Themes

Back when I was in college, an American Lit class was inflicted on me, though my poetry class was my own damn idea.  The same teacher taught both classes.  As an avid reader and writer by avocation, if not vocation, I had some damn silly notions I believe clashed with the whole literary theory.  If there’s a more pointless exercise than deconstructing the works of various authors and comparing them to a few alleged themes that supposedly all literature goes back to, it’s probably trying to write poetry to please a college instructor.

Ack.  I hated Am Lit with a passion.  I’m sure there are those who love it, and they’re quite welcome to it.  I’ll stick to my love of genre fiction, both reading and writing, and leave the high-brow literary stuff to those who can bear it.

I will say, however, that if anyone should ever decide to deconstruct MY works, they’ll hopefully realize that it all comes down to one sentence.  Humanity abides.  That means no matter how far from the basic humanity I take my characters, it is that which dwells within them that makes them human in the end, even if they are so far post-human as to be almost alien.

As unpopular as my opinion might be in certain circles, I retain a faith in humanity all out of proportion to our troubled evolution.  I believe that we have within us the potential for real greatness, when our personal and social development begins to catch up with our technological achievements.

And, despite all opinions to the contrary, I believe that we humans have a purpose beyond simply stinking up the planet.  I believe that all sentient life has a purpose in the grand scheme of things, though whose scheme it might be I’m not willing to say.  My thoughts on God are somewhat different than most, I think, and there’s no point in rehashing something one might easily glean from nearly all of my novels.

My distrust of revealed religion balances oddly against my strange faith in humanity.  Religion has been both a boon and a bane for us, and I believe it’s about time we really strive to look beyond its legacy.  Humanity is here for humanity, and for stewardship of what we’ve nearly forgotten how to tend.  Our ills are ours to fix and crying for help to the ether is neither sane nor productive.

Humanity abides.  Well, it damn well better, or we’re good and screwed.