Intro & Preface & Contents
Previous: XVII. Why we read
Is it I, Henry Ryecroft, who, after a night of untroubled rest, rise unhurried, dress with the deliberation of an oldish man, and go downstairs happy in the thought that I can sit reading, quietly reading, all day long? Is it I, Henry Ryecroft, the harassed toiler of so many a long year?
I dare not think of those I have left behind me, there in the ink-stained world. It would make me miserable, and to what purpose? Yet, having once looked that way, think of them I must. Oh, you heavy-laden, who at this hour sit down to the cursed travail of the pen; writing, not because there is something in your mind, in your heart, which must needs be uttered, but because the pen is the only tool you can handle, your only means of earning bread! [Is he playing with Cockney Rhyming Slang here? It works either way, but he could be playing on both meanings of “bread.”] Year after year the number of you is multiplied; you crowd the doors of publishers and editors, hustling, grappling, exchanging maledictions. Oh, sorry spectacle, grotesque and heart-breaking! ...
With a lifetime of dread experience behind me, I say that he who encourages any young man or woman to look for his living to “literature,” commits no less than a crime... Hateful as is the struggle for life in every form, this rough-and-tumble of the literary arena seems to me sordid and degrading beyond all others. Oh, your prices per thousand words! Oh, your paragraphings and your interviewings! And oh, the black despair that awaits those downtrodden in the fray...
Alpha.
This reminds me that when I first moved here it was with the intention of becoming a writer. I fairly quickly came to the conclusion that “creative” writing was the sort of thing you should do only if you were either astonishingly talented or even more astonishingly determined. Since I felt I could let that dream go, I did so.
A decade later I was briefly a technical writer of computer books and found it to be deadly work. I have never regretted my original decision to abandon my literary dreams.
Beta.
This morning I rose early and went to the gym for my usual workout, only I was feeling ambitious so I doubled virtually everything. I’m supposed to do this more frequently but, especially during greening season, I tend to stick with my shorter workout. I then went home, showered and ate a light lunch. Now I’m sitting at one of my free WiFi cafes that is also a bank. Soon I will start reading, but just now I’m merely sitting here feeling pleasantly relaxed from my workout. I started exercising to strengthen by back (and core) and now I continue and even increase my routine so that I can do my physically demanding greening work -- bags of compost and recycling are not always light. But this delightful feeling one has after a good workout is a bonus I would now be reluctant to give up. "Good Luck, Bad Luck," again. If not for my bad back I would never have started doing something that turns out to give me a surprising amount of pleasure.
I do wonder sometimes, while I sit in this very modern space -- the building is on a corner and this space is double height with mostly windows on the two street sides, the architects seemed to have a fetish for lighting as there are all sorts of trendy incandescent, fluorescent, and LED fixtures everywhere -- what Henry Ryecroft would make of this place. Every seat or sofa, or table -- including the long common-tables with plug-strips running down the center -- is filled with people typing away on laptops. Some even have an array of laptop, tablet, and smartphone before them that they go back and forth between. I have no idea what most of these people are doing. Sometime their work is revealed by their conversation or by a glance at their screens. Some are conducting business of one kind of another, others are coding or maintaining cloud based systems. I suspect it is almost all commerce focused activity, though I do sometimes see people besides myself reading. It’s hard to know if anyone else is writing.
And why am I here, besides the need to get out of the house on occasion? You get a very nice discount on food and drinks if you have an account with the bank and pay with your debit card. Oh, Brave New World...
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