There are, I suppose, consequences if you're going to write, the way a writer of the kind that critiques society, a Kerouac, a Twain, a Fitzgerald, writes. (Russian writers cover the consequences of their attitudes sometimes.) The consequences are not intentional as you set out to be and to discover yourself as a writer, writing what you take as being accurate and true. You write what you experienced recreated as fiction. And one way, or another, perhaps, there are consequences.

But of course, you run the risk of alienating the segment of life you portray. You may offend people who may take you for portraying them partially or substantially or coincidentally.

You're going to feel awkward, highly, when friends read your book. And you don't want to write about them, but only say nice things about them, which, some might argue, doesn't make for a very good story-line.

And yet, there was an instinct to write, a light to follow, something not to hide, something good and true, the spark of love like the common love we all have for nature and for our parents who love us. By this instinct you never meant to say anything mean or lastingly judgmental, and would prefer to say only kind things, perhaps an appreciation of eccentricities. For in the end, the artist subscribes to what Shakespeare put into Hamlet, the acceptance that 'nothing is but thinking makes it so.'

The writer has no bad wishes or bad feelings, but truly rather the greatest kindness and understanding of people, just by the very nature of his art. He comes to the realization, subconsciously or more consciously, that he is trying to teach people, both as an observer of nature, as a scientist does, but also to teach people to live a kinder less competitive less mean less judgmental kind of way, as if to turn them to the sunlight, to the source of all creation and all energy so that we might all go, 'ahhhh, I see!' and smile and not have strife and not raise conflicts with our neighbors. (It would not have been wise for us to sit in and watch the big bang happen, and anyway, we are the living result of this great release of permeating energy.)

The writer's instinct all along (even if he might seem to be creating strife) is passive, kind, to be a teacher. For him to be critical, in the negative sense, in the sense of tearing down innocent people, is outside of him.

So is, finally, the writer along the same lines, through his observations, in a far humble way, as a Jesus, as a Buddha, seeking enlightenment, and seeking to share that enlightenment, even if that body of wisdom seems when compared to every day concerns of survival and advancement in society obscure, irrelevant, floating chimerical illusions. Every day in his notepads he is reattaching, reconnecting with that energy that is so warm and gentle and kind and flowing so pleasantly through all of our atoms that we might not even know it's there. Each and every day, he is rediscovering and reconnecting with himself, with something we all share. This is why he keeps going, having no problem with writing, and goes about throwing in his little observations without worrying about others telling him he is wrong.

Reading a writer, we would discover what great gentle studious kind beings we are, just the same as we were when we were children, protected by our parents sanctuary, reading then as we do now.

Yes, we fell from grace, yes, we were kicked out of Eden, but there is a way back, for each and every one of us. And so, all places, really, should have books in them. McDonalds should have books in them. The Constitution should provide for books.

The writer can be taken as, yes, half-idiot for his habits. He goes at his own pace. He may be in touch with no issues but the basic ones, getting his news from what birds say and other sounds of nature.

In our selfish legalistic society we've grown to respect something more than thinking. We risk falling into a kind of ignorance, an unwillingness to approach issues. We rely heavily on law rather than the simple and direct paths of personal virtue. Laws think they must come down heavily upon us, dot all i's and cross all t's, and set the tones for all differences, disagreements and arguments. By imposing rules for the sake of rules we give birth to a criminal mind, a mind that does only what the current laws tell him, or break down other people for not following rules just as as that mind thinks right.

Hitler and Nazism grew out of secrecy, abusing a legal system, a system of government by posturing as law. He grew to abuse, to put it rather mildly, the privacy and personal rights of everyone. Differences of opinion and free art were quelled. Here, in the U.S., we've gotten as far as McCarthyism for art-bashing.


If it seems a writer may have gone too far in his right to create his art, remember that his respect of a free society is greatest of all. It is in the very nature of art to be representational, just as Giotto and Caravaggio put the reality of human form into the depiction of holy scenes and lessons. Unless of course art is defamation posing as art. Those who defame contradict the core belief of an artist that nothing is but that thinking makes it so. "That person over there is only bad because you have made him out to be." Art would never flourish is such circumstances; the pen, the brush, the camera, the violin would be broken.


The writer may have felt, subtly, like the biggest offender because he spoke up and wrote about a place, a temple. He write what he did as a defense of the artist's way, the artist's right to exist, the artist's peace of mind, the artist's suggestions, the artist's write to take note. And that instinct to write, I believe, is part of the holy physical flow we have within that represents itself as all physical properties we have, sex drive, digestion, respiration, all senses, blood flow, heartbeat, cellular activities and bone, just as we once awoke to an awareness of our mother's hearbeat.

Observed behaviors a writer can touch upon belong to a public domain. He looks at things with an eye for beauty and form, and so he sees, and shouldn't apologize for it. Individual privacy is respected by the very nature of a piece of writing being, after all, thoroughly a work of fiction.

Young people have good health, physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally. They are resilient. If called upon to do so, they should write their take on things, even if an adult or bigger person comes along and discourages the effort through some cautious and overblown sense of false propriety. (Ophelia's critique of Leartes' lecturing.) For young people--though they can certainly make mistakes, big ones as well as small ones, hopefully without tragedy--have a sense of where they stand (protected as they may be), though of course they must be respectful and of a willingness to admit their mistakes as they go about learning to fly on their own.

Every artist's story (though of course they are not perfect people) bears a similarity--at least to for a moment humor--to that of Alyosha Karamazov's rising up, to be a fighter for the rest of his life. But, have we grown not to expect much in the way of art, high art of spirit and flesh? Well, at least, we're born able to listen.

A writer can indeed fall prey to the knocks and discouragements offered up to him by straight-laced nay-sayers, maybe even to the conspicuous lack of support offered by a blandly good but selfish citizenry. He may be, indeed, a hero to face the active and the passive, like Gary Cooper's Sheriff, in High Noon. Maybe there is something that makes us afraid to stand with him, some conservative part in us that thinks too much a certain way.