Dear Reviewer (and all new readers),
as you start reading en.light.en.ment, you’ll soon see how personal my book is; once I was to be murdered, then I nearly drowned and another time I was going broke.
en.light.en.ment is a ‘Living Book’; due to the nature of my writings my essays are developed on an ongoing basis … indeed, I read, correct & update my book daily. I say for good reason in my impressum:
“I work on them day & night; in fact, all but every minute of every day & every night.”
On page a105 in the book I quote Jacqueline Maley: “The world is falling apart …”
“… for writers this means the constant editing of what you have already done, recasting of past words according to the instincts of the present moment. Reconsidering things about which we’re unsure, not having fixed positions, is the work of artists.”
A key to my writings is my essay ALONE in which I talk about contemplation. People may ask, “where do you get all this stuff from? Well, this is what I do: I read, watch & listen … then think … then write.
As for thinking … all but every minute of every day & every night; thus my book is very topical and revised frequently. A revision may reflect a current affair … like the essay GUNS which had the 2017 Las Vegas shooting included. Some essays deal with popular sciences, i.e. FUNDAMENTAL ISSUE which are updated regularly too.
Furthermore, when I read the book “The Happiness Advantage” I promptly added a relevant paragraph at the bottom of my essay HAPPINESS.
You probably will agree that I have created a devilish problem for myself when I decided – for good or for bad – on that unusual format for my essays and the layout of my book.
Every page is hand-made in MS Word … no two pages are the same in layout and I refer to my at times somewhat odd language as German/Australian/English. Have a look at the footnote to page I …
“One of the key qualities that made me so believe in what
I was doing is that this was a book in which form was being
given equal billing with content … and that was no accident,
since GEB is in large part about how content is inseparable
from form … how semantics is of a piece with syntax.
“As though I had always known of myself that, in many
aspects of life, I was concerned as much with form as with
content – (remember, I used to be a photographer, CB).
“Thus, thanks to the ease of using TV-edit (Microsoft Word
for me, CB), whatever I wrote underwent polishing to make it
look better on the screen, and though such control would
at one time have been considered a luxury for an author,
I was very attached to it and loath to give it up.”
The above is by Douglas R. Hofstadter
author of Gödel, Escher, Bach
While this language and book-format are an expression of myself – how I function, how I work (in my life-long woking career I was a still ife photographer, each photo is hand-made, with great attention to detail) – it does not so much restrict me … as force me to discipline myself.
dis·ci·pline
“Shined shoes save lives.” So said General Norm Schwarzkopf … “in the heat of battle, under pressure, the undisciplined die.”
I reckon so it is in the indie-book trade. Was my work not disciplined, my book would die … as would I.
As regards my frequent revisions, here is another reason: Since I limit myself to very short essays and especially since I design my pages with my words often surrounded by much white space, I confine myself to brevity … this often calls for repeated revisions.
I am in tune with these traits of Bertrand Russell’s: (from my essay RUSSELL)
Russell strove to rid philosophy of meaningless assertions;
he sought precision in argument by the use of exact language.
Russell saw logic and science as the tools of philosophy;
he believed one task of the philosopher is to remove confusion..
My paragraphs and sentences are constructed painstakingly, words are chosen carefully and since English is my second language, I use the dictionary & thesaurus extensively.
This is a labour-intensive undertaking; for instance, I just added two paragraphs at the bottom of ALONE … it took me two days to compose them (I’m a slow writer).
With the odd layout & language, editors find it hard to work with my text, hence I am (largely – but not only; thank you, Wendy) my own editor … when I asked my earlier editor to review my book, he said:
“This is such an interesting & idiosyncratic book, that I’m not sure it should be edited (really, proofread) at all, you write very well and it’d be a shame to lose any of your natural voice.”
… helped by my readers, who may point to obvious mistakes – maybe spelling or factual mistakes – but also conceptual inconsistencies.
I deem my book en.light.en.ment – as unusual as it is – a living thing, with heart and soul, and it will always be a work in progress, forever changing … still from my impressum:
“The book is not finished – it never will be, “an essay (a poem) is never finished, only abandoned” (Paul Valéry); “has anybody ever finished anything?” (Leonardo da Vinci).”
Furthermore, due to my book’s format, where the pages are fixed PDFs, I cannot publish it as an e-pub, which in turns means my book is not available on the major e-book channels. In fact, I sell only the printed book from my website.
Anyway, since my essays stand on their own, you don’t need to read my book from cover to cover … you can read pages randomly; open the book arbitrarily; see what you may find; be surprised.
You, dear reviewer, are now my new best friend … the most important person in my life. But make no bones about it, I haven’t written en.light.en.ment for you, not for my readers (as much as I cherish them); no, in the first place I write it for myself … to see my thoughts and feelings on a white page with black & grey ink, to clear my head.
The 2nd reason why I write is to help people’s understanding of our world and foster a sense of empathy and compassion … ultimately to make the world a better place, as per Krishnamurti: he believed the world needs a revolution. I agree. See my page KRISHNAMURTI
Thank you