Cue Twilight Zone theme music….

By the way, I really enjoyed that John Weiss piece. I totally resonate to it. As an outlier I have always been repelled by “in crowds.” I suffer from some of the same (but not all) of the psychological maladies that J. D. Salinger suffered from. Now Salinger was a true outlier (who happened to trigger a tipping point that set him up for life).

(Sorry about the Gladwell references.)

But Salinger was pure. I certainly am not. The very fact that I’m on Medium proves that. I’m not hiding out in the woods. But recently I’ve been thinking that Medium offers a challenge that I had not been seeing. It offers the opportunity to release one’s craft without being sucked into the zeitgeist, without being subsumed into the crowd. Up until just recently I had not realized this. Sure, I’ve been working on my “craft” as I always do but I was doing it with the door open with the distracting mob just outside.

So anyway, I’m in the process of reorienting. Of course the biggest distraction of any writer is themselves. When in a crowd, a group situation, that illusory self comes out and wants to take over. To truly hone and focus on the art of writing one must kick that illusory self out the door along with the mob and shut the door tight. When the only thing that leaves the room is the finished product then that finished product is free to shine without the writer getting in the way. It can be much better appreciated. When the writer disappears, the story comes to life. I continue to work on disappearing. It’s not as easy as it sounds.

James Taylor? I really like his music. I used to have a couple of his albums back in the day when people still had albums. My favorite song of his is, You’ve Got a Friend. Of course it was Carole King who wrote that song. I usually like her version better. I could actually sing that song if I had to because I know all the words. I’ve heard the song so many times that I can’t help but know the words. Luckily for anyone within earshot, I never sing — at least not with my mouth.

I’m sorry I was so harsh about Donny and Marie. I was merely regurgitating sentiments from a hundred years ago. Back then the very notion of a teenybopper heart-throb was very unappealing to young boys. The girls may have loved it but all the boys I knew scowled at the mention of Donny. I guess in more current times the same could have been said about Justin Beiber. I’m not sure. I am so far removed from teenybopper heart-throbism. Obviously I still hold some judgment about it, though, and I should probably work on that. Anyway, I’m glad they’re still making a living.