He Had A Pretty High Opinion Of Himself

The old man was wondering about his epitaph.  Guessing maybe all the best ones already taken.

Like I Told You I Was Sick.  Of course, Mel Blanc got That’s All, Folks!!

His favorite was probably on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s tomb: Steel True, Blade Straight.

Steel true, blade straight.  Damn, that’s sexy.

The old man had a pretty high opinion of himself.  And he certainly had no plans for a tombstone.

Didn’t plan to die any time soon.

Just drop my ashes at Norma’s Cove on Cedar Key.  Across the street from a hotel they never stayed at.

Norma’s Cove is unmarked.  And nobody else knows that place.

The old man had such a high opinion of himself, he had decided not to worry too much about the opinions of others.

Because he had finally realized why worry, almost nobody at no time was thinking about him.  Great freedom in that realization.

You converse with younger writers who publish better books that nobody reads.  Nobody reads you, so you know what they mean.

Even know how they feel.  Why write, if not to be heard?

I can hear me.

The use of literature, Emerson wrote, is to afford us a platform whence we may command a view of our present life, a purchase by which we may move it. Perhaps this is true, but I would claim something broader. Literature is the river of civilization, its Tigris and Nile. Those who follow it, and I am inclined to say those only, pass by the glories.

Over the years I have been a writer for a succession of reasons. In the beginning, as I have said, I wrote to be admired, even if not known. Once I had decided to be a writer, I wrote hoping for acceptance, approval.

Gertrude Stein, when asked why she wrote, replied, “For praise.” Lorca said he wrote to be loved. Faulkner said a writer wrote for glory. I may at times have written for those reasons, it’s hard to know. Overall I write because I see the world in a certain way that no dialogue or series of them can begin to describe, that no book can fully render, though the greatest books thrill in their attempt.

A great book may be an accident, but a good one is a possibility, and it is thinking of that that one writes. In short, to achieve. The rest takes care of itself, and so much praise is given to insignificant things that there is hardly any sense in striving for it.

In the end, writing is like a prison, an island from which you will never be released but which is a kind of paradise: the solitude, the thoughts, the incredible joy of putting into words the essence of what you for the moment understand and with your whole heart want to believe. – James Salter

The old man thought maybe Didn’t Plan To Die So Soon.

Until he learned the stone chiseler charges by the letter.

So Soon?  Who’s the chiseler now, ha.

Then he remembered there’d be no tombstone to carve.  He could just go wild.

Become Your Own Hero.  This One Is Dead.

The old man had long ago stopped counting the words or worrying what they cost.

I Bet I’m Famous Now.

Wanted to believe that with his whole heart.