It's a strange thing, going back to revisit a work one has completed rather a long time ago. Maybe it's the nature of this particular manuscript, but once I had written this one, I very much put it away in my mind. It could have been because of how cathartic this one was, or maybe because I got to work on many other projects. Hell, I'd written FOUR other books since my publisher got to Silent Manifest, so it's possible those other stories crowded this one out.

Anyway, the editor my publisher assigned to me was a very assiduous worker, going over the manuscript with extraordinary care. The edits were both large-scale and small, covering story problems as well as style weaknesses. I can see how a person would regard this process as insulting or off-putting, but it was a necessary one. Going back and revisiting relationships, characterizations...it was a homecoming. 

Still, I don't think I want to revisit this one again. Not because I don't like the story or think it's not one of my good works. I'm proud of it, and I think it's good. 

But the emotions it awakened in me were ones I don't care to experience again. I always thought I wrote this at least in part as therapy. as a way of taking control of something in my past that I had very little control over. The strange thing is--I wrote about a man who found that the answers he sought were worse than the questions.

So in what sense was this therapy?

The idea of catharsis (or katharsis) is a complex one--the purging of emotion, especially pity and fear, by the process of watching something awful happen to someone else is not an easy concept to grasp. Did I accomplish that with Silent Manifest?

I don't know. 

Maybe I never will know. 

The incident that happened didn't happen to me--I was an observer. A helpless observer. As all helpless people do, I tried to help. Did what I could, which was nothing. A lot of nothing. In the end, events unfolded as they were going to, with all our actions meaningless.

I guess it's a kind of nihilistic therapy. If there is such a thing.

I have to be honest--I'm not really looking forward to the publicity tour on this, insignificant and inconsequential though it will be. Don't kid yourself--a few Facebook posts, some blurbs here and there which almost no one will read--the publicity stuff will be meaningless. But even so, I don't relish the thought of revisiting this work.

Be seeing you!

What is love?

Baby don’t hurt me...don’t hurt me...no more…

Sorry. I had to.

Seriously, though--for a word that is arguably the most important word in the English language, we have so many different views on the word.

At the risk of being pedantic (though I should probably just embrace my inner pedant) I like the ways the ancient Greeks looked at the word. They had several terms for the various kinds of love. “Eros” was one such word, from where we get the word “erotic.” But it didn’t mean just sexual love--it meant passionate love, and even Plato defined it to mean “deep love for the beauty of another person,” even and especially inner beauty. Hence “Platonic” love in the sense of “love that isn’t predicated on physical attraction. Then there was “philia,” which meant a kind of love and loyalty between friends, as well as love towards an activity. It came gradually to mean “love” in its most general sense, as in the suffix -philia or -phile that we see in so many words, not all of them “bad.” Bibliophile, for example, is a person who loves books. There was also “storge,” which was love in the sense of empathy, like love parents might have for their children, or perhaps love of country or of a tribe. Lastly, there was “agape,” which was a sort of godly love, a sort of “pure” love one might have for one’s spouse or for God.

So what does any of this have to do with “love” in the modern sense?

Well, let’s see. I am quite attracted in a physical sense to my wife. I don’t wish this to become naughty, so suffice to say I have difficulty maintaining a rational thought process when I see her. I find that whatever I was thinking about prior to looking at her just sort of fades away and different feelings take their place. More to the point, though, is how I feel about her “inner beauty.” Specifically, her deep and fierce passion in defense of child welfare. She is not only a highly competent teacher, fighting for her students in every facet of their education, she is equally fierce in her defense and advocacy of our children. So, let’s just say eros is very much alive.

I also consider her my dearest, closest, and most long-standing friend. I have never subscribed to the theory that one’s spouse and one’s “best” friend can or should be different people. To me, I just don’t know how else I could have lived my life without Sue walking next to me for about 35 years now. So, philia is between us.

Storge doesn’t quite apply here--she’s not my offspring, nor does she represent a nation or tribe. I suppose I could say I love her in the sense that she is the mother of my children, but I don’t think that is quite what the word means.

On the agape level, I am not religious. I don’t believe in destiny, or fate, or any plan for the cosmos. I don’t believe that every person has a “soulmate” or a “true love.” Things just happen, and we humans make them happen or not. But at the same time I firmly and solidly believe that, I also believe that Sue and I were destined to be with each other and that we are one another’s soul mates. Yes, I know--contradictory. But to quote Walt Whitman, “Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.” Or to quote Francois de La Rochefoucauld, “when we are in love, we often doubt what we most believe.” So there is no divine being, and he or she brought Sue and I together to fulfil the plan for us that doesn’t exist.

I love my wife, my friend, and my partner Sue. The ancient Greeks came closest to summarizing my feelings for her, but even they fell short. I guess the testament of 35 years and counting is the closest definition for the word.

​

No, I don't mean that phenomenon wherein people give to charity (money, time, resources, what-have-you) in order to show other people how charitable they are, though that is a thing and it shouldn't be--I'm referring to this other weird phenomenon that, as far as I know, doesn't have a name. 

It's people who watch "influencers" on YouTube or Snapchat or Instagram or wherever else those odd creatures dwell, and then give money to them for no other reason than they were asked to.

I obviously don't watch "influencers" or "reality stars" or the like. But I gather what they do is speak directly into the webcam and talk to their "followers" (was ever an internet phenomenon so aptly named?) directly. They speak on a somewhat intimate level--that is, there's a certain friendliness that transcends mere pleasantries. In a way, it's even more intimate than pornography. These influencers and YouTube personalities (streamers, I think they're called) speak to their followers as individuals, as if each and every one of them is a friend. 

Thus, the followers get a false sense that they occupy a special place in the Internet personality's life--as if they "know" him or her, and therefore would of course donate money (made so easy via PayPal and other online services) towards whatever cause the personality is championing, or even in some cases for nothing at all.

I think--and I am by no means an expert--that this plays into our need to belong to something, to be a part of something, to have friends. More importantly, to have friends who are powerful, famous, or just well-known. And the way this is done is to play on our sense of narcissism: that we are being paid attention to, that the influencer or streamer is talking directly to me.

I know some of you will say, "it was ever thus," but was it? I don't think people in the nation thought Walter Cronkite or Johnny Carson was speaking directly to them. And if they wanted to see a celebrity, they at least had to go out and find one. Now, the electronic tendrils of the Internet are reaching out to us, and they have an uncanny way of finding our weaknesses.

The thing is--there are people who like you, who love you, who care about you. They are the people in your daily life with whom you interact every day. Your teachers, your fellow students, your family, your real flesh-and-blood friends. Go say hi.

​Be seeing you!