I Shall Tell You A Great Secret
By
Richard Steinberg
Why do we fear it so?
For my part, while not seeking it, I think I might welcome it. An end to the fight, to the struggle, to the nearly achieving, to the pain. A cold quiet to replace the cacophonous world that speaks without hearing, shouts without saying anything, and constantly gibbers indecipherably. Peace – or if not peace, then emptiness: a place where nothing is expected, nothing wanted, nothing demanded . . . by others or by your own soul.
. . . by your own soul.
Therein lies the problem. Anima, élan vital, the quintessence of our being. When we die, does our soul die with us or does it then transcend our bodies and move into a nice condo on
And not knowing, does that make the willingness to embrace death a foolhardy enterprise most likely doomed to failure and tears?
In part, this so essential question is the reason I’m a writer. In part, my writings are my so essential answer . . . in part.
Beginning in 1975, a program was begun at the Library of Congress called:
There, these discs sit, waiting for the day when man or God chooses to annihilate, well . . . man.
Thousands of years ago, Alexander the Great gathered all the great knowledge of the world in one great library in
And with it, untold wisdom, art, beauty and grace.
But one day when the human experiment has run its course, when foolishness combines with hubris and perhaps a dash of inability to admit mistakes, when a bright light is followed by a big boom (or a microbe self-effacingly doesn’t announce itself as it begins to consume us) and mankind – perhaps all kind – disappears, the new Alexandria will still exist. Waiting deep inside the mountain, for time and tide –perhaps Hesperian archeologists – to unearth it. Waiting for our souls to be released, unsuspecting, smack dab into the middle of whoever or whatever comes next.
I have four books on those discs. Four pieces of myself; what I believed when I wrote them, how I felt, what I loved or hated, even how I lived or what I ate (my characters usually eat whatever I happen to be eating at the time I write them) all sitting there waiting for new light. A small, intimate representation of who I was, of who we all were, along with all my partners in anodization heaven:
Fitzgerald . . . Hemingway . . . Bashevis Singer . . . Hawking . . . Berliner . . . Einstein . . . Sullivan . . . Melville . . . Niall
I could live, err . . . excuse me . . . I could die with that.
Because whatever happens after, I’ve said what I believed while I was here. No, that’s not entirely true. I’ve tried to say what I believe while I was here. I’ve got to do better in whatever time I have left.
There’s nothing wrong with writing to entertain, with writing what the readers want, with taking your gift or earned talent and using it to create readily accessible distractions for the masses. Distractions – in the age we live – are sacred gifts to be treasured and lauded. But is there anything in creation that prevents you from saying something about something? To put it another way: In writing the most mass appeal, cross genre, branded, demographically perfect piece in the history of man from cave drawings to e-books, is there no way you can make a comment about your world or your beliefs at the same time?! Come on, you could do it if you tried!
But, of course, most won’t try, will they. Not a typo, I meant the period for the question mark because it is a sad statement of our times.
Few try.
Fewer every day it seems.
This entry marks the beginning of my second year at Storytellers. And as our regular readers know, I’ve railed on throughout the past year on various issues related to enduing soul in our writing. But what I’m talking about here, what I’ll continue to talk about in its various aspects during the coming year, is something different. A thing similarly stained with the essence of our existence as writers, but separate and apart from the soul.
The writer’s being.
In my first essay here, I introduced myself to you with these words:
. . . you will never find happiness as a writer; if you’re lucky, you’ll find occasional exhilaration and some measure of satisfaction . . . hopefully never too much – I continued to become different things at different moments.
The young adult who was certain that man could be saved.
The college grad who was certain that man couldn’t be saved.
After several years of national service, the man who knew beyond doubt that man shouldn’t be saved.
As a fledgling writer who knew he was the most talented novelist in the history of the planet whose words would heal the ill, make the blind see, and elevate the human condition.
As the international and New York Times Best Selling author who didn’t really care about man . . . so long as the checks kept coming and the book store assistant managers were attractive and deeply enamored of touring novelists.
To where I am today, who I am today: a man with a helluva lot more questions than answers, possessing a drive to write truth, to explore truth, to set down what he believes, why he believes it, and maybe make someone who reads it along the way stop to think a little bit about their place and time in the Universe.
What’s the difference? Simple: my soul burns with cancerous pain at so many unnecessary deaths due to foolishness, pettiness, and bigotry; and it expresses itself in the spirit of what I write. My being, well . . . my being shapes its stories to expose that foolishness, that pettiness, that bigotry in high-contrast, close focus.
“I shall tell you a great secret my friend. Do not wait for the last judgment, it takes place every day,” Albert Camus
One day, when the synapse doesn’t fire, when the heart stops, when the light fades, who I was is who will remain.
If only in the heart of
Believe!
Related posts:
- The Great Secret to Writing a Novel
- Mysterious Butterflies
- 30 Days, 50,000 words… How, and Why?
- Legion
- HELLO DEMONIC STRANGER
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Comments
Let’s hope that, for every Alexandria, there is not an Octavian…it’s oddly comforting to know the gold discs are there…thanks for that.
D
“is there no way you can make a comment about your world or your beliefs at the same time?! Come on, you could do it if you tried!”
This, in my mind, is the essence of being a writer. Why else write?
Ah, I love the passion with which you pursue this theme. As usual, you have left something worth reading.
Frank
Another one to provoke thought, Rick. I couldn’t agree more with actually “saying something” amid the production of distractions. I’ve discovered as I’ve gone along that, oftentimes, what I’m actually saying in my work isn’t necessarily what I thought I was. Usually it’s a pleasant surprise. Once in a while, not.
–M
Dear Rick –
I always liked the Carlos Castaneda riff about death. Which went a little something like this:
Death stands always just a foot to your left, and shadows your every step. It is your constant companion. There is no moment that is free of its gaze, no joy or shame in which it does not share.
And at any moment, it can reach out and tap you on the shoulder. And then what happens?
Away you go.
So the idea was to live as a warrior, always on the path with heart. Choosing each moment as if it were your last. Behaving in each moment as you would want to be known forever. Living each moment as if life ACTUALLY MATTERED.
Of course, Castaneda turned out to be largely full of shit, not personally willing to walk that walk at all. (Read my friend Amy Wallace’s book SORCERER’S APPRENTICE, about her heartbreaking years inside the steadily devolving Cult of Carlos.)
As it turns out, Castaneda wrote a magnificent FICTION, with much beautiful stuff to say about how best to live our lives.
When we go off “fictioneering” (and is that a quaint word or WHAT?), I wish for us all to aim at least that high.
And then, hopefully, to mirror that high intention, in the actual conduct of our actual lives.
Or, as Mark Twain put it, “Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”
THANKS, RICK! As always, your writing is inspiring because it is so purely inspired.
Yer pal,
Skipp
That bloomin’ Skipp; always vying (and, I must say, unintentionally (right?)) to steal the show with his insightful and on-the-money comments to an already insightful, on-the-money, and–more than anything else–down right inspiring essay.
Oh right, sorry. To use an old radio cliché: first time poster, long time reader.
I have to say, Mr. Steinberg, in an advice giving capacity, in a soul-bearing inspirational capacity, very few authors (very few people) have had as profound an effect on me as you have.
Even all the technical advice and sagely advising Steve (Savile), through various forums and emails, has given to me (either directly or otherwise)(and Steve, both as a writer and person, whether he knows it or not, has had a profound effect on not only my writing life, but on me irrespective), does not compare to the impact you have made on me: again, not only as a (I must say) wannabe writer, but as a person.
No disrespect intended to Steve who, although mostly unintentionally, has done a lot for the way I approach writing and life, but there is a fuel in your writings that has fed the fire like no other could.
Thank you, Richard, for being you. And long may you continue.
Castenedas would not be the first with worthwhile teachings and a lousy personal usage of his own wisdom…I loved those books when I first read them…loved them again later. Other books from that era were up and down for me. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was much better when read as an older, wiser man, while The Monkeywrench Gang wasn’t anywhere near as good…I almost fear my next encounter with The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test…
By the way, if you didn’t get enough of Richard here…he took over my live journal and interviewed ME for my own series of “Deep Blue Interviews.” He isn’t an easy one to anwser…
http://deep-bluze.livejournal.com
D
You can never have enough of Richard. But you can never have enough David Niall Wilson, too 
Thanks for the link David. Must learn to check my book-marked web-sites with something approaching regularity!
Gold? You’re sure it’s gold? Good news for me, bad for you, my exquisite and elegant friend. It’s good for me, because I thought my stuff was being preserved in vinyl (plastic!). Bad for you, ’cause you already write in gold, yea verily, you do, you do. 24K. And how is gold going to be preserved on gold? Somehow I think it will. Booming above the felt echo of the Big Bang there is one sound louder, one noise that cannot be ignored. If you miss it once, it will still be there to be heard when you are ready. It’s called Wisdom, Richard. But then you know that. And you write it with every synaptic impulse and coronary throb.
Thank you, and you aren’t ready for Thanatopsis yet.
– Sully (Thomas Sullivan)
Yes, it’s the writer’s BEING that he/she should care about. Good reads and grabby fictions are one thing; using them to present your essential view of the world and universe is another. Thanks for harping on that. It’s a truth that so often gets lost.
Dear AJB –You’re right!
I DON’T MEAN TO BE VYIN’!
Just responding to the passionate smartness, is all!
Yers most apologetically, if it seems like that at all,
Skipp
For this poem from the heart, the soul, and the
being of a writer, I thank you. –Janet