EPISODE 21: IN WHICH THE AUTHOR REFLECTS ON PROGRESS MADE AND CHALLENGES AHEAD

Welcome to my blog which is posited to be the episodic unfolding of a writer’s life at a crucial time. Crucial to him of course. No-one else really gives a shit whether he finds an audience (and an income) or not. An oddity of a blog is that readers (when they appear) arrive in the middle of things and then can’t be bothered to scroll back to the beginning to find out what’s been going on. For example, how many of you know that in Episode 18, I advertised my novel, BOGGY STARLESS AND THE DRUIDS OF GLASTONBURY (written under a different name) which is available on lulu.com for a mere £9.99? 

Or that the reason this is called a ‘Self-Help Reality Novel’ is because, having decided that age dictates that this is a now and never situation, I thought I needed to utilize all the tools at my disposal, including whatever benefits I’ve accrued from years of psychological experimentation with drugs, meditation, newer age type thinking, Rebirthing, Avatar, The Path of Least Resistance, and various other techniques and advices, to make the best effort I could to produce the results that I want.

Should you have followed the story from the beginning, you might appreciate why today, rather than digress as I am wont to do, and prefer to do, onto tangential matters such as Dean Whitbread’s desire to diminish the power of the word, and concentrate on providing a progress report on the self-help side. When I made this leap of commitment to genuine effort, my plan was to spend May to September preparing the ground and then from now, my first week of self-employment as an ‘Author, Course Teacher and Thanatologist,’ upping the ante with a view to being well-established by the end of next year.

Plans, I can do. Enthusiasm for my plans, I can do. Heigh-ho, let’s get stuck in, I can do. Stick at it and finish it, I can do. At this moment I’m not sure what it is I can’t do because slowly, with years collapsing between paragraphs, work appears, creation happens. Job done. It’s the stage after the creation which seems incomplete because with the exception of a few stories and articles, and now Boggy, nothing has actually turned into a book because in manuscript form it has gone off to agents and publishers where it has been inspected, often commented on, sometimes praised and occasionally almost given a contract, but never actually published.

 Now we don’t need intermediaries to publish, although they could certainly help, to give us permission to be what we want to be. Thanks to lulu.com, any author can cheaply put themselves in print. Believe me, that’s fucking amazing.

Deciding to write this blog once a week, was an act of discipline and a statement of intent not to forget what I was meaning to do and not to find myself in two years’ time finding a list of projects which I never got round to completing. So far writing the blog has been very useful in surprising ways. Until writing tonight, for example, I’d been concentrating on producing and not really noticed that there’s a sort of post-completion step that I seem to be missing.

Before looking at the techniques that I have, or have not employed, I do feel that something’s dawned on me in relation to creating. The title of Harry Palmer’s book, ‘Living Deliberately,’ sums up the Avatar philosophy. In myself I’ve always felt a little uncomfortable with the idea of living deliberately, of making choices, of defining, because it appeared to contradict what I believed more deeply, viz. that any self is an illusion and anything it ‘chooses’ is equally illusionary. I still believe that. What’s changed is that I have begun, or think I have, to disentangle my creations from my identity. Robert Fritz is very good on this (cf). Also I realized, and bear with my here, that although I believed I wasn’t really a person, ‘personing’ continued and that person was unable not to create – because creating is in the nature of personing – and would continue to perform the five-fold act of creation either unconsciously, through habit and repetition, or consciously by thinking of something it wanted to create and creating it. Instead of feeling guilty for focusing on particular goals (without undue attachment), I now see creating as an invaluable tool for mental health.

I’m now going to turn you over to Jack Heston, my inner American (cf Episodes 2,3,8,11).

Hi! As usual I’ve been left to clear up the dogends of John’s mind. And only 250 words left to do it in. Here’s my report on the current status of project positivity and focus.

OVERALL SUMMARY.

The original goals remain in place but there are more of them and they are more specific. There remains, however, a lack of definition about the final objective. Plans are in place but there are gaps in the plan. In terms of ideas, there has been an abundance, which is both good and bad; the bad being a sense of overwhelm and loss of focus as to what the next thing to do is. The various strands of my abilities appear to be coalescing in a way I didn’t expect. Writing 17,000 words of Sad Sam wasn’t in the original plan and took a few weeks of my time away – to what end I don’t know yet. On the other hand, I loved writing it and am certain writing a novel that works for me is the best feeling. Without Chris Wade’s intervention, I suspect Sam would have remained unwritten. Already I’m gagging to write two more novels.

Another surprise is that I now feel I can and want to teach Avatar again.

I suppose I should admit that John is smoking like the veritable chimney. I will work on him. He also keeps complaining about the lack of time. I’ll work on that too. How many minutes are spent rolling cigarettes and emptying ashtrays? I am pleased with his commitment to the job, however, though I can see that his struggles with the technology are a problem to be resolved if his efforts are to be properly productive. All in all, we appear to be on track. And, all being well, they’ll be a time when John creates an opportunity that will require him to face his threshold condition and to step out of his room and of himself to create his creations in the real world. I don’t think he’ll be able to do this. That’s when I’ll take over and establish myself as the proper captain of the good ship Heston.

Be seeing you.

WORDS, BASED ON BOWIE SONGS, WRITTEN FOR THE ELDEST SON, CALLED TOM MAJOR. HE WASN’T IMPRESSED.

This is Major Tom

Calling Daddy John

I’m floating in a tin can

Spaced out on your afghani man

Five years of stardust

‘N Rock ‘n Roll wanderlust

This is Lieutenant Tom

Can you hear me mum?

Everything’s hunky-dory

In this lovers’ story

The boys keep swinging

The boys always work it out

This is ground control to Colonel Tom

Lets dance, put your helmet on

We can be heroes

Though just for the day

We’re absolute beginners on a drive-in Saturday

Junked out on heaven’s highs

Cracked by Crowley’s lies

The lad’s insane

Booze, pills, and cocaine

Ziggy’s sixty-four

And can’t play the guitar any more

This is ground control to General Tom

Time falls wanking to the floor

And time will trace us all

A word on the wind from your dad and mum

They love you Major Tom

They love you Major Tom

By the way, before I forget; David Cameron’s confession that he is a KGB spy is very timely for me because I have the complete low down on Maggie T’s own career as a Russian agent as revealed in my story ‘Sex with Maggie T’, the memorial edition of which will be issued later this year, I hope. (It all depends on the OCR machine.)

EPISODE 14: IN WHICH THE AUTHOR AGAIN DISCUSSES THE NATURE, POINT AND PURPOSE OF CREATION

Welcome to my blog which frequently concerns itself with the nature and purpose of writing and the writer’s life.

 This morning I have been thinking again about my grandson and his love of story, about the success of J.K. Rowling and the innateness of story patterns, about the game of peekaboo, about the seduction of (personal) narrative, about the spectators in the Shiva Sutras, about the point or purpose of writing a blog, about the impulse to communicate, about rasa, and about Abhinavagupta, the 10^th century philosopher from Kashmir.

These are not new considerations for this mind; far from it. They are interconnected and concern issues I, perhaps, am still just grasping at, whereas finer intellects than mine can digest and spew out the complete Abhinavagupta compendium at the drop of a pandit. But we are where we are and I was saying to Trevor the other day, we’re all members of the Lords club with allocated roles which are equal in essence. Ho Ho!

Abhinavagupta has appealed to me since I first heard his name over thirty years ago: he and Kshemraja made Kashmir Shaivism romantic for me. Kashmir Shaivism is one of the two major systems of Indian thought espoused by my guru, Swami Muktananda. The other was Vedanta. Abhinavagupta, Abhina to his mates, was one of India’s greatest philosophers, mystics, and aestheticians. He was also considered an important musician, poet, dramatist, exegete, theologian, and logician – ‘a polymathic personality who exercised strong influences on Indian culture’.  Although Kasmir Shaivism predated Abhina, he synthesized the four strands that were preeminent and wrote commentaries and elucidations on many of the major texts, including the pre-eminent Siva Sutras.

 The appeal of Shaivism, (which is probably the oldest religion in the world) is that it can seem more life-embracing than its nihilistic counterpart. Of course no philosophies, belief systems, religions etc. are true. A best, they are models and manuals: and as such are not always easy to connect with what it is you actually do when you attempt to follow the manual. One is what you do; the other is an attempt to describe what you do. Often it helps to have a guide to show you what the manual means – but sometimes it doesn’t. Philosophies, especially those of the East, were meant to be practical guides to reality and the guru was the one whose job it was to lead you from the darkness of your present knowledge to the light of understanding. Gurus, even more than philosophies, need testing for the vast majority, as in any field, are charlatans, liars, or just plain ignorant.

Abhinavagupta is, I believe, the one to explain to me why writers write and why being an artist is a good thing and how it is ‘that the experiences of the hero, the poet, and the aesthete are identical’ as claimed by no less than Abhina’s teacher in dramaturgy, Bhatta Tauta.

In Kashmir Shaivism the creator is called the Supreme Artist. The creation of the universe is seen as a compulsive artistic act. (Elsewhere in this blog I refer to this five-fold act of creation, sustenance, withdrawing (destruction), revelation and concealment) in which creations are produced solely for the heck of it, for the pleasure of the artist, for the experience of bliss, or rasa, that this artist has throughout the whole process. You are feeling happy, you burst out in song, and then the song makes you happy:  maybe one could call this the supreme self-expression.

Whether I recognise this as so, or not, it begs the question, why do I want other people to read my book/blog/creation? What’s in it for them, what’s in it for me?

Shiva Sutras 3:9-11

9: Nartaka Atma:

The Self is a Dancer. Or, ‘Such a one (who is awake) is always immersed in the consciousness of his essential nature and is a Self that is only an actor (on the world stage.)

10: Rangontaratma:

The inner Soul (i.e. the subtle and causal aspects which contain the inner life of the individual) constitutes the stage (Of the Self that is the actor).

11. Preksaksani indriyani

The senses (of the yogi) are the spectators (of his acting).

So in Sutra 11, I get an answer to my question posed some weeks ago, namely, who are the spectators to the cosmic drama? Essential to the concepts of Shaivism is the axiom, ‘As Above, So Below’ - though they have a number of ways of putting it. Shiva is the jiva, Universal Consciousness and Individual Consciousness are the same thing, the cosmic process is the same is the individual creative act, As Here, So Elsewhere etc. Or, as the Prtayabhijna Hridyam says, ‘Even in this condition (of empirical self), he (the individual soul) does the five (cosmic creative) actions like Him (i.e. Shiva.)

In my first discussion of this sutra I was wondering why an artist creates, or rather, for whom? The cosmic answer appears to be for the enjoyment of the creator. So how does the creator enjoy the creation? Through the senses.

I have three translations of these sutras. The one I’m familiar with is Jaideva Singh’s. After each Sutra (pithy saying) he writes an extensive translation and an exposition. The opening part of the translation for Sutra 11 is: ‘The senses like eyes etc. of the yogi witness inwardly their inmost Self full of the delight in exhibiting the world drama. By the development of the performance of the drama, they provide to the yogi fullness of aesthetic rapture in which the sense of difference has disappeared.’

Iyengar’s translation of the sutra is: The Organs of Sense are the Audience. And the exposition: The eyes and other sense-organs of the Yogi introspectively see his real nature, filled with the pleasure of manifesting the drama of the world. They attain by the excellence of the play, the state where distinctions are abolished and they are filled with the appreciation of the wonderful play.

The third translation is by I.K. Taimni. Today space does not permit any fair reflection of his approach but the translation adds an ingredient which, ultimately, may help me relate the cosmic process to the individual one. The sutra reads like this in his hands:

The other Jivatmas (living beings) witness the part played by a particular Jivatma on the world-stage through their sense organs. They are not able to see the Atma (true Self) of the actor but only the extended part s/he is playing in the world.

I would like to draw all this to a rapid and meaningful conclusion. But I can’t.  Another time; next week perhaps. I’d like to think I’d get another 5,000 words of my novel done by then because the last two weeks have been extraordinarily slack.

See you.

EPISODE ELEVEN; IN WHICH THE PLOT RE-EMERGES AND BARRY LONG IS PRAISED AGAIN.

Welcome to my blog. Without you it withers.

For the most part this blog is meant to reflect a writer’s life as he enters a phase of success. This phase, which like the Age of Aquarius is either a bit delayed or not all that’s it was cracked-up to be, is taking some time to manifest and at the moment looks very much like the previous stage that consisted of occasionally sending stuff off into the ether only to have it evaporate or somehow disappoint. For example this blog; even when it gets read no-one leaves a comment. My Writers and Artists Yearbook promised me abuse but I’ve not even had that. Then my finely crafted 600 word article on Dying in Avalonia – it’s been published so where’s the response to my invitation to communicate with me on these highly important and relevant matters?

This week I’ve spent writing just under 6,000 words of my novel ‘Sad Sam.’ This is a book that I wrote 13,000 words of some time last year and then sort of forgot about. Recently when I saw that a publisher was asking for material, I sent him a whole bunch of stuff and that added the uncorrected Sad Sam as an afterthought. Within a couple of days I discovered that he wasn’t a ‘real’ publisher but wanted to turn my novel into an ebook when I completed it. This, of course, I could do myself, as I so nearly have with Boggy Starless. But would I? Not any time soon, that’s the truth.

Is there any money in an ebook? 99% not? Why bother then? Because you never know, because this guy might have some marketing energy that I don’t, because I’m overly moved by someone actually liking what I’ve done. (If he still does when the rest of it is created.) My supposed aim is to earn a living through writing and I saw myself writing articles rather than punting another novel. But

Writing a novel can be the most fun. I was nervous last Sunday when I began to read the first six chapters; what if I had no feeling for the story or couldn’t think where to go with it? Last year I had a vision of the plot but that’s all gone now. I decided that I’d try a new way of working and instead of making it up as I went along I’d take a more Fritz-like approach and plan it as best I could. In fact I’ve done exactly as I’ve always done, focusing on the scene I’m writing while jotting down ideas, lines, plots, for the future as they occur to me. It takes me a whole day to come up with a 1,000 words so the 6,000 I’ve knocked-up is quite satisfying.

One useful tip Fritz gives is to always ‘have somewhere to go.’ To finish the day with a good sense of what’s coming next is very relaxing because it is bugger sitting there in the morning waiting for the story to unfold itself.

Talking of stories…I’m so thoroughly peeved with this whole Politicians-Press-Police obsession of the politicians and the press. How much self-important self-serving sanctimonious shit can these people talk? Yes, deleting messages from that poor child’s phone was sick and stupid. Did the guy that did it realize the implications of what he was doing? Probably not. And why did he do it? Because he wanted paying. Who paid him? You did, I did. Who is killing innocent people in Libya? You are, I am. Who is allowing the ‘bankers’ to rape the fruits of your labour? You are, I am. Et cetera.

Sorry for that rhetorical impulse. There’s a religious preacher within me: all I need now is religion. My inner American, Jack, he’s the one for laying down the law – as we will see in a moment. Last week I promised two visions of the future, mine and his. We’ll start with me, of course.

In Barry Long’s book, written I remind you, in 1985, he forecasts there will be a time when “the ‘democratic’ media, now being able to cast around the whole world instantaneously for problems and unhappiness, will seem to run into a goldmine of both…Significantly, wherever the media reporters go in the world, conditions and unhappiness there will get worse. But no-one will notice this for everyone will think that it is the events making the news. But it will be the news making the events.”   

He then makes a number of other prophecies including the rise of terrorism, the world-wide coverage of civil disturbance including the showing of army and official para-military brutality against civilian populations in the name of maintaining law and order, natural disasters and economic collapse. Meanwhile the news and entertainment industries will become as one and the only entertainment, the only excitement, will be the bad news. Shortly after that we’ll be so depressed that we’ll blow ourselves up.

Actually the last sentence isn’t quite what he said but reporting him accurately means copying out the whole bloody book and I’m not doing that. Read it, ‘Ridding Yourself of Unhappiness.’ Why not?

Hi, I’m Jack and I’ve been given less than 100 words to put forward a positive view about the future. Here it is.

Let us create an ENLIGHTENED PLANETARY CIVILIZATION.

What do you think? No, don’t tell me, especially if your reaction is negative. Let me ask you this, which you can reply to, “What are you doing to create an enlightened civilization?”

Sorry, I didn’t quite hear you.

EPISODE FOUR: IN WHICH SOME DIGNITY AND BALANCE ARE RESTORED AND A DEFENCE IS MADE FOR THE PREPONDERANCE OF WORDS.

Welcome to my blog which is the continuing story of a writer coming to grips with his lack of career and attempting to rectify the situation. For further exposition please refer to previous blogs, although I’d prefer it if you skipped over the poem at the end of the last one which is an embarrassing aberration that I suspect was written on ecstasy back in the days of yore. My old friend Phil Malleson, as pedantic a blank-verser as one could ever hope to meet, will be turning in his grave (which is probably quite tricky after cremation) at the idea of my calling those lines poetry. Phil’s photo is on the shelf above me. We argued about poetry throughout our lives which bearing in mind I hardly read any was a bit silly. I did scribble a few lines when I last visited his derelict flat – a dereliction which he, as ever ruled by principle, conserved by never adding a lick of paint or cleaning the toilet in twenty years. He was dying then, although he didn’t seem to know it. He was cheerful too, he who had never been cheerful in his life. His possessions consisted of a thousand tattered volumes of high literature, a change of clothes, two cups and two plates, a few pictures and some black and white photos which were taken by friends of his, framed and hung carelessly on his peeling walls. One of these photos was of my daughter wearing a hat. I never understood why he liked the picture so much but muse are muse and who knows where they will turn up?

Hopefully here, soon.                             

I’ve been reading my Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook, (nb that £14.99 I’ve invested in myself to add to the £500 for the laptop and printer: can it possibly be worth it?) in which I’m told, ‘Most blogs are rubbish. They aren’t read by anyone and are poorly written.’ What’s more, they shouldn’t be visually boring (i.e. like this one.) All this unmediated plain text stuff is tedious for you. (Have you tried reading Spanish novels?) Apparently you all have special machines that enable you to multitask at all times. You can watch videos, listen to podcasts, dance to music, ‘connect’ with millions of people simultaneously while making choices between an universe of products being offered to you. And you work and you have families.

I’m a bit slower than that.

I hold out hope, however, that help is on the way.  One day you’ll be on your machine and it’ll suddenly stop here and you’ll be amazed by the flowering artistic talents of my, presently latent, readership. Photos (of what?), videos, links, music, showgirls and boys, maybe all these things are on the way.

Meanwhile we have words. Let us not underestimate the power of words, of language. ‘In the beginning was the Word’ etc. The Hindu philosopher Bartrhari wrote a work in c600AD called ‘Vakyapadiya’ (Words in a Sentence) and it in said:

‘There is no cognition without the operation of words: all cognition is shot through and through by the word. All knowledge is illumined through the word.’

The RigVeda, one of the oldest texts known to man dating back 3,000 years, writes poetically of the beginnings of language:

‘When they came to establish the first beginning of language, setting up names, what has been hidden in them as their best and purest good became manifest through love.

 Where the sages fashioned language with their thought, filtering it like parched grain through a sieve, friends recognised their friendship. Their beauty is marked on the language.

They traced the course of language through ritual; they found it embodied in the seers. They gained access to it and distributed it widely: the seven chanters cheered them.

Many who look do not see language, many who listen do not hear it. It reveals itself like a loving and well-adorned wife to her husband. (!)

Though all the friends have eyes and ears, their mental intuitions are uneven. Some are like shallow ponds, which reach up to the mouth or armpit, others are like ponds which are fit for bathing.

At its best, therefore, the nature and function of language is ‘to manifest or reveal the meanings of things’. And why does it not always do so? …Well that’s a topic for another day.

Okay, I’m digressing. I told you I would. Am I masking total inaction? No. Even as I write this another idea development has popped up in my head. At this moment I can see the whole thing. Well I could. It is quite likely that that was the clearest the vision will ever be. For between 15 and 60 seconds it is as if a jigsaw puzzle is suddenly coming together before your very eyes. Then just as you step back to admire the picture it all breaks up again and you can’t quite remember what it is you saw and how the pieces fitted.

It is possible, I suppose, that some of the structures Jack has put into place are paying off. I’ve remained comparatively focussed and only had one attack of despair in the month I’ve been on the blog. This came about when, spurred on by writing this, I contacted my agent, from whom I hadn’t heard from since the day two years ago when I signed the agency agreement. Obviously I knew nothing had happened but his brusque confirmation of this was a little disheartening. I emailed him a second time to ask if he’d actually done anything at all with my novel but he doesn’t seem to want to tell me.

So it goes. (Thanks to Kurt Vonnegut.)

In fact I’ve had a flurry of possible projects reveal themselves to me this last week. Probably too many. This does happen to me every decade or so, a downpourring of viable suggestions all demanding months of work, few of which I complete because I’ve had to go to bed to cope with the overwhelm. The recent additions to the list for lifetimes are: a TV documentary to sell in America; an in-depth article connected with my studies in death and dying at University which I think I could also sell abroad: a book connected with some travel I did thirty years ago and…well…too many to mention, especially as I’ve just come across lists written in 1999 and 2005, both of which remain 95% undone. And no, at this stage I don’t want to be more concrete in case you steal my ideas. (And why wouldn’t you want to?) I can tell you that assuming the cataract op has gone well (which I think it has except they’ve removed my near vision), I will endeavour to enter short stories into two competitions, those of the Guardian Magazine and the V.S. Pritchett society.

Endeavour? Why do I need to endeavour?

Time’s up.

PHIL

 

 

 

 

Lines written as Phil slept

When the delight is done

And I find myself an old man

Staring in the mirrors of incomprehension

What will I do then?

When the song is sung

And even the tune but a confused memory

And when I’m tired of hobbling from nowhere to nowhere

What will I do then?

And when my body begins its dying

And when my friends are shadows in the past

And my lovers all forgotten

What will I do then?

When the only fields are painted on a picture half-seen

When the only smell is my own decay

When it hurts my heart to smile

What will I do then?

Oh my love, what will we do then?

Extra bit

You may remember an earlier consideration of an East/west split. Klaus Klostermaier in his piece, ‘The Creative Function of the Word’ compares the Western notion of creativity in which the aim is to produce something ‘original’ and ‘new’  with the Indian approach which is quite different. “The great creative geniuses of India take care to explain their thought not as creation but as a retracing of forgotten eternal truth. They compare their activity to the clearing an overgrown ancient path in the jungle, not the making of a new path. The creative effort of the rsi – the composer or author or artist –is not to manufacture something new out of his own imagination, but rather relate ordinary things  to their fundamental nature.”

EPISODE TWO; IN WHICH AN ATTEMPT IS MADE TO BE POSITIVE BECAUSE IT JUST MAY HELP.

 Welcome to Episode Two of the blog about the reality self-help novel entitled ‘I’s novel about how the world’s youngest best-selling author (failed) achieved redemption and moderate success at the age of 60 – he bloody hopes!’ which charts the inspiring, entertaining and deeply transformational story of a (late?) middle aged man, faced with economic challenge and intimations of death, surprisingly achieving his lifelong ambition to become a successful writer.

To those of you who visited last week and have now returned, gushing thanks. To newcomers who would like an update on what they’ve missed may I respectfully point them to Episode One 1 in which not a lot happens but you are given a good purview of the enterprise. You also get a small tension – resolution hit from discovering, or confirming, where I discovered the requisite 58 year old on the verge of turning his life around.

Here. Of course.

Now I admit straightaway that I’m not 100% ideal for the post. Hard-work, one pointedness, dedication to the end result – these are not my strongpoints. Yes, I can vow to make a change; yes, I can be very convincing at the beginning. A month or two later, however, and even a purblind observer can see that nothing has actually happened.

This is where the self-help element comes in because while it isn’t necessary for the hero of a story to succeed in his endeavour, the will he won’t he drama building tension of this reality show will be lost if he doesn’t at least make an effort to triumph.

How, therefore, am I to instil excitement, enthusiasm and purpose in place of ennui, inertia and discouragement? Answer, by embracing positivity.

To cut one of my long stories short I must point out that I’m not a neophyte when it comes to the field of positive thinking. I’ve dabbled since the 70s, attending courses, living in Ashrams, learning all the latest new age techniques and old age philosophies. It sometimes seems that my life has been a battle between two main worldviews or paradigms, each with its own Self and attitudes. In caricature one is Eastern, the other American. The Easterner has no time for the play of the world or the reality of the individual and his so called problems. All that matters is realizing oneness with the Source. The American wants to change himself by changing his thoughts and enlighten the world as to what he believes it needs. I swing from one side to the other, spending longer in the East than the West while feeling most of the time that I’m not quite grasping either properly.

What I’ve set myself here however is undoubtedly a task in the material domain. My Eastern Self has no respect for this for his only grail in life is to free his imaginary self from the whirligig of existence. Using one’s limited powers to achieve satisfaction and renown in a world of death is seen as somewhat shortsighted by the traditional mystics.

As ever there are other points of view. Take one of thousands, Harry Palmer, author of the Avatar Courses, for example, who advocates immanent action in a transcendent vehicle and writes: “If you wish to participate in life with any degree of deliberation, the primary action must be to set a goal. Goals are an essential ingredient of happiness. A person without goals is discouraged and unhappy.”

What to do?

Create goals that are right for you because “Believable, achievable, exciting goals are the grand prize of existence.”

On the scale Harry gives for judging the rightness for you of a goal I scored 30, which is plenty, with my choice, i.e.  To achieve economic independence through writing by December 31^st 2012. The next step is ‘to align your actions towards’ the goal. “Alignment of your attention and energies with the goal you want to achieve is called focus. Focus is one of the keys of success.”

Oh dear.  This means I have to remember to want tomorrow what I want today. Clearly if I don’t want to repeat past patterns I should try following the advice of my American Self rather than swim in the Eastern Sea which, evidence suggests, I drown in.

What I’m going to do now, therefore, is to split myself in two. Well, not exactly. To engage in goal-setting and belief rearranging cognitive exercises, I must release my inner American because, quite frankly, the rest of me won’t get it together

My inner American is to be called Jack. I’m going to try to be quiet for a while and let Jack speak for himself. First I think I should advise you that initially Jack may be a little hesitant to express himself. This will be because of past experiences of being allowed out by me. I don’t tend to be supportive when he’s ventured forth. I begin by telling him, ‘Bout time you got out there Jack and got me the things I presently feel are lacking in my life, money for example, or some other prop for the individual. Fill yourself with the required currencies of self-esteem and ambition then strike out.” Sometimes I’ve sent Jack on self-improvement courses. Hardly ecloded from my womb, Jack is despatched off, sometimes for two weeks on end, to sort himself out and learn the mechanics of personal creation.

For example, I made him do something called Rebirthing, a breathing therapy with big ideas. He became a qualified teacher, would you believe and ran courses himself. He also did a few weeks on Robert Fritz’s Creation techniques (to no apparent avail). His last new age adventure into the world of self recreation involved numerous courses, in England, Germany and America – the source! These Avatar courses would have been fewer if he hadn’t kept coming back home saying he didn’t like them and was homesick. Really it was hard for him to adapt from living with me and my negativity to exuding confidence and enthusiasm when totally out of his comfort zone and subject to bouts of deriding and name-calling from me. Nevertheless, he persevered, and would often he would come back from these psychological explorations bright eyed, bushy tailed and full of good intention.

So, I’d get him back into the old ways, my ways, as quickly as possible. I’d take him round to a friend’s house and we’d all get stoned together. On the first night Jack would say, “I’m not sure if I should. I don’t want to lose this space I’m in.” On night two he’d have ‘just one puff’ on a pipe. And then off he’d go, flying into a world of possibility and into an universe where everything is connected and he suddenly understands – ‘really’ understands, whatever it was he went away to learn. I do like this part. He becomes so happy that his happiness leaks into me and we become, briefly, harmonious.

Then I eat him up.

By the fourth night he can smoke as much as he likes but all that is left is a trace of light.