homepage 13 november 1995 
(to be accessed from today's homepage by touching previous writings):

Unable to attend sufficiently to The Making of Americans I turn to my real interests 

what a rare and nice thing to (be free to) do! 

novels, what is a novel?
it is an imagined history of some people, 
or of an incident in someone's life,
or such, 
even the imagined life of many.

it's not at all what I like reading nor is it what I feel I'm about.
yet I'm so interested, 
have become so, when once I was not.
Why is this?

I suppose it's the contrast,
the situations, the culture, the mind itself, all one's thoughts,
that interest me
and the possibility of changing,  
fictionally, 
from as is, from things as they are.

I really find the organised 
and publicly recognised and acknowledged life,
as in the newspapers,
as something alien, even disgusting, and not true, 
perhaps as a political fiction disguised as truth,

and yet as I move about the streets and transportation 
I'm enthralled,
with the people 
and more so with the whole thing,
which I believe I see quite clearly.

This is real writing so now,
I think to myself as I write it,
so spontaneously
noticing how it is and how it flows.

Hm. I stop to switch the light on, and read, 
for I'd been writing in a dim light, 
and as I do so I wonder indeed if I can continue this, 
and perhaps I ought to, as a description of everything, 
just as to me it is.

Starting from the strong image or memory I have now 
of the railway station 
and of long electric trains standing at the platforms, 
and of all the people, 
also standing, 
mostly in front of the animated display panel 
that indicates when the trains depart and where they go.

All this, all this, 
it is I see a big part,
a big part of many people's lives,
yet not much,
not when compared to all the other things 
that one person encounters in a day or in a year. 
But they are all like this,
things seeming almost unchangeable, 
sitting there, the trains and the departure indicator,  
and operating, 
and conditioning our lives.

Hm, as I begin to compose these paragraphs or verses 
I become aware of how complex and fraught with difficulty 
is the process of writing such a thing, 
how very difficult it is to translate 
my thoughts and perceptions into words 
with the writing itself taking over 
and over-riding what I intended to describe.
I suspect that it's impossible, 
and that itself is very interesting.
What is this world that we see and feel and touch 
and even imagine and dream about 
but never can describe without changing it, 
into something else? 
(And what is the something else?) 
This is it!
Oh yes, 
that makes me laugh. 

Well now I've read what I've begun writing, 
(without intending to write)  
and now that the writing keeps flowing with very little effort, 
and it's certainly interesting to me, 
I wonder if this, 
and not all the other writings I keep trying, 
is what I really want to do? 
Quite possibly yes. So shall I do it?

A big question, 
for if I say yes it will change my life, 
altogether I guess.
To change it from striving and struggling 
to and for the conscious goals of other people and myself, 
as they or I decide what I am to write, 
to change from that obedience-to-circumstance 
to a way of writing that is more detached from any motive 
and is much closer, I believe, to 'human mind', 
as Gertrude Stein calls it, 
the obvious way to be and do 
if one is wanting to do what is better 
or more independent of the calls and pressures of the time. 
I'm very tempted but I wonder if I can? 

Well, I decide to give it a try and see what happens, 
at least for this week, 
knowing as I do 
that I've promised to complete something for next Friday. 

I guess this is it.