, a decay, from which is derived the understanding that a solid concrete self is illusory, especially in light of the great connectedness of all things in the universe.

Lincoln cracked, it seems, his personal ties to the tavern people he endured once. Had he bottomed out in his own way, semi-regularly, without having to engage in indulgences? Still, it seems, relative puritan that he came to be, as reported, about drinking, maybe a little too conspicuously, that he remained friendly to the boozy friendly bourbon-drinking smoke-filled-room-loving rowdy-conventioning gentlemen who got him elected. It helped, perhaps, that he was strong and big enough, a good enough wrestler, for a basic self-standing agreement. He would not allow himself to be bullied.

Kerouac admits his allegiance explicitly. "I'm for the mad ones..." But he too was athletic enough to escape them if he had to. He was also addicted to books and learning too. He read Proust. He had a way of framing his conversations with the world. (MacGowan reads Yeats' "An Irish Airman Forsees His Death." There is a tie between song and writing, Joyce being a fine tenor.)

When I left Amherst, I went to work in a place that served up forms of country music along with Ann Cashion's Tex-Mex. Songs about life, real life, unvarnished, about behaving badly, the whole gamut really. Lyle Lovett, Dwight Yoakum, Robert Earl Keen, Townes Van Zandt, Hank Williams, Marty Robbins, Wallon & Willy, Johnny Cash, mixed in with contemporary stuff like 10,000 Maniacs and REM. My deep gratitude to Mr. Robert Wilder, all round great guy, for letting me in on being a part of a place called Austin Grill, the original one, up there on Wisconsin Avenue. (I was bussing tables, and they were doing my singing for me. Lazy as that is.)

To me, this aesthetic, if you will, is one of populism. I'd like to think it goes back to the building of Amherst College, when the local farmers chipped in, lent their backs to clearing out a hill top to build with brick and mortar a college. Oh, there were fancy guys back then too, no doubt, the bankers and the lawyers, Webster and Dickinson, along with names forgotten of farm-boys grown up who still liked to read. It was a joint venture, a community of high and low, would be one person's guess, maybe a sentimental one. I've always thought a populist touch, even though it might not bring a lot of gold reserves in, had something to do with it. (JFK's last speech, there, concerning Robert Frost, about an artist, whomever he was, having the task of following his vision, one of questioning power, even if that pursuit is disinterested, maybe especially because it is disinterested, has a populist ring to it.)

By which I mean, in contrast to an attitude of I know better, I am superior, I will show you disorganized slobs how to better manage your lives, the commercial selling of a whole life-cut out for us in neat patterns. That's creativity of another sort, often involved with creating wealth for wealth's sake, no? A house of tight perfection--no thank you. (I'll live my own way, see the light on my own, thank you.)

Some of us, I gather, just aren't cut out for a lucrative lot in life.

Lear asked for a show from his daughters, each to put on an act of how they loved him. Shakespeare rebelled against having to make such behavior, for he had that within which passeth show, a natural organic vision that let him, through his own basic instincts, understand everyone.