Sometimes I Want To Have A Mental

When I Write A Word In English, A Simple One, Such As, Say, 'chief,' I Have Unwittingly Ushered A Querulous Horde Into The Room. The Roman Legionary Is There, Shaking His 'cap,' Or Head, And Al Cap Is There, Slouching In His Signature Working Man's Headgear.

Yes, It Seems We've Got This Mutant Gene In Our Human Personality That Makes Us Susceptible To This Same Kind Of Mistake Over And Over Again. It's Really Uncanny How We Build These Beautiful Multicultural Edifices And Then Allow This Switch To Be Flipped And Everybody Goes, 'oh, The Other, Get Them Out Of Here.

But That Franklin Trip Changed Me Profoundly. As I Believe Wilderness Experience Changes Everyone. Because It Puts Us In Our Place. The Human Place, Which Our Species Inhabited For Most Of Its Evolutionary Life. That Place That Shaped Our Psyches And Made Us Who We Are. The Place Where Nature Is Big And We Are Small.

Writing Is Like Bricklaying; You Put Down One Word After Another. Sometimes The Wall Goes Up Straight And True And Sometimes It Doesn't And You Have To Push It Down And Start Again, But You Don't Stop; It's Your Trade.

Certainly I'm Still Mining My Experiences As A Journalist. I Think It's No Coincidence That All Three Of My Novels Basically Are About How People Act In A Time Of Catastrophe. Do They Go To Their Best Self Or Their Worst Self?