DAVID EAGLEMAN SUPPORTS THIS BEATNIK'S IDEAS

David Eagleman

Absolutely nothing to report. Nothing. Last two weeks has been busy with non-writing tasks and around the house duties. We are looking into reflooring the condo, but laminated flooring may be not possible due to Condo Community Regulations. I finished another short story, "The Feels Of Homer". Like it. Recent reading has been Incognito by David Eagleman, an update on neuroscience that supports the theory we humans are as much robots as gorillas are. I accept that I'm a robot. It's that or evolution is a lie, and I know that's not true. Thus the human species has gone from believing it's the center of the solar system and in command of its own behavior to being just another instinct driven animal in the vast Cosmos. I find that an intriguing proposition. Nothing to fear. Now reading Rather Outspoken by Dan Rather.

BEATING THE BEATNIK TO DEATH

It's 5:30 am, and I'm unable to sleep. Writing my Memoir Of A Nobody is turning out to be quite a disturbing task. Writing stirs up memories in me that won't go away and let me sleep. Several nights recently sleeplessness has overwhelmed me. It's a good thing I don't write every day or I'd be in awful shape. My life contains many disturbing events, many psychologically terrifying periods. Fortunately, I don't believe I normally realize what I've been through. I have so many tales to tell and many psychological insights that I've gotten from them and through counseling and reading in psychology, specially in evolutionary psychology. I truly have something to offer about the process of recovery from many emotional difficulties to find happiness and love. I spent four hours today writing and rewriting four paragraphs, trying to get the facts and feelings down as they truly happened. I'm writing about my experiences as a 19 year old with prostitutes in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In many ways those experiences foreshadowed the troubles I would later experience with all women. I've rewritten the opening sentences below too many times already. 

1. Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

I wonder if writing this memoir will be the death of me? Lit by a computer monitor, here I sit, age 81, at 1:52 am, naked except for white briefs, bent over a computer keyboard, driven out of bed by a restless memory to begin….

Somewhere within me my stepmother’s words are indelibly inscribed: “You’re selfish. You’re not like your father at all. You’re not a Thomas.”

    I’ve begun many times in 81 years to write this memoir, and every time I begin, I tell myself memoir writing is the most selfish task a person can try. I immediately begin to quibble with myself....


It's now 6:15 am as I finish this entry and still no sleep....

Now 2:43 pm as I add this entry. My lack of sleep has nothing to do with guilt. I'm long past that, but my mind just goes hyperactive sometimes. Thoughts run riot.

BEATNIK BASHED ON THE INNER EAR ROCKS

Facebook tells me on an irritatingly regular basis that readers of this blog are craving to hear from me. The memoir is coming along very slowly, nearly not at all. I have far too many dizzy days, and when those days are upon me, not a creative spark appears in my synaptic self, and he's the self who writes for me and which my conscious self recognizes after the fact. As no doubt you all know by now, if you keep up with evolutionary biology, the conscious self exists as about five or six constantly changing pieces of data which is all the human animal can retain in its consciousness at any one time. Consciousness is a flickering moment to moment existence at best, and when one is dizzy on a regular basis, consciousness becomes an even more fractured phenomenon.

Find photographer here...

Why am I dizzy and what can be done about it? Decades ago, I consulted an eye ear nose guy, and he said the little hairs in my inner ear, awash in and reacting to the fluid sloshing around in there are getting flattened and worn down with age and inactivity. He said it would only get worse. He was right. 

I continue to send out pieces of writing and get regular rejections. I fear my work is out of date. I truly like my 8 line poetry, specially the simplest clearest expression of my thinking, but clarity is not in fashion. And that's okay. 

BEATNIKING A PATH TO SUCKCESS

My oft stated goal in writing the futuristic novel Manning (working title) is to see if before I die I can get someone other than myself to publish a book I've written. I'm talking success, here, with a capital, SUCK! For publisher, film maker and for me.

In The Moral Animal, author Robert Wright uses Charles Darwin's life to demonstrate that human animals share values with other species. He points out that good monkey Darwin, for all that his ideas shocked the world, was very careful about his approach to relationships and to expressing his ideas. Darwin held back for 20 years announcing the facts he'd gathered because he didn't want to destroy his wife's faith, and he was choosy about his friends. As Darwin's influence and friendships grew among the intellects of his time, he slowly dropped friendships with people who were not as well known as he. Darwin did not consciously reject them. It just happened. The more he was caught up in success, the less time he had for many old friends. (Recall Woody Allen's Stardust Memories when an old neighborhood pal comes up to Sandy Bates and asks Bates if Bates remembers him? Pow!) 

On occasion, I've been in the presence of writers of distinction and have felt out of place with them. It's as if their experiences with financial success put them automatically into an experiential realm I'm not acclimated to. My reticence created my half of those situations. Let me tell you, if I hadn't had to deal with my personal issues before I could tackle the world of success, my life would have gone swimmingly different. I can see the experience for writing a successful book getting strong in me just as age is slowing my mental reflexes and memory. Will I reach the other side or fall through a crack in time?