I’m writing a book. Now if that’s not the stupidest idea I’ve ever had, I’ll eat my hat. Not because I’ve run out of words, but because the book I have in mind doesn’t solve anything, teach anything, or have much nutritional value at all. It’s a recording that when played back includes the frequencies that will destroy the playback device. It’s a song that hits the notes that will crumble the human vocal cords as they vibrate them. Not that it really matters. I can’t sing it anyway, and even if I could I’m not sure you could hear it.
The point of writing a book is to communicate something, right? To share an experience, whether that be instructive, cautionary, hypothetical, or just diversionary. To pass on something you’ve seen, heard, felt, or maybe even learned.
But the people who write books use a certain “voice” to tell the story they think needs telling. A narrator, whether reliable or not, live on the scene or relying on a delayed broadcast of from anywhere to a few seconds to thousands of light years away. They may break the third wall, or not. A story either shares its secrets with you as soon as possible, or makes you work for it like a last case before retirement detective in a bad suit and sensible shoes.
A lot of that depends on what the writer wants to say. No matter what, the author wants you to take them seriously. The subject matter may be light and airy, soft as eider down, or smooth as Tennessee whiskey, but the act of reading is serious stuff. So much depends on the wheelbarrow you use to haul the flotsam and jetsam away, doesn’t it? Without a willing reader, someone to engage on all cylinders with the premise and the people in your book, the great American novel, whether it’s about gangsters, spacemen, big or petty business, true love or false hope, the real nitty gritty or a real soft soap, doesn’t make any more impact than a gnat flitting across the Mississippi River, if nobody really reads it.
Of course each reader picks up a book for a different reason. Some are always questing, whether in their actual lives or only in their imaginations, for some single grain of sand that will explain to them the entire beach. Others are simply bored and want entertainment, titillation, or electric shock therapy. Another might be looking to learn something that will make them interesting at cocktail parties. Never mind that being interesting or cool by imitating interesting or cool people is like learning to play guitar by listening to Eric Clapton and wondering why you don’t really sound like him. No one who thinks about, obsesses over, or worries that they are cool or interesting will ever be either. But that doesn’t stop millions of lemmings from finding just the right cliff edge for demonstrating their individuality.
So, a book. A story, a narrator, a tone, a message or underlying moral. A sales pitch. If you read this book, you’re going to get something.
Problem is I’ve got nothing to tell you. Because no matter what I say, there is no story. This is happening in real time. And as we’ve already learned, to relay the story, to sing the song itself, is to reproduce the frequencies that will destroy the teller.
There is no story. No guru, no method, no teacher. What I’ve got to say in a book can’t be said in a book. That doesn’t mean it’s important or even needs to be said. It’s not like the Tao that can’t be spoken and therefore ip so facto could never even drive through the neighborhood where the Tao rents a weekly room. What is it John Cage once said? “I have nothing to say, and I am saying it. That is poetry.”
So here goes nothing.
15 Jun 2025
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