Fred Reed, come back.
So you are retiring from your writing. I have read your statement, and comprehend the reasons you have offered. I do
not accept your resignation. You have given no good reason for taking off. Alright, so you need to get your eyes fixed. That means a sabbatical, at most.
Now, understand that I don’t need you to keep writing for personal reasons. At this point, most of the observations and opinions about culture and society are not new to me, and usually serve to concur with what I see, duplicate others opinions, or restate the obvious. However, there is always that unique style and presentation of the idea. An approach which makes a person look at the unmistakable issue in a new way. A style that takes the drudgery of acknowledging the inferior efforts of most collective human endeavors (such as organized government), and makes entertainment out of it. No sir, you are no ordinary curmudgeon. An intelligent rascal first raised in the most back-woods of West Virginia, then off to years of god-knows-what extreme experiences in your military exposure, combined with having navigated the terminal psychosis of government bureaucracy, from the perspective of a wacked-out gringo in idyllic rural Mexico; this is not your average metal stew we are talking about here.
The result is narratives that weave layers of sharp criticism with intellectual insight upon slices of common-sense Americana and calculated griping. This is irreplaceable entertainment we are talking about.
Personally, I need no more entertainment than the psychotic circus that is the human species. However, there are thousands of humans who are exposed to your columns who take small steps each day towards clearer rational actions. Describing the hypocrisy and ridiculous nature of the way western humans approach organizing their “culture” in the way you do might be reaching some people in a way no other method does.
It is immediately apparent how ridiculous municipal regulations are when you describe the joy experienced by the kids in your Mexican town, in something simple like walking their horse through town. The dull pain that has become everyday life for many suburbanites here is made clear when you describe the hypothetical process of getting a horse dung removal permit in Washington DC, just to ride a damn horse.
The more recent photo of a horse at Tom’s bar speaks for itself. “Its owner had ridden to Tom’s and parked, and I guess the horse wondered what was inside. So it stuck its head in to see. It’s what I would have done.” Come on, it does not get more succinct than that.
I understand that it can frustrating. That there are no rewards. But you contradict yourself when you describe what rewards you are looking for. First you claim it is financial: “..in the future any writing I will do will be for money.” I know that this is a smoke screen. What are you going to do with money? Kino Red and the other luxuries in Ajijic come cheap. The real reason sneaks in later:
“The hope that, however minor my voice might be, in combination with thousands of others it might engender pressure for slowing the rush into the high-tech medieval twilight that the culture has undertaken.”
So you want to make a difference. Who doesn’t. In fact, you are making a difference. The reality is that you are not making as much of a difference as you want to. The oozing blob that is the descent of society seems to be eating everything faster than you can fix it. “The civilizational changes we now see are both irremediable and beyond control.” Yup, they are, you will see from the blog posts here that there is much evidence to support that.
But so what? Don’t write to try and change the world a particular amount. In fact, don’t write to change it at all. Write because you like it. Don’t tell me you don’t like it, because if you didn’t you would not have written the tens of thousands of words already. Sure, you probably don’t like it as much because your expectations were not reached. No problem, just change your expectations.
I understand how easy it is to lose interest in writing. Look at this blog. I write 2 -3 posts a day, for a few dozen people at most. Some days I look back on the 90 minutes of writing and see that is was only read by a handful of people. “It’s not worth the time”, I say. (And as you know, writing is more than just the time, it is hard work).
But then I remember that in the meantime, expounding the ideas organizes the thoughts for me to understand them better. That writing down the conceptions and analysis allows you the writer to develop them further. Especially when you are writing about your concerns where society is heading, clearly understanding the problems makes it easier to not be fearful of them.
“Fuming buys nothing” is not true. Contemplated criticism makes you contemplate better.
Get your eyes squared away. Read some books. Spend time with you family. You’ll have plenty of the time to do all that. The real reason you want to give up is because you don’t see the value in it anymore, not the lack of time.
The uniqueness in the writing approach is what drew me to the writings in the first place several years ago. That is one influence among many that was incentive to write this blog that is unread by many. The small effect you or any other writer might have on a few handful of people has some effect. More importantly, it has an effect on you. I think you will find yourself missing it.
Best wishes to you Fred for a successful recovery from the corneal transplant. Hope to see your words again. Literary gold like this:
“Women mostly acted like ladies and men acted mostly like gentlemen, at least around ladies. Those who didn’t were called trash. They were, so it made sense. The approach worked pretty well. A fellow could spend whole hours without wanting to kill anybody. I’m not sure what happened, but it sure did. A lot of people today aren’t fit to eat at a hog trough”
a handful plus one now. Add one more reader to this list.
[...] when he announced he would no longer be offering his pithy observations on modern society. I declined to accept his quitting, and sure enough, he came back. No doubt because if the overwhelming pressure from AwareBrain.com. [...]