The Funniest Thing

As I indicated earlier, the bulk of my current writing takes place at a public library. I’m grateful for the wi-fi and primarily uninterrupted solitude that my chosen venue affords. There’s the occasional distraction, someone disregarding the cell phone rule or brief discussions among other patrons, but for the most part it approaches complete quiet. Today however I was witness to something that elicited a smile for reasons that prompt me to share. It was the banter of a young man, that went something like, “David, don’t eat the cake. David, don’t touch the candles. David, wash your hands. Good job David! David, don’t eat that cake.” It was delivered with the sentiment of a person in the midst of a mid-life crisis. The comedy is that the speaker was about three years old, he was the only boy sitting there, no cake in sight and I’ve got five bucks that says his name was David. While his Mother perused the shelf, he was apparently entertaining himself with the realization that his world was already full of the “Dos and Don’ts” that complicate our lives. He seemed amazed by the long list of directives he could recite regarding what I can only imagine was the recent memory of a birthday celebration.


My target of a completed, polished chapter has altered itself from chapter one to chapter two. The reasons I decided upon the goal of finishing a single chapter were both to gauge measureable progress but also to build some momentum and confidence along the way. Chapter one was selected primarily because that’s arguably the most logical starting point and I tend to go by some way of logic. Turns out I’m currently more inspired and motivated to write on the contents that will be chapter two at present. Momentum certainly doesn’t need to be sequential.

The most popular phrase I’ve used to describe what my book will be about is, “A logical approach to the meaning of life.” This phrase encapsulates one aspect of my intended writing style; logical. I found logic in the form of mathematics and philosophy to be, second nature. My own choices in life are almost always defined by a lengthy process of evaluation as opposed to any emotional direction. That last statement might be a little difficult to reconcile with “I quit my managerial job at a financial firm to pursue the penning of a book that I have no proof will meet with success. Did I mention that I have no manuscript ready, no publisher and no agent?”

Still, to me logic is supreme. One of my favorite quotes of all time is from Galileo, “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” So brilliantly captured in this single sentence is the other aspect I hope to capture in my writing. Galileo’s passage uses logic to counter the problem he faced in his day, that being his scientific postulates and theories being deemed heretical by the religious authority. Regardless of any response or rebuttal to Galileo’s declaration, few could deny its thought provoking nature. While his scientific theory that the Sun and not the Earth represented the center of our solar system has been validated, the essence of the above quote has yet to be accepted by the majority.

I intend to strive for many things in my writing, including the elegance illustrated by Galileo, however the most important beyond the logic is provoking thought. Perhaps that’s the default purpose of all writing. While any attempt to label my work as fiction will only be for purposes of slander, most works of fiction don’t slap you in the face with their questions. They wrap them with colorful characters and events, undoubtedly part of their intrigue. My goal is to summarize and abbreviate the splendor of the world in which we live, in hopes of portraying how grand life truly is. In a logical and thought provoking way.

How could anything other than the following question be next…? “What’s taking you so long?”