Introduction

I once loved reading more than anything in the world. I remember desperately waiting for my parents to go to bed so I could turn my bedside lamp back on. I wore through copies of Harry Potter and other popular books but I also would just wander down the aisles of the library to find anything to keep reading.

As I grew up I read less, the same as everyone else I suppose, but something always felt more comforting in the books for me than my peers. I would still pick up books but internally I always felt the need to be reading something smarter. First it was common philosophy books or classics. Choices that made me feel better than others. I could say I read fear and trembling. I could say I was reading Dante. I enjoyed some of them but it was never for me. Always just to brag, to feel superior. In a way it was the same as every other part of my life.

I had to be the best in everything I did. If I wasn’t the best at something I would say I didn’t like it. I had to go to the best college. I had to get the best job. I never felt I was being inauthentic because this was who I was. People would ask me if I enjoyed something and my response was always the same. I enjoy competing, I enjoy winning. For once I want to be great at something but do it for me. Not because I want to win but because I want to truly discover me.

I think it was this idea that I lived with which drove me to the philosophy. Here were countless writers all searching for meaning in the same way. Philosophy goes too far for me though I think. Understanding ones self, discovering authenticity, that should be the goal of philosophy. Determining a greater meaning or asking if this is all a simulation is a worthless exercise that leads to no practical benefit.

The reason I am starting this now is because I have found the best job. I have won in terms of my original goals and yet I still want to write. Some of it is driven by media. The show You gives me a surely romanticized view of the writer. Some of it is driven by commentaries on Camus and Sartre, philosophers with famous novels. I don’t know where the rest comes from. Maybe this is just another phase that I will delete and never tell anyone about but something is making me write.

I have anonymized myself because I am embarrassed quite frankly. This is not the image I have put into the world and so I will keep it that way. I certainly have a long way to go as a writer (this rambling introduction should prove that) but I want to create stories. I believe the novel, telling stories, is the best way to discover myself and so that is what I will do.

I am not ready for a novel. As delusional as I may be I can admit that. So I will begin with short stories here. I will be sharing them but my goal is not to build an audience. My goal is to develop. My goal is to become authentic. “To live deep and suck all the marrow out of life.” To tell the stories that come to me and to explore what they reveal. I do hope this goes well, although I have no expectations. I suppose the result really has no consequence on my life.