I believe:
1. in the word, the power and the glory of its creation.
2. in the free expression of the word in all its forms.
3. free expression does the service of exposing bigots and liars.
4. censorship is for children who can’t handle all the adult input at once.
5. censors would infantilize us all if they could.
6. we speak truth to power through the power of the word so we must preserve that power.
7. words can transport us and help us transcend the ill winds of circumstance.
8. sometimes fiction is our only escape and our only hope.
9. dreamers write so that one day they can make their dreams true.
10. fiction is the lie that tells the truth.
11. books, in whatever form they take, are our chance to better ourselves because we can sift through others’ experience without suffering their lives.
12. novels measure what we believe, poetry measures what we believe about ourselves and rock and roll allows us to escape who we suspect we are. (Rock out and rock on!)
13. Fiction is pretend, but it lets us open a crack of light in the darkness so we gain an opportunity to see ourselves as characters in the story of our lives.
14. through this device of fiction, we can safely explore who we pretend to be.
15. through fiction’s device, we can get past the lies we all tell about ourselves to reach authenticity.
16. when we put pretending in its place, finally we can reach for the heroes we could be.
17. good reading can fill an afternoon.
18. great reading can fill your brain.
19. excellent reading can fill your heart and spur you to change yourself and others.
20. if I did not have words, I would paint and if I had no paints, I would sing. If I had none of these things to soothe my racing mind, I would be an evil zombie combination of Darth Vader and Dick Cheney on PCP in a Sunday school, naked and raging with automatic weapons and a Joker smile that would chill your heart.
Filed under: Rant, What about Chazz?, fiction, rant, What I believe about fiction
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