life | Bertram's Blog

Grief Update — Two Years and One Month

April 27, 2012 — Pat Bertram

Grief continues to confound me. It is now two years and one month after the death of my life mate/soul mate. I would have thought I’d have moved beyond grief’s ability to disquiet me, but I still have times where tears rush in to fill the void he left behind.

Some of my grief now is the poking-at-a-sore-tooth-to-see-the-extent-of-the-pain kind rather than the overwhelming agony and angst of the first year. There are still sore spots, most notably the obvious one — that he is dead. I cannot fathom death. My mind just cannot work itself around the conundrum of a once living person being so very gone from this earth. And there is the corollary murmuring deep in my psyche, “and someday you will be gone, too.” But . . . gone where?

When my grief was new, I often wandered in the desert crying out in desperation, “Where are you? Can you hear me?” I don’t call out any more, though I still wonder where he is, if he is, what he is. I envy those who believe without a doubt that their deceased loved ones still exist and that they will see them again because I have no such constant belief, though I do have flickers.

One of the many paradoxes of my grief is that I hope he still exists somewhere, but for myself, I’d be okay with oblivion. Is his death worse for me if he still exists somewhere beyond my ability to connect with him? Or is it worse if he is completely deleted except for a spark of indestructible non-conscious energy? Either way, he is gone out of my life. Either way, I have to deal with the mysteries of death, love, grief, and what the heck am I going to do with the rest of my life?

I met my life mate when I was young and believed in fate and destiny and a mystical connection with the universe. I subscribed to the belief that when the student is ready, the master will appear. And he appeared. He was so radiant, it seemed to me he was a higher being come to earth to help me on my life’s quest. In the few ups and many downs of our shared life, I forgot that feeling. And no wonder — as he got sicker and sicker, his radiance dimmed and all but went out.

During that last year, when he could no longer carry on a two-sided conversation, he would lecture me on what I should do after he was gone. He kept saying, “Listen to me. I won’t always be here to teach you.” I didn’t accept that his dying was imminent, so these lectures aggravated me, as if he thought I was so stupid I couldn’t live on my own. (I’d give anything to hear one of those “lectures” again. How could I not have treasured every word?) But the point is, apparently, deep in his subconscious, he believed what I had once believed, that he came here to be my teacher.

There is not a single question (except the unanswerable ones such where he is and if he is) that has arisen in the past twenty-five months that I didn’t know the answer to. We had discussed everything, sometimes all day, day after day, year after year. He took me as far as he could, imparted his wisdom, and left.

If there is any truth to this scenario, rather than being the rather romantic idea created by a bereft woman grasping hold of life any way she can, then the question of what I am going to do with the rest of my life takes on even greater significance. What is so important about me and my life that this radiant creature would share half his lifetime and all of his long and painful dying with me? I suppose that is what I am left to find out.

Posted in culture, grief, life, relationships. Tags: death of a soul mate, grief at two years, meaning of life and death, mystical connection, twenty-five months of grief. 10 Comments »

Being Open to the Possibility of Joy

April 25, 2012 — Pat Bertram

Helen Howell does one-card Joie de Vivre tarot readings on Facebook, and just out of curiosity I asked her, “Does the card promise me joy?” I have never been a joyful person, have never really thought happiness was that important —other things have always mattered more: contentment, truth, friendship. Still, it seemed the logical question to ask of a Joy of Living card. And this was Helen’s response:

To answer your question of does the card promise you joy?

The Joie de Vivre has given me the Sun reversed.

Had this card been up the upright I would have said a definite yes, but the card is telling me there has been some disappointments from the past that still are with you. It says there can be happiness and joy, but for now it’s you that seems to be clouding it for yourself.

I wonder if the disappointment angle comes from maybe not totally getting the acknowledgement or success you hoped for in some part of your life? I think too this card is telling me that there has been a loss of something or someone that has taken the light out of your life a little. Did that loss provide the joy for you?

In this card the figure wears a suit of yellow, that’s the colour of mental activity. It seems to indicate that you have been thinking about things, giving a great deal of mental energy to this, but also note he wears a cloak of soft purple and that shows me that you have an awareness of this.

I like how the seahorse has green leaves around the sun flowers on its tail and also how a plant is growing in the foreground. Green symbolizes for us balance, adaptability, growth and potential. It seems to suggest that there is the potential here to adapt to circumstances better and bring things back into balance that will bring you the joy you hope for.

This is a number 19 card and it breaks down to 1+9 = 10 – this is the number of endings and beginnings all in one. It shows us that something has to be released before a new start can be made.

It appears to me that the Joie de Vivre is telling me that you need to stop blocking the joy from your own life. Be aware of how you think about certain things and this in turn will allow you the potential to adapt better to certain circumstances, which will result in a happier you.

I hope this has helped in some small way. I ask that you give me feedback and if you liked the reading.

I attach a link to the card, but remember this shows the card in an upright position and I drew it in reversed.

Thanks for allowing me to read for you.

Helen @ https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1270902251

And here is my response:

Very interesting, Helen. I lost my life mate two years ago, and I am still struggling with grief. It’s not that the joy has gone out of my life, because I have never been a joyful person, but that the meaning has gone out of my life. I’m trying to find meaning in my life, in his death, in my writing, in the future. And yes, I think about it. And yes I am aware of how much mental energy I am giving to such thoughts.

Actually, I need balance more than joy. His death threw me and the world off balance, and my grief caught me by surprise since I knew he was dying. But I never understood what his goneness from my life would mean, never understood that it would bring me such an awareness of death, that it would shatter me.

This has been a time of great growth for me, and yet this is only the first part of my journey back to life. I’m taking care of my 95-year-old father, and when he is gone, I will have to find a place to live, a reason to live, something to care about. I’ll have to completely start over. I’m trying to see the good in that, but since I haven’t a clue what to do or where to go, mostly I’m just waiting.

I don’t know how to let go of my grief. Supposedly it takes three to five years, so perhaps it’s too soon.

***

What particularly interested me was Helen’s comment that I seem to be clouding my own happiness since other people have suggested the same thing, but to be honest, I don’t know how to dispel the clouds. Perhaps time and a willingness to face whatever life brings will take care of the matter. Or, as Helen points out, maybe I just need to be aware of how I think about certain things.

Throughout this grief journey of mine, the only future I’ve been able to envision is one of continued sadness and loneliness, and I’ve tried to prepare myself for such a life. But just because all I can see are sadness and loneliness, it doesn’t mean that’s all there will be. There could be joy. Maybe that’s all the Joie de Vivre card is telling me — be open to the possibility of joy.

Posted in culture, grief, life. Tags: Joie de Vivre tarot, joy of living, loss, one-card tarot reading, struggling with grief. 7 Comments »

Finding Time to Write

April 24, 2012 — Pat Bertram

I’ve been trying to get back into writing, but I never seem to able to find the time. There are always so many things that need to be done. Take yesterday, for example. I started out the morning answering emails. I don’t get as many emails as most people, but still, writing responses to the ones that required my attention took me over an hour.

Then I wrote a simple blog post. It was a recap of on online discussion, so it shouldn’t have taken me long, but it did. I’ve heard that people should allocate twenty minutes to updating their blogs, but somehow, my twenty-minute blogs end up taking hours. Writing is how I think, and sometimes it takes a while for the thoughts to coalesce. Sometimes it takes a while to find the right words to express the thoughts. And sometimes it takes a while to edit and copyedit the article to make sure it’s readable and that my point is clear. All those “a while”s added up to three hours yesterday.

When I finally posted the blog, I took time out for a walk and a meal, then I returned to the computer and had an email conversation with a friend who had also suffered the loss of her mate. Since she seems to have reached a place of peace, I wanted to know how she did it. I know I can go on alone since I am doing it, but the thing that still makes me feel as if I’m about to fall off the earth is that he is dead. No matter how well I do, no matter how much peace I attain, he will always be dead. Of course she had no answers for me — one person’s way of learning to live without is not the same as another’s — but she did say something that struck a chord: “the world comes back.” This was an important conversation for me, and I’m glad I had the time to spend, but still, writing my side of the exchange took a couple of hours.

I love comments on my blog, and always enjoy communicating with those who do comment, but that takes time. Yesterday evening, it took me almost an hour to write my responses.

And finally, Facebook. Need I say more? Well, maybe I do. I had several messages that required replies, discussions that needed input, updates that cried out for comments. In all, that added a couple more hours of writing to my writing time.

That’s when I realized why I have no time to write — I spend all my time writing! So, to find time to write, all I need to do is stop writing.

Posted in blogging, internet, life, writing. Tags: answering emails, blog comments, Facebook, finding time to write, writing blogs. 6 Comments »

Why is Writing Important?

April 23, 2012 — Pat Bertram

With such a staggering number of books on the market and more to come, why is writing important? Only a small percentage of writers have ever made a living at writing (and most of those were people who wrote books on how to make a living at writing), and that percentage seems to be shrinking. More than 80% of books sell fewer than 100 copies. Maybe 50% sell only about ten copies or so. So, why write? The wonder of writing fiction is that a story born in one mind grows to full power in another mind. But what if you don’t have readers, or at least not many? And why take the time to learn the craft since some of the books that do sell are poorly written tripe?

If nothing else, this conundrum that writers face today makes us focus on what we get out of the writing process itself.

For me, writing is something that connects the parts of my life, even though I don’t always write. I once quit a job to write a novel, but found I had no intrinsic talent. I was young and didn’t have the wisdom to know that there are two types of talent — the intrinsic kind that’s called talent, and the learned kind that is in itself a kind of talent, the kind that that comes from trial and error. Even if I had known about the second kind, I didn’t have the patience to write the million words it supposedly takes to learn how to write, so when life got in the way, I let it. Other things simply were more important. (Some people believe you have to have a passion for writing, that it has to take precedence over everything else, but writing is not always “life” nor is life always “writing.” If one does not live, one has no reason to write.) Years later when my life had pretty much come to a standstill because of various misfortunes, I took up writing again, but when my life mate died, I lost the desire to write fiction. Perhaps one day the desire will come back along with a different focus and possibly a different talent.

Writing for me is also an emotional outlet and a way of discovering why I feel the way I do. While struggling to deal with the death of my long-time mate, I poured out my heart and my soul and my grief into journal entries, letters to my deceased mate, and blog posts. I don’t know if I could have survived without that outlet. A book compiled of some of the best writings of that time, Grief: The Great Yearning, has now been published, yet when I wrote during this time (except for the blogs, of course), I had no expectation of my words ever being read. I wrote for me.

Reasons for writing are as varied as those who write. For example, in a recent online discussion, horror writer Rob M. Miller said, “I write because I have something to say, and I want it to be heard.” Even if there was a chance he wouldn’t be heard, he would still write because, as he says, “I write to self-explore my mind, to self-medicate, to share my worldview.”

I like those reasons for writing. Too often when I ask writers why they write, they say they only want to entertain, which makes me cringe. If entertaining others is the only reason for writing, then why bother? The “others” can find a lot more entertaining things to do than to slog through someone’s unseasoned prose. But if you’re writing to share your worldview or to explore your mind, then your writing actually has value. Of course we want people to enjoy what we write, but entertainment can’t be the only reason to write, unless it’s for our own entertainment. Writing is a good way of passing the time. It’s better than watching television and it could change someone’s life, perhaps our own.

Posted in life, writing. Tags: focus on writing, reasons to write, writing as an emotional outlet, writing to entertain, writing to explore one's mind. 10 Comments »

Untaming Me and Embracing My Inner Savage

April 21, 2012 — Pat Bertram

I watched The Sleeping Dictionary the other night, or at least as much of it as I have on tape. My life mate/soul mate recorded movies that he liked and often ended them before things got ugly, turning a painful movie into a touching one, so in my version, the story ends when John and Selima profess their love. (I had become so tuned to death and disappointment during his last years that I could not bear stories with unhappy endings or characters who fought instead of appreciating what they had. Watching his movies, I now understand he’d developed that same sensitivity. His version of Braveheart, for example, ends before William Wallace is tortured and killed.)

But I digress.

When the young headhunter first appeared on the scene in The Sleeping Dictionary, I was struck by his savagery. I don’t mean his cruelty — though today “savage” is synonymous with brutality, it originally came from a word that means “woods.” I’m referring to his elemental nature, his primal being, his untameness.

I am a highly civilized person. For the most part, I am considerate of others. I am never intentionally rude or bad mannered or insulting. I am not uncouth. I don’t make scenes in public (or private, for that matter). I seldom raise my voice. I listen more than I talk. I dress modestly. I use correct English and am not given to crudeties or foul language. If it’s in my power and nature, I almost always do what others ask. I try to be helpful. In other words, I am tame.

As I watched the movie, I wondered if the time had come to untame me, to embrace my inner primitive. I don’t know what or how to do that, but it’s something worth thinking about. I know your first thought — tattoos. Nope. Today tattoos are not a matter of primalness but of fad, and fad is the epitome of civilization.

It would be interesting to have totems, rituals, amulets that meant something to me and my life, that would help me connect to life or at least remind me of that connection. To find or develop such primal symbols, however, I would first need to know who I am, to know what meaning life has for me, but the death of my life mate/soul mate so devastated me that I no longer know who I am or how I connect to anything.

Now, as I write this, I realize that I don’t need to start a search for my inner primitive. I am already on that quest.

I walk in the desert (as primeval a place as there is around here) and pay attention to how my body and mind join to the earth. I feel how my feet connect with the ground (well, how my shoes connect. I am not so savage as to be willing to walk in rattlesnake country unshod). I feel the air coursing through my lungs, and the breezes touching my skin. I feel the heat of the sun and the coolness of my evaporating perspiration. I open my mind and feel new ideas flowing in and old ideas flowing out.

Maybe someday I will untame me — find out who I am at rock bottom and live according to my truth. And maybe I am living that way now.

Posted in culture, How to, life. Tags: becoming untame, civilized person, connecting to life, connecting to the earth, desert, inner savage, The Sleeping Dictionary. 4 Comments »

I am Being Interviewed on Blog Talk Radio this Evening

April 20, 2012 — Pat Bertram

The title says it all. There’s not much more to add. I am being interviewed on Blog Talk Radio this evening. Well, it will be evening if you are on the east coast since the show goes live at 7:00 pm ET, but if you are on the west coast, it will be 4:00 in the afternoon.

Possible topics are:

What kind of books do you write?

Why did you write a book about grief?

Why is your book “Grief: The Great Yearning” important?

Does your past play much of a role in your writing?

How do you help other writers?

Where can people find out more about your books?

(Thank you to everyone who helped me compile this list.)

You can find the show here: Page Turners with Hosts Meg Collins and Nancy Duci Denofio. I will be on for an hour, so if you get a chance, feel free to call in. The number to call is: 1-646-595-4478. If you can’t listen to the show live, it will be archived so you can hear it any time.

Posted in internet, life. Tags: blog talk radio, interview. Leave a Comment »

Surveillance: Poisoning the Soul of a Nation

April 19, 2012 — Pat Bertram

The National Security Agency was created on November 4, 1952 under Harry S. Truman. For twenty-five years, only the people involved knew of the existence of this secret agency. In fact, the NSA was so secret even the name was classified — most of the people working for the agency didn’t even know the name of the organization that employed them. Now, of course, the NSA is a staple for conspiracy buffs and thriller writers, though the truth is even spookier than fiction.

In 1980, way before computer usage was common, way before surveillance devices had become as sophisticated as they presently are, the NSA monitored 400,000 calls a day. 146,000,000 calls a year. And that was thirty-two years ago. Today, there are no limits to what the NSA knows or can track

Although their activities might still be secret, the NSA is now far from being a secret organization. They almost seem to delight in showing us their strength as witnessed by the two billion dollar facility they are building in Bluffdale, Utah. This Utah Data Center will be fully operational before the end of 2013, and then the last vestige of our privacy will be gone.

John W. Whitehead of The Rutherford Institute says: “At five times the size of the U.S. Capitol, the UDC will be a clearing house and a depository for every imaginable kind of information — whether innocent or not, private or public — including communications, transactions and the like. Anything and everything you’ve ever said or done, from the trivial to the damning — phone calls, Facebook posts, emails, bookstore and grocery store purchases, bank statements, commuter toll records, etc. — will be tracked, collected, catalogued and analyzed by the UDC’s supercomputers and teams of government agents. In this way, by sifting through the detritus of your once private life, the government will come to its own conclusion about who you are, where you fit in, and how best to deal with you should the need arise.”

It’s possible that the mass of information itself will protect us. One piece of information is worthless. When there are trillions and trillions of bits and bytes out there, why single out one from another? A collection of information, however, could be damning, depending on what light the NSA chooses to view it under. What if they put the pieces together and came up with a version of you that simply isn’t true?

(Incidentally, that originally was the premise of Light Bringer, but the book metamorphosed away from the NSA and their supposed interest in poor Philip’s life, and focused instead on an international organization’s global agenda.)

Have you ever wondered why your attention is kept focused on such unimportant matters as what outrageous thing today’s celebrity-of-choice is doing, what wonderful new gadget is on the market, what the fashion gurus are presenting, what foolish thing the president said or did? It’s sleight of hand to keep you focused on the trivial while the world as you think you know it slips away from you.

Even worse, as Whitehead says, “Whether or not the surveillance is undertaken for innocent reasons, does not surveillance of all citizens gradually poison the soul of a nation?”

And you thought Facebook was bad.

Posted in history/myth, internet, life. Tags: government surveillance, John W. Whitehead, loss of privacy, National Security Agency, NSA, The Rutherford Institute, Utah Data Center. 2 Comments »

What To Do (And What Not to Do) When Someone is Grieving

April 16, 2012 — Pat Bertram

Every few weeks I decide to stop posting articles about grief and my grieving process. When one talks, the words dissipate into the atmosphere and are soon forgotten. When one writes, the words last until the paper is lost or destroyed. But when one posts to a blog on the internet, the words are eternal. And I’m not sure showing such vulnerability forever is healthy. As I gather strength and courage to face the challenges of my new life as a woman alone, as I change and grow into the person I will need to become, the vulnerable me of these grieving years will still exist in cyberspace. I don’t know how much this ever-living past will shadow my future; at the very least, it will be a perpetual reminder of a very dark time.

But life doesn’t seem to want me to give up these posts quite yet. Today’s decision to stop posting was forestalled by an email from a grieving friend who thanked me for voicing what she could no longer say. Any mention of her grief worried her family, and they suggested therapy so often, she now hides her grief from them. And if she writes about grief, relatives call up with advice about moving on or looking for someone new.

People often worry about what to say to someone who is grieving, but they should be more worried about what not to say. Saying almost any heartfelt words will do. We bereft see beyond the sometimes bumbling, often touching attempts to breach the grief gap, and we appreciate the effort.

What we don’t appreciate and have no use for is advice. Generally, the people who offer advice have not a clue what we are going through, so it seems to them a simple matter of just moving on, and they are quite free with suggestions of how to accomplish this. (I cannot think of a single instance where someone who suffered a grievous loss offered me advice, probably because they know how unwelcome and unproductive it would be.)

When I started writing about grief, the whole point was just to say how I felt so others would know that what they are feeling isn’t abnormal even though it feels dreadfully abnormal. I never asked for advice. I never wanted advice. I simply laid out my feelings. And yet I got advice. I tried to be kind and understanding, realizing that the advice-givers felt helpless and wanted to do something to ease my pain, but the truth is, advice does more damage than good. As with my grieving friend, so often the only way we bereft have of staving off advice is to hide our grief, and that is not healthy for anyone.

So, what can you do to help when someone you knows loses a spouse or a child to death?

1. Do something tangible. Offer to clean the house, take care of the kids, take the bereft to lunch, go grocery shopping. Almost as useless as advice is the typical, “Call me if you need help.” How is a person who is totally devastated by grief supposed to find the energy to call? You call. Don’t leave it up to them. And don’t leave it open ended with a “Let me know what I can do.” Be specific. “I’m going to the grocery store. Do you need anything? Milk? Coffee?” or “You’ve had a lot of people tramping through your house. Can I help clean up?” The best thing anyone did for me was clean the house before I moved. I will never forget that, will appreciate it as long as I live.

2. Let the person talk. Don’t try to make it better. Don’t offer advice. Simply listen. A woman I knew casually invited me to lunch, and she asked questions about him, let me talk, listened. It made me feel less alone, less of a pariah.

3. After the first month, the thing that helped me most was sharing stories with other bereft. (In the beginning, the whole thing was so overwhelming, I couldn’t deal with anyone else’s pain; I couldn’t even deal with my own.) As depressing as it was to find out that people still had occasional grief upsurges after ten years or that they never stopped missing their loved one, it helped knowing that others had gone through the same thing I was experiencing, and it helped knowing what I was up against. But if you haven’t suffered a similar loss, please do not talk about the death of your 100-year-old grandmother, or your dog, or your cousin. Even though these losses are important to you, they don’t offer any comfort to someone who has just lost the love of her life, especially if he died at a relatively young age.

4. Always, a shoulder to cry on and a comforting hug are welcome, and are worth a million times more than advice. Even better, cry with us. A few days after my life mate/soul mate died, I stopped by the grocery store where he and I shopped. The clerk asked where he was, and when I told her, she hugged me and cried with me. Not enough tears had been shed for him — no amount of tears will ever be enough—so those tears gave me comfort. His life — and death — shouldn’t pass lightly. No one’s should.

Posted in culture, grief, internet, life. Tags: giving advice to grievers, helping grievers, the grieving process, what to do when someone dies, writing about grief. 4 Comments »

Facing My Dreads

April 15, 2012 — Pat Bertram

Yesterday was Saturday, typically a sadder day for me, but today I felt strong enough to face some of my fears. Or at least my dreads. Facebook has been threatening to switch me over to their new timeline format and today I decided to run toward my dread so I could get it out of my head. I wasn’t sure what photo I wanted to feature. I’d planned to use photos of my books, but since I used them for my page, I didn’t want to confuse the issue by using the same image for my profile. I’d played around with word art once, so I decided to use that. Spent a couple of hours getting it just right. So now I have timeline. And I have overcome one dread.

Then I decided to go after the big one. Watching a movie.

My life mate and I used to watch movies together — all kinds, from westerns to serial killer movies to comedy to romance. He taped hundreds of movies for us, and they’ve been packed away since his death two years ago. I just could not bring myself to watch the movies, especially the romantic ones because I knew how much it would hurt.

Flush with the success of overcoming the dreaded timeline, however, I decided to watch Notting Hill. I’d pulled it out of storage to view on the one-year anniversary of his death, planning to celebrate his life, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even put it away. The tape has been sitting on the shelf, waiting for me to watch for a year and two weeks. And it is again sitting on the shelf.

I put the tape in the VCR, watched for about forty-five minutes, and then came the gusher. Not just tears but sobs and gasps for breath and a yearning to see him one more time that clawed at me with a ferocity I haven’t felt in months.

I know two years isn’t that long, but I never imagined I would still have such upsurges of grief. Mostly I can handle being alone, though I do have times of gargantuan loneliness. I even have times now, such as when I’m focused on completing a task, where my missing him gets pushed into the background. And sometimes I can even look forward to the future. But the one thing I can never seem to get a grip on is the thought of his being dead. I have come full circle to a realization of how necessary it was for him to die. He was in such pain and could no longer function that continued life would have been torture. But even so, I hate knowing that he will never eat another meal. Never read another book. Never plant another tree. Never watch another movie.

I do still have the ability to watch movies, and someday I will finish watching this one.

Just not today.

Posted in culture, grief, life. Tags: Facebook, Facebook timeline, facing fears, grief upsurge, Notting Hill, watching movies. 7 Comments »

Creativity Has No Price

April 14, 2012 — Pat Bertram

A couple of days ago, I posted a bloggery What is the Price of Creativity, where I lamented the devaluation of books. What everyone believes they can do, no one values, and so readers today expect to get ebooks for a nominal sum, or even free. Mickey Hoffman, author of School of Lies and Deadly Traffic, wrote such an insightful rebuttal to that article that I thought it deserved to be featured here (though truthfully, everyone made important points). Mickey wrote:

Rembrandt died poor. He’s now regarded as one of the creative geniuses of the art world. This stuff has been going on forever. In ancient times the people who carved the famous statues in Greece didn’t even put their names on their work. Creativity has never been as useful to humans or held as high a value as the ability to make money, to manipulate others, to convince the masses that one is a god, etc.

The ability to write used to be admired only because for centuries most people could not even read or write their own names. And only the Bible was deemed worthy of reading. When reading no longer was such a mysterious process done only by a monk or priest and people realized it wasn’t so difficult to learn to do it for themselves, then they began to read, but still mostly religious tomes. If you look at many countries today, the kids are taught to read only for the purpose of reading the Koran. So it still happens.

In the West, as the ability to read became more common, writing became more common. Letter writing was the rage and those who could write creatively were held in high esteem. But were they actually paid well for it? Not often. Rich people had books but didn’t read them, they used them like trophies to show they were cultured. Writers still struggled to make a living and always have. Only a few have been able to support themselves that way. There have always been trashy publications and well written ones. Just more of both now.

You could argue against public libraries too, and make an argument that the ability to read for free would devalue writing. I don’t think the availablity has much to do with it. What’s changed are two things. One is the cultural idea that’s infected education: Everyone’s a winner. No one can be told they’re not good at something for fear of damaging their self-esteem. Kids aren’t reading well-written books in elementary or high school anymore so they have no means of comparison. They don’t have to learn how to write well either unless it’s on a test. College professors are getting essays with abbreviated text messaging words in them. My brother, a professor, used to read me some of the stuff his students wrote. These things were so unintelligible I didn’t know whether to cry or laugh. Somehow they made it into college anyway.

Second, television and films. Need I say more? I think we’ve all noticed that best sellers read like they’ve been written to be made into an action/thriller movie. And if they are, then they’re actually composed with different elements in mind than a writer puts into a story made for reading only.

So how is the public to know they’re reading garbage? Just throw in a vampire or a ghost or a serial killer or a few sex scenes and that’s enough to find an audience. And the agents and publishers know this. Don’t blame Amazon or anyone else, blame US.