Success Is . . .

     

Tucson Weather Today

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Since about 1954 or '55 when I was a Freshman or Sophomore in High School (can't remember which) I have entertained the possibility  of someday becoming a successful writer. This came about because of the encouragement I was given by an English Literature teacher (Mr. Pabst). I figured that all the praise for my handed-in stories he gave me must amount to something. so I began to write and submit stories to popular magazines. With no success.

Several years later, after I was married and my wife and I had four children, I began to study writing and to write more seriously, and eventually I began to sell some poems, anecdotes, and a couple of fiction stories. But they were few and far between, extremely far between. So, after the first faint flush of success had worn off under the pressing needs and necessities of passing time, I came to realize that I was not a 'writer' but merely an imaginative working man who enjoyed dabbling in words, sentences, paragraphs, and all that hi-faluin' composin' stuff.

But I read a lot. A LOT. And I kept on writing, but not usually for publication.

After the computer revolution, I discovered a means of writing stories and storing them in digital form. Then came personal Websites, and Online Magazines... and Blogs.

So now I find myself at age 74, writing occasional stories and storing them on a website with my own domain-name, and entering personal thoughts (almost every day) into my daily blog.

But... know what? I still haven't given up. I still see myself as one day becoming a well-known author of respected novels.

Don't that beat all?

I will stop indulging in such dreams one of these days But probably not until I am dead and gone.


My thoughts have now shifted to another writer. He was once (I think) a good friend of mine; he was a 'cyber-friend' and we had never met face-to-face, but I recognized him many years ago as being a potentially great thinker, artistic writer, and talented poet. His writing surpassed mine in quality to an unbelievable degree.

But the fickle vicissitudes and unexplainable accidents so familiar to all of us, we frail human creatures, unexpectedly attacked him with a vengeance and visited upon him more than he could bear, and eventually weighed him down and down, until he finally gave up -- stopped writing.

I, not being him, can only guess as to why this was his choice.

But I wish he would march himself out to the end of the high-board, pause and stand poised there for a time, and then just heedlessly dive right in... and begin again.

That's what I wish.


Abraham Lincoln reportedly said: "Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other."

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TRIVIA

The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day, August 7 in 1947, Kon-Tiki, a balsa wood raft captained by Norwegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl, completed a 4,300-mile, 101-day journey from Peru to Raroia in the Tuamotu Archipelago, near Tahiti. Heyerdahl wanted to prove his theory that prehistoric South Americans could have colonized the Polynesian islands by drifting on ocean currents.

While Heyerdahl's work was never embraced by most scholars, he remained a popular public figure and was voted "Norwegian of the Century" in his homeland. He died at age 87 on April 18, 2002, in Italy. The raft from his famous 1947 expedition is housed at the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo, Norway.

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WORD FOR TODAY

auspices [aw-spis-ees']
noun
1. patronage, support, or sponsorship.
2. a favorable sign.
3. arranged or encouraged by (a society etc). This exhibition is being held under the auspices of the Arts Council.

auspicious [[aw-spish'-ehs]
adjective
giving hope of success. You haven't made a very auspicious start to your new job.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

Charlize Theron

(born 7 August 1975)

Charlize Theron is a South African and American actress and fashion model. She rose to fame in the late 1990s following roles in the films The Devil's Advocate (1997), Mighty Joe Young (1998), and The Cider House Rules (1999). Theron received critical acclaim for her portrayal of serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster (2003),

David William Duchovny

(born August 7, 1960)

David Duchovny is an American actor, writer, and director. He is best known for playing Fox Mulder on The X-Files and Hank Moody on Californication, both of which have earned him Golden Globe awards.

Margaret Emily "Maggie" Wheeler

(born August 7, 1961)

Maggie Wheeler is an American actress, best known for her role as Janice on the TV show Friends. She appeared on the hit comedy Seinfeld in the episode "The Fix-Up", as one of Elaine's friends who is set up with George. She has appeared in many other TV programs, including Drake & Josh, ER, The X Files, The War at Home, Will & Grace, Jack and Jill, How I Met Your Mother and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Wayne Eliot Knight

(born August 7, 1955)

Wayne Knight is an American actor, comedian, and voice actor best known for his role as Newman in the TV sitcom Seinfeld. His other prominent roles include Dennis Nedry in Jurassic Park, Stan Podolak in Space Jam, Al McWhiggin in Toy Story 2, Tantor in Tarzan, Don Orville in 3rd Rock from the Sun, Zack Mallozzi in Rat Race, Mr. Blik in Catscratch, and Haskell Lutz in The Exes. He also appeared in JFK, Dead Again, To Die For, and Dirty Dancing.

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Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
--Winston Churchill

NASA TV

This Is Who I Am

   

Self Analysis? What's That?

Tucson Weather Today

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Below is an attempted reply to a recent query from a fellow writer and longtime online friend.

I wrote:

So you tell me you are a coffee-shop habitue?

Yikes! But there are people sitting around you there. How can you write, or even think, while surrounded by chattering, nattering, coffee-drinking people?

As for myself, I need solitude. I must do all my writing alone. I thought every writer must do so. I am not particularly antisocial, not in my own estimation; I am more of an 'outlier,' I suppose you could say.

You asked me if what you had written to me in your previous note made any sense to me. And you opined that it did.

Well, yes, it makes sense to me, of course it makes sense to me, about as much as anything else in this helter skelter world makes sense to me. Although, until you asked me directly, I probably would not have said so.

You wrote that you'd come to feel from me a deep sense of regret, of sadness sometimes masked by gruffness... and of course the regret is there, it's there in most of us, I suspect. But gruffness? No. I don't think so. I don't recognize gruffness ever emanating from me, unless you mean the rough and tough defensive demeanor I spread about, like the sporadic distant warning cough of the male African lion that covers his tendency toward timidity with seemingly callous contempt in a raucous attempt to hide his inner fears -- as we humans are wont to do.

But I digress. (Of course I digress. I constantly digress.)

Or do I?

You chide me for wasting my time sitting and staring day after day at old TV reruns instead of using that (precious?) time to write of serious things. And I wonder why. Why should you care how I spend my time? (No, I don't wholly swallow your avowed premise of mere self-interest.)

Why on Earth should I willingly enter through the self-forbidden gates of Hell on Earth?

Why should I wish to rake through the sunken muck and dredge up memories of old suppressed afflictions? Those many, many wounds, most of them self-inflicted? Let them lie. Too painful. Why should I want to mine that putrid pit containing the deeply buried ores of grief and pain? Hurts too much. Leave it. Let it all remain dormant within its temporary crypt until it eventually slips away from those hidden regions wherein such filthy sins belong, and move on into some final eternity of blessed oblivion.

There are some things I cannot say. Not properly. It takes too much wisdom, and too much plain and simple courage. There are things I should not write about. For the same reason.

But let me think upon it.

Gene

P.S.
After several re-readings, the above seems, even to me, to be but a self-conscious bit of foggy-minded doggerel. And by doggerel, I mean: loosely styled and irregular in measure, not for its burlesque or comic effect, but by my careful choice of words -- words which are clearly marked by triviality and inferiority.

It was not originally intended to be.

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A Washington Post article about love that I was reading yesterday at one point spoke of a romcom and since I had no idea what a romcom was I looked it up.

A romcom, according to The Urban Dictionary, is a romantic comedy. Why conflate those two words? Why form one word from two? For convenience? For economy?

For the sake of saving energy while exchanging information verbally?

I would suggest that the creation of the word romcom came about when someone thought it clever enough to spread it among acquaintances so that they would see how terribly clever was this coiner of new words. To puff up his or her self-esteem, don't ya' know?

Now why, you might ask me, are you, an old has-been, reading about love?

Well, you might ask, but please do not expect a racy or provocative answer.

I'm doing research for a difficult piece I am attempting to write.

That's all.

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BORN ON THIS DAY

Harvey Korman

Born February 15, 1927

Died on May 29, 2008.

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Also Born On This Day

Galileo Galilei

(1564-1642)

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"Half of analysis is anal."
--Marty Indik