WEDNESDAY, 3 DECEMBER 2003
I am, at the final count, not from another planet. I’m to a large extent just an ordinary guy. I sleep, eat, go to the bathroom several times a day from all the tea I drink, and laugh when something is funny. I like to watch movies. I enjoy sports every now and then, and I read the newspaper every other day. As a heterosexual man I sometimes marvel at the physical beauty of women, and I have normal desires. I have to pay my bills, and from time to time pay a visit to the dentist. I catch a bout of flu about once a year, feel cold in the winter and too hot in the summer.
So if I say this is my literary project and no one else’s, I am only half right. What I experience, many people experience. What I fear is feared by others. What annoys and angers me has the same effect on many other people.
Still, I am not just the next guy with a different name and different lines on my face.
Early in my life I became aware of the greatness of things, and with that an intense awareness of my own insignificance. I initially tried to neutralise the inevitably associated anxiety with religion, until it lost its effectiveness for several reasons.
The difference between me and you is perhaps that I am aware of the fact that I won’t really matter at the end. I have accepted this to a certain extent.
Yet, complex as life sometimes is, you still try your best to mean something to someone else in some small way. My choice, considering this hope or desire, is to write.
Other people do other things to mean something to someone else. Maybe you – the reader of this text – does something specific in an honest and sincere effort to give more value to your life. Maybe I don’t do those specific things. May you also write. Perhaps we even write about the same topics … which would mean the only differences between you and me are our names and the lines on our faces … Oh, whatever. Actually quite a shitty piece, but what does it matter …
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