With numerous health problems, I have difficulty with sleeping every night. One of the worst problems I have is nocturnal acid reflux. It makes me wake up in the middle of night with fire in my throat, like some sort of dyspeptic acid-spitting dragon. I have to vault out of bed, arthritis and all, and go toss the contents of my stomach into the toilet. Sorry to be so gross, but it is important to this theme to get a sense of just how bad it is to be on the wrong side. What do I mean by that? Well, I learned from a doctor recently that which side you lie on to sleep makes a big difference. If you sleep on your right side at night, your stomach is oriented in a way that the top opening angles down towards the esophagus. This leads to an unfortunate ooze of stomach acid that sets off the reflux crisis. If, however, you sleep on your left side, the stomach is angled in a manner that allows gravity to work for you instead of against you. I have been intentionally lying on my left side every night for a month. It works. No acid reflux. Until last night. But when I woke up gagging, I had unconsciously rolled onto my right side. So it has become obvious to me, the left side is the right side.
Life has to be in balance. But, unfortunately, it constantly shifts back and forth, up and down, and all around. Keeping life in balance is a juggling act that may involve lying only on your left side while you sleep.
I worry too about the balance affecting the world as a whole right now. We are very deeply mired in a time when political right and left are out of balance and have been for too long. In politics, the right is the conservative belief that things should remain the same. Since the Reagan administration, that has meant deregulating in the name of profits, free market capitalism, and letting Wall Street profit-makers do anything and everything they want to do to make higher profits. The left is in favor of change. When I was a kid, I can remember the left being a very bad thing. They wanted communist-style revolution. They robbed banks and blew things up. But most of those leftists are now dead. They still exist, but the far right is just as dangerous, the KKK, the militias, and they are far more numerous in this day and age. The leftist agenda now is more what used to be the moderate position. Senator Elizabeth Warren and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders want to re-regulate the Wall Street trends that caused the economic meltdown in 2008. They want to promote progressive tax systems that move the money out of corporate profit-funnels and back into the hands of the middle class, and the institutions that benefit them. There is a need to shift to the left. There is need to restore balance. Once again I think it is proper to say, the left side is the right side.
My Bookish Journey (Finale)
Like every real, honest-to-God writer, I am on a journey. Like all the good ones and the great ones, I am compelled to find it…
“What is it?” you ask.
“I don’t know,” I answer. “But I’ll know it when I see it.”
“The answer?” you ask. “The secret to everything? Life, the universe, and everything? The equation that unifies all the theories that physicists instinctively know are all one thing? The treasure that pays for everything?”
Yes. That. The subject of the next book. The next idea. Life after death. The most important answer.
And I honestly believe that once found, then you die. Life is over. You have your meaning and purpose. You are fulfilled. Basically, I am writing and thinking and philosophizing to find the justification I need to accept the end of everything.
And you know what? The scariest thing about this post is that I never intended to write these particular words when I started typing. I was going to complain about the book-review process. It makes me think that, perhaps, I will type one more sentence and then drop dead. But maybe not. I don’t think I’ve found it yet.
The thing I am looking for, however, is not an evil thing. It is merely the end of the story. The need no longer to tell another tale.
When a book closes, it doesn’t cease to exist. My life is like that. It will end. Heck, the entire universe may come to an end, though not in our time. And it will still exist beyond that time. The story will just be over. And other stories that were being told will continue. And new ones by new authors will begin. That is how infinity happens.
I think, though, that the ultimate end of the Bookish Journey lies with the one that receives the tale, the listener, the reader, or the mind that is also pursuing the goal and thinks that what I have to say about it might prove useful to his or her own quest.
I was going to complain about the book reviewer I hired for Catch a Falling Star who wrote a book review for a book by that name that was written by a lady author who was not even remotely me. And I didn’t get my money back on that one. Instead I got a hastily re-done review composed from details on the book jacket so the reviewer didn’t have to actually read my book to make up for his mistake. I was also going to complain about Pubby who only give reviewers four days to read a book, no matter how long or short it is, and how some reviewers don’t actually read the book. They only look at the other reviews on Amazon and compose something from there. Or the review I just got today, where the reviewer didn’t bother to read or buy the book as he was contracted to do, and then gave me a tepid review on a book with no other reviews to go by, and the Amazon sales report proves no one bought a book. So, it is definitely a middling review on a book that the reviewer didn’t read. Those are things I had intended to talk about today.
But, in the course of this essay, I have discovered that I don’t need to talk about those tedious and unimportant things. What matters really depends on what you, Dear Reader, got from this post. The ultimate McGuffin is in your hands. Be careful what you do with it. I believe neither of us is really ready to drop dead.
Leave a comment
Filed under book review, commentary, humor, illustrations, novel writing, Paffooney, publishing, reading, strange and wonderful ideas about life, writing
Tagged as book review, book reviews, books, reading, writing