What You Are Will Make You What

Discourse Says, 'you Are.' Rhetoric Preserves The Freedom To Say, 'i Am Not.

The Pleasures Of Love Are Really Quite Wonderful--though I Suspect They Are Rather A Luxury And Require A Certain Level Of Socioeconomic Stability To Be Anything Other Than A Mode Of Suffering.

The Pulp Hero, Though He May Be A Renegade, Is A Guy Who Doesn't Feel. Anything. Ever. And For The Adolescent Male - Pummeled By Emotions Left And Right, Whether Arising From Sexuality Or Resulting From His Necessary Encounters With Authority - This Hero Is A Blessing, A Relief And A Release. The World He Lives In, Where Feelings Are Totally Under Control, Looks To The Adolescent Boy Like Heaven! This Hero's Lack Of Feeling - Like Star Trek's Spock - Is What Allows Him To Be A Genius, Or Allows Him To Shoot The Bad Guys And/or Aliens, Without A Quiver To His Lip.

The Truth Is Always Multiplex.

In A Very Real Way, One Writes A Story To Find Out What Happens In It. Before It Is Written It Sits In The Mind Like A Piece Of Overheard Gossip Or A Bit Of Intriguing Tattle. The Story Process Is Like Taking Up Such A Piece Of Gossip, Hunting Down The People Actually Involved, Questioning Them, Finding Out What Really Occurred, And Visiting Pertinent Locations. As With Gossip, You Can't Be Too Surprised If Important Things Turn Up That Were Left Out Of The First-heard Version Entirely; Or If Points Initially Made Much Of Turn Out To Have Been Distorted, Or Simply Not To Have Happened At All.