HinesSight

Twitter -- my path to enlightenment

Some people consider my new found Twittering to be a useless waste of time. By "some people" I mainly mean my wife.

She hasn't realized yet, as I have, that Twitter is much more than an easy means for me to cast 140 characters or less of what I'm doing into cyberspace on a whim.

Clearly, it is my path to enlightenment.

I say this after having pursued daily meditation, vegetarianism, and other spiritual practices for some forty years (longer, if one considers that being almost continually stoned on pot or psychedelics in college is a spiritual practice).

Now, of course, I tweet about my meditation. Plus other minutia of daily life, such as the mystery of dog pooping behavior.

Thus I have embraced the Zen emphasis on here and now. Which, updating a famous aphorism, may be stated as "Chop wood and carry water -- then tell your Twitter followers: Just chopped wood and carried water."

Well, some people (let's name them Laurel) might say that simply doing something is more Buddhist'ly present in the moment than doing it and also telling the Twitter world what you've done.

Perhaps. But this presumes a distinction between (1) reality and (2) 140 character or less descriptions of reality.

Does not the Heart Sutra tell us that emptiness is form, and form emptiness? So how is posting a tweet about my life different from my life? Eventually I am confident that a Twitter satori will lead to a realization: My Twittering is me, and I am my Twittering.

Additionally, I am learning humility and furthering ego-loss. Currently I have six Twitter followers on OregonBrian. John McCain has 334,591.

Yet only a few times a day, around a couple of dozen (before noon, I mean; more times later), do I lament how few followers I have, and wonder why my pleadings to almost everyone I come in contact with ("paper or plastic?" "I don't care, just follow me on Twitter") have fallen on such deaf ears.

Like a prophet who is unrecognized in his own land, but continues to preach to the empty desert, I send a daily tweet out into the barrenness of my Twitter realm.

I scoff at John Mayer's assertion that "Twitter is silly and dumb." Especially this quote of his:

"If you really think that Twitter is the pathway to spiritual enlightenment, well...It’s one step away from sending pictures of your poop."

Ah, Mr. Mayer, I have been so close to taking that step. (When I wrote that post I toyed with the idea of posting an image of the inside of my colon, the source of my poop, but ended up deciding against it -- though if I hear a chorus of demands, I'd be glad to reconsider.)

So apparently I'm just the sort of person who will be able to achieve enlightenment through Twittering.

Which reminds me...I've got to put up a tweet about this blog post!

Oh, my god, I'm twittering!

The devil must have made me do it. Or, the Grand Lord of Why Not? Because a mere three days ago I had blogified about how Twitter didn't interest me.

And now I have a Twitter page. An Emerson quote comes to mind:

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

What turned the corner on tweeting for me was a moment when, in the course of pondering the pros and cons of opening a Twitter account, and thinking "this craze is useless," I realized:

Yes! That's the point! Uselessness!

Such was one of the themes in my "The Tao of Paris Hilton" post, the popularity of which made it possible for this blog to surpass a million page views in a relatively short time. (Tip: to generate web traffic, put up photos of semi-naked famous female cultural icons.)

Once I appreciated the Taoist beauty of Twitter's uselessness, where most communications are 140 characters of less of inanity, my fingers raced to the sign-up page.

I worry about what I say on my blog posts. I try to make sense in my email messages. But with Twitter... fuck it! How wrong can I go in 140 characters? Plus, who's going to read my crappy tweets anyway?

At the moment, hardly anyone. So my first goal is to attract some followers.

This is one of the things I like about Twitter. On other social networking sites you have friends. With Twitter, you have followers. Cool. (Even better would be "acolytes," or "fawning admirers.")

At the moment my following is precisely zero. If you're concerned about the state of my fragile ego, as you should be, head to my Twitter page and click on "Follow."

Don't worry about whether there is any good reason to do this. There isn't. Remember the mantra: uselessness. Gaining a follower will make me feel better, and it won't make you feel worse.

Otherwise, I'm not promising much from this whole Twitter thing. Basically, it's fun -- another opportunity for me to play with my iPhone.

It's a kick to be able to take a photo and easily have Tweetie upload a compressed version to Twitpic, and embed a URL in my tweet. I also like watching the 140 character counter count down as I one-finger type an iPhone tweet, putting a stopper on my usual writing verbosity.

Since ego-loss isn't one of my personality characteristics, I've done some research into how to gain Twitter followers.

Given that I have no idea what purpose Twitter serves in the cosmic scheme of things, it was encouraging to read:

This is the first thing you need to know: It’s not really about how you tweet, what you say or who you talk to but who you are.

Excellent.

First off, Paris Hilton is my second cousin. Seemingly this should gain me some reflected Twitter glory. OK, not much. But since I have zero followers at the moment, my Twitter trajectory can only go up.

Second, I've written a best-selling book about Plotinus. Granted, it is only "best-selling" in comparison to other books about a Greek mystic philosopher hardly anybody has heard about. But there's got to be some author-groupies who would be delighted to find a tweet from me sailing onto their cell phones.

Third, I'm a blogger. So I'm hoping that at least a few of those who visit my HinesSight and Church of the Churchless blogs will take pity on my follower-less soul and click on that Follow button.

I promise to tweet some family dog photos. And when I next see my granddaughter, for sure some super-cute two year old photos.

Along with a whole lot of uselessness -- the main draw for Twitter followers.

Twitter doesn't interest me. Do I need to tweet that?

Since I have two blogs, a web site, several laptops, and an iPhone, I keep wondering why Twitter hasn't tweaked my interest.

Everybody seems to be twittering, or "tweeting," these days. Well, nobody that I actually know. But I've been reading about The Twittering Class.

Which makes me wonder, should I join the Twittergentsia? I don't want to be left out of a cool social movement, especially when it involves technology. So I tried to convince myself that I needed to start tweeting.

First stop: a couple of important people's Twitter pages. First impression: yawn.

John McCain has over 254,000 followers of his tweets. I can't see why.

Ditto with George Stephanopoulos' Twitter page. The only tweet that seemed to have any interesting content was mostly incomprehensible. This isn't going to replace a New York Times story:

Early read on Geithner plan from plugged in investment source asset managers he knows just won't play until sure WH can control Congress

I then journeyed to Twitter itself, seeking to learn its mysteries from the source of all things Twitterish.

Not surprisingly (given Twitter's limit of 140 characters on tweets), I found conciseness under "Why?"

Why? Because even basic updates are meaningful to family members, friends, or colleagues—especially when they’re timely.

Eating soup? Research shows that moms want to know.
Running late to a meeting? Your co–workers might find that useful.
Partying? Your friends may want to join you.

Well, my mother is dead. I'm retired. And this sixty year-old's idea of a party is a hot bath, the latest issue of People magazine, and a glass of wine. I'd invite people to join me, but it's a small bathtub.

Here's my main problem warming up to Twitter: clicking on the main page's "Watch a video!" link led me to this bit of questionable philosophy.

Real life happens in between blogs and emails

Hmmmm. For one thing, I don't like this putdown of blogging and emailing, both of which I do a lot of. I feel that these are very much part of my "real life."

And I'm not convinced that adding Twitter tweets to my other electronic communications would enhance the real life that, presumably, I'd be telling people about.

Mark Morford had a clever column recently, "I Twitter for you!
Too old/busy/jaded to 'social network,' but still want to seem hip? Call now!"

Allow me introduce you to my groundbreaking new company, Geekamania.com. I created it to meet the needs of smart but also slightly bewildered, overwhelmed, angry, out-of-touch, nervous or otherwise increasingly irrelevant people, just like you!

The concept is very simple. Who needs Facebook and MySpace and the like? You do! But who the hell has time for such pathetic digital hoo-ha nonsense when there's dishes to be washed and gardening to be done and kids to be driven around and thorny little roses to be stopped at and smelled? No one!

That's where Geekamania comes in. Let us do the annoying but necessary-evil social networking crapola for you! For a small monthly fee, we'll keep you connected and relevant, even vaguely respectable/marginally noticeable to the jaded, spiteful, easily distracted ADHD youth of today, whether you think you want to be or not. It couldn't be easier!

Quite a few years ago, before all this social networking stuff became fashionable, I used to visit the Governor's Cup coffeehouse in Salem fairly often.

Almost every time I'd go there, I'd see the same group of people ensconced in a prime seating area near the front windows. Not all of the kaffeeklatsch'ers would be present every day, of course, but some of the regulars seemed to be full time Governor's Cup inhabitants.

After a while I began to wonder what they talked about. If you have a life outside of a coffee house, then you can share stories about it over an expresso.

But if most of your life involves talking about your life, won't there come a time when you run out of outside stories and all there is to say is something about the saying you've been doing?

So I'm going to pass on Twitter for now. Maybe, for ever. The dog is bugging me to go for a walk.

If I had a Twitter page, I could put up a tweet whenever she did that: "Dog is bugging me to go for a walk." 

Does anyone care?

And wouldn't I eventually end up saying stuff like, "Now I'm thinking about putting up a tweet about the dog bugging me to go for a walk"? Probably followed by, "I'm wondering if I'm putting too much time into thinking about putting up a tweet about the dog bugging me to go for a walk."

Hell with it. I'm going for a walk.

Anonymous commenting vs. revealing who we are

Since I've been actively blogging for over six years, I've seen the best and worst of people when they're able to leave anonymous comments on blog posts -- a practice I've always allowed.

It bothers me when someone hides behind a made up name -- "slugface99"-- spewing venomous insults, idiotic falsities, and profane rants into an otherwise mostly courteous blog conversation.

It warms my heart when someone reveals an intimacy about themselves -- a deep fear, longing, forbidden lust, or whatever -- that would have been impossible to share with a real name attached to it.

In a previous post I took TypePad, which hosts my blog, to task for failing to recognize sufficiently that people choose to connect on the Internet in various ways.

Some see the web mostly as a means to fashion social networks. They belong to Twitter, My Space, and Facebook. They want to have their identity recognized by those with whom they come in contact -- friends, work associates, strangers.

The push to establish profiles that carry across various web sites and networks (such as Open ID) assumes that people want to have a consistent identity in cyberspace.

Many, though, are wary of revealing too much about themselves. Like the characters on Lost, one of my favorite TV shows, they revel in the potential of being able to recreate themselves by casting aside their previous history.

So, good Libran that I am, my attitude is: let's have it both ways. Personally, I always use my real name, "Brian," when I leave a comment on a blog post or discussion group. But I understand why others don't want to.

Yesterday, columnist Mark Morford opined that anonymous commenting is destroying meaningful online dialogue.

But the coherent voices are, by and large, increasingly drowned out by the nasty, the puerile, the inane, to the point where, unless you're in the mood to have your positive mood ruined and your belief in the inherent goodness of humanity stomped like a rainbow flag in the Mormon church, there's almost no point in trying to sift through it anymore. The relentless nastiness is, quite literally, sickening.

Sure, sometimes. However, there's also a lot to like about being able to express your views anonymously, as "How Important are Nameless and Faceless comments?" points out (focus of this article is on the workplace).

Posting anonymous comments supports candid dialogue, protects individual opinions, and can increase the number of comments.

I've had terrific conversations with people I've just met, and would never see again. I could say things that I wouldn't reveal to friends or family with whom I have a history and a future.

Raw honesty is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve in everyday life. Each of us puts on a persona that masks, to either a large or small degree, who we are when we're not busy pretending to be who we're not.

Too much of a good thing, though, becomes a bad thing. Occasionally I urge commenters on my blogs to speak to each other as if they were sitting together in a coffeehouse.

Even if other people didn't know who you were, you'd still treat them courteously -- just as you'd expect to be treated. You wouldn't scream, swear, or stomp off in a huff.

You'd share a moment with some fellow human beings, recognizing that expressing differing opinions doesn't require a Nuke Em! mentality.

Today I called Sid "crazy" in a comment I left on my blog post about evolution. But I would have said the same thing if I was face to face with him, and he'd claimed that God created humans just as they are, instantly -- no natural selection required.

Speak online as you'd talk to someone in person. To my mind, that's just about the only communication rule needed on the Internet.

My TypePad Connect review: thumbs down

Blogging is a big part of my life. Thus so is TypePad, the service that hosts my HinesSight and Church of the Churchless blogs.

By and large, I'm happy with TypePad. But not with their TypePad Connect service, which I tried out for a week before shutting it down when it seriously screwed up my blogs.

I've spent quite a bit of time communicating with TypePad staff about what they need to do to improve both TypePad Connect and their basic blogging service (actually, I'm a "Pro" member, several steps above "Basic").

Invariably I get a prompt, friendly reply along the lines of, "Thanks for the feedback. We're working on the problem."

That's nice. However, it'd be nicer if the problems actually were solved.

So this post is sort of an open letter to TypePad, written with the hope that a more public airing of my gripes will result in more action than I've seen so far. Likely it'll be fairly lengthy, because I've got quite a bit to say.

(If this subject is already terminally boring you, I'll reward your interest in getting this far into the post with links to some Sports Illustrated 2009 Swimsuit Issue photos, here and here, before you head off to more interesting ports of call in the blogosphere.)

I'll begin with my qualifications: my first TypePad post dates from January 2003, so I've got more than six years of mostly-daily blogging experience. My two blogs are approaching 1,800,000 page views. They average about 1,000 page views a day.

I write about all kinds of stuff, leaning toward serious (or semi-serious) subjects. Meaning of life. Current affairs/politics. Oregon land use issues. The etiquette of staring at a rose cleavage tattoo (hey, that's an semi-serious topic to me).

Now... my gripes and what I hope TypePad will do about them.

TypePad Connect (TPC) isn't ready for prime-time.
I figured that the commenting features in TypePad Connect would be an improvement over the current system, which has its flaws. After trying TPC for a week on my Church of the Churchless blog, I found that this beta release is a step backward, not forward.

Now, TypePad keeps reminding me about the "beta." Meaning, TPC is still in testing, with bugs being worked out. OK, yet TypePad is marketing TPC like crazy, urging not only TypePad subscribers to sign up for it but also people using other services (like Blogger).

I waited more than two months after the beta release before trying out TypePad Connect, figuring that the most serious problems would have been fixed by then.

Wrong.

Blog visitors couldn't read the most recent comments on posts where the comments stretched over more than one page (TypePad allows only 50 comments on a page). The sidebar on my blog wouldn't show up. Lengthy comments would be "previewed" in a small box with scroll bars that didn't look at all like the final posting. There was no way to edit a comment after it was posted, even by me.  Replying to a comment via TPC's emailed notification led me to the original post, not the comment I wanted to reply to, which I had to find on my own. Comments weren't visible to Google and other search engines. Etc.

Worst of all, my blog clearly was becoming much less stable than before. TypePad Connect was like some sort of alien presence that threatened the existence of my dearly beloved Church of the Churchless.

It felt great to uninstall TypePad Connect last night. Cleansing.

Thankfully, the reversion went smoothly. I'd copied 42 pages worth of comments that had come in during the frustrating week of dealing with TypePad Connect problems before clicking on "the get rid of TPC" button. So far, it looks like none of those comments have been lost.

That's good. But I still fault TypePad for releasing TypePad Connect when it is so flawed. Others agree, having made the same complaint on a customer service blog. For example, Rosangel Valenti said:

From information that we've seen on other blogs hosted by Typepad, this issue has been raised before by some of your customers, as far back as October of 2008. It's staggering that it's still going on now. Also unbelievable that your company dared to roll out the new software not only without warning or consultation, but still containing four-month-old problems.

TypePad needs to focus on improving its current service
For years I've been telling TypePad staff, including the head honcho, about relatively simple improvements that need to be made. After all, blogging isn't rocket science.

A blogger like me needs to be able to compose posts smoothly. He then wants blog visitors to be able to share comments easily, and learn what other commenters are saying. Both his words and those of his visitors have to be visible to Google and other search engines, so people looking for info on a subject that's been written about can find a pertinent blog post.

I've told TypePad staff that they should bow down to the Apple model each day. Apple products -- like my iPhone, iPod, and MacBook -- are aimed at letting people do what they want to do without technology being an impediment.

That is, with Apple products I'm usually not aware of software and hardware whirring away. I just do something, almost always without much fuss. With TypePad though (and especially TypePad Connect), I frequently think, "Why the heck is this happening?"

Such is a sign of bad design.

Examples: (1) Blog visitors want to read the most recent comment on a post. TypePad makes them click their way on a "more comments" link, 50 comments at a time, through page after page on heavily-commented posts. (2) Blog visitors want to read the most recent comments on all posts. No way to do that, since TypePad only shows ten comments in the sidebar and there's no way for a blogger to modify that number. (3) Blog visitors want to edit a post after they notice a typo or mistake. They have to email me with a request to make the change, since TypePad doesn't allow editing by the person who wrote a comment. (4) Blog visitors want to read one of the ten comments shown in the sidebar. Clicking on it doesn't lead to the comment, but only to the post, where they have to maneuver their way through hundreds of comments, potentially, to find the one they're looking for.

Over and over, for years, I've asked TypePad to make changes that would fix these problems. This should have been done before a brand new (and flawed) commenting system was rolled out in the form of TypePad Connect.

It's the Microsoft Windows mentality at work. When I was a Windows user, before moving to a Mac, all I wanted was a stable, easy-to-use operating system that didn't crash on me.

Instead, Microsoft would release upgrades with more fancy bells and whistles -- Vista! -- instead of getting existing software right. By contrast, I've found that with Apple products often you don't have a whole lot of choices, because Apple knows what you want to do and makes that possible in a direct manner.

(The Time Machine back-up software, to offer an example, has an extremely minimalist control panel. Apple knows that what you want to do is back up your files, not have the ability to screw things up by choosing how to back up your files.)

TypePad, emulate how Starbucks listens to customers
I've told TypePad staff that they should check out how Starbucks solicits and responds to customer suggestions on My Starbucks Idea. Very nicely done.

You know better than anyone else what you want from Starbucks. So tell us. What's your Starbucks Idea? Revolutionary or simple-we want to hear it. Share your ideas, tell us what you think of other people's ideas and join the discussion. We're here, and we're ready to make ideas happen. Let's get started.

There's a four step process:

Share. Post your Starbucks Idea - from ways we could improve to things we've never even thought of.

Vote. Check out other people's ideas and vote on the ones you like best. The community votes. The community decides.

Discuss. Talk about ideas with other customers and our Starbucks Idea Partners and help make them even better.

See. This is the proof. See which of your ideas were the most popular and watch as we take action.

Given that TypePad Connect (and TypePad in general) supposedly is about fostering a sense of bloggish community, it's sort of strange that a coffee purveyor has a better feel for how to relate to its customers.

Again, I find TypePad staff to be wonderfully responsive, open, and friendly. However, somehow this doesn't translate into needed changes being made.

Somewhere in the organization there's a blockage between hearing from subscribers about problems, and the problems being resolved. There isn't a seamless Share - Vote - Discuss - See flow between suggestion and action as there is with Starbucks.

So I keep on griping, TypePad staff keep on telling me that the issue is being worked on, nothing happens, so I keep on griping. And so we go. Not the most effective way of spending time for either the staff or me.

One problem, and its a significant one, is that active, long-term bloggers such as moi are pretty much locked-in to their blog service. The Great God Google treats me quite kindly, given my lengthy commitment to making daily wordy offerings to the blogosphere.

To shift all my posts elsewhere, thereby leading to countless "URL not found" messages: almost unthinkable.

So TypePad and me are wedded for now. We've got to make the best of our relationship, because I don't see how I can walk out the door no matter how much I feel neglected.

(On the flip side, I feel for TypePad staff. They have to deal with bloggers, who are some of the most outspoken people in the world. TypePad employees often must feel like they're herding cats who are equipped for megaphones that allow them to loudly meow, "Hey! Not this way! And I want my salmon kibble now!")

I'll end by reiterating that I like TypePad. It's an excellent blogging service. No one would go wrong signing up for it.

TypePad just needs to get its act together a bit more. It should focus on improving basic blogging features rather than rolling out flashy buggy non-improvements like TypePad Connect.

And do a better job of listening to its customers, who are fully capable of pointing in the directions the company needs to move.

Look at me, I'm a publisher!

Well, more of a publisher.

Before, my best-selling book (in the admittedly rather narrow "Greek philosophers: Plotinus" genre) had the Unlimited Publishing name and logo on the cover and title page.

Now it's just me, me, me -- in the guise of Adrasteia Publishing, which is tasty little me with an assumed business name sprinkled on top.

In the photo I'm holding a proof copy of the Adrasteia'ized "Return to the One" that arrived today from Create Space.

As I wrote about a few weeks ago, I decided to cut my ties with Unlimited Publishing, a print on demand publisher that looked attractive to me back in 2003 in part because UP didn't accept every book manuscript with a $500 check attached.

Five years later, things look different.

With Create Space I'll make more on each book sale through Amazon or wherever; I'll have more control over pricing and publishing; and I've already gotten the satisfaction of seeing "Adrasteia Publishing" become the sole name on the cover and copyright page.

Charles King of Cox-King Multimedia, my highly competent book designer, found a typeface with a cool looking "A" -- now I'm a publisher with a logo! (note the loopy connection with Return to the One)

So far I've been happy with how Create Space has treated me. Their web site's process for uploading book cover and interior files is clean and easy to understand.

This cartoon encapsulates the reason so many writers are choosing to go the publish-it-yourself route with Create Space and similar services even if they could hook up with a "real" book publisher.

On my way to Create Space publishing

In the old days, writing a book and getting it published was a crazy, frustrating, time-consuming, and often expensive proposition.

Now, much less so.

Especially if a writer comes to grips with reality (not the easiest thing to do) and gives up the fantasy of his or her work of literary art being picked up by a major publisher. Then, becoming a best seller.

The chances of that happening range between zero and next to nothing.

I know. I've had three books published. Each was better than average. None were accepted by a publisher in a traditional way.

I've become a believer in print on demand publishing -- where an author keeps as much control as possible over his book, spends a minimal amount, and accepts that online sales via Amazon, et.al. (plus his own web site) is how people will buy the book.

No, it won't be featured in a display at Borders. But it'll be available for sale anywhere in the world someone has an Internet connection.

I'm in the midst of changing how my most recent book, "Return to the One," is published. I'm canceling my agreement with Unlimited Publishing and moving to another print on demand service.

Probably Create Space. It was suggested by my book designer after I told him that I was thinking of shifting to BookSurge, another Amazon subsidiary.

Create Space is a no fee service. An author/self-publisher doesn't share a royalty with Create Space. You get what's left after subtracting the cost of printing a book and a book seller's discount (40% with Amazon, I think, but I could be wrong).

I'll earn considerably more from a sale after moving to Create Space, because I've been on a 50-50 royalty agreement with Unlimited Publishing.

Amazon is to online book selling as Microsoft is to operating systems: the big gorilla that many people love to hate. Well, personally I have much better feelings about Amazon, so I've got no problem with jumping to its Create Space service.

I suspect that Create Space books are treated a bit better on Amazon than books published via another print on demand company.

This theory is borne out by a piece by someone who, like me, moved to Create Space after having a book published elsewhere.

I remember reading an article about Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, which stated that the original name of Amazon was to be “Abracadabra”. Well I was soon about to see why. I went online and OK’d my proof at CreateSpace and as fast as you could say “Abracadabra” the Ingram/Lightning listing was gone from Amazon and replaced by the CreateSpace listing.

Poof, the listing was changed, although they left the review. They were a little overzealous with this change because they also bumped me off the site as the publisher and changed it to CreateSpace even though I was the publisher and owned the ISBN. While there is never any human contact with anyone at Amazon I complained, via email form letter on the CreateSpace website, and the publisher was corrected within a few days.

Of course I do not know this because anyone contacted me to apologize for the mistake. The computer probably couldn’t figure out which form letter response to send so it sent none. I found out by going back each day and seeing for myself.

Meanwhile, the minute I saw the listing change, I ordered another copy from Amazon just to see who printed it. I forgot to mention that the availability changed from available in 2-4 weeks to available immediately in that same split second. I was able to order with my free 2 day shipping so the book showed up not too many days after the first book I ordered.

A quick glance confirmed that the book was definitely not a Lightning produced book. In the blink of an eye, my book changed from POD non-returnable printed at Lightning Source to POD returnable printed by Book Surge. Which do you think that Amazon prefers? Should Ingram/Lightning and all the non-returnable short discount POD publishers be worried? You tell me.

After I get my book uploaded to Create Space at the end of the year I'll share how things are going. Hopefully, smoothly.

Wow! I created a web site. Macs rule!

Ever since I flew the Windows coop and embraced a Macintosh again, I've been drawn to extol the virtues of my beloved MacBook (here, here, here, and here).

And now I'm doing it again, with two exclamation points in a blog post title.

That reflects how thrilled I am to have put up a revamped BrianHines.com web site -- something I've been meaning to do for a long time, but kept putting off owing to how tough it's been for me to find easy-to-use web site creation software for a PC.

I've tried quite a few programs, such as WebEasy (doesn't really live up to its name) and FrontPage (a mediocre Microsoft offering). I could manage to get a web site up and running with them, but it sure wasn't fun.

Then I entered the magical realm of Apple, where a smile is on every computer user's face and software flowers bloom with each keystroke.

I explored the Macintosh web site creation possibilities with the aid of my reliable cyberspace guide, Google. Eventually I settled on Sandvox. Karelia software had a nice video introduction and I got to try out a demo download before buying.

Sure, I used one of their stock templates for my site. And I haven't tried to do anything fancy.

But that doesn't take away from a simple fact: I got BrianHInes.com designed and uploaded in just a few hours, enjoyably. Things go more smilingly on a Mac, for sure.

Whatever problems I encountered were of my own making, pretty much. Figuring that now I should have the site hosted by a Macintosh friendly company, rather than GoDaddy, I signed up with MacHighway.

Their support team has answered my questions promptly and competently. I got a bit confused about the process of changing my domain Nameservers to point to the new site. Tyler cleared things up for me.

I'm going to enjoy fiddling with my web site, since that's so easy to do with Sandvox. This morning I decided to add a page view counter, which already is showing "57."

A bunch of those views are mine, checking to see how many views I have. (Ooh! Make that 58!) Well, like I say on a freshly added item on the sidebar of my two blogs:

Take a look at my web site, which contains information about a subject of great interest to me: me.

Blogging is more fun with Google Docs

I like to write blog posts. What I don't like is: (1) Losing part (or all) of my brilliant musings when a word processor crashes, or the Compose Post screen of a blog hosting service decides to do something weird.

(2) Wasting time on formatting a post because the above-mentioned Compose Post editor is based on buttons that must be clicked to italicize, boldface, underline, or whatever, instead of using keystroke controls like word processors do.

A couple of days ago I decided to help get the economy back on track, and also soothe my financial crisis'ed soul, by purchasing a freshly redesigned MacBook.

I love it so much, I can't count all the ways in this post. So that'll have to wait for another day.

One of the few worries I've had about my new Macintosh relationship is the effect it'll have on my blogging. I've been writing posts in Word 2007 on a PC with Windows XP. 

There's a lot not to like about Word 2007 -- such as the new and not-improved menu system -- but one feature is marvelous. You can write fully formatted blog posts in it, then publish them with a single click (either as a draft or "live").

The only down side has been how buggy the blogging feature  has been on my computer. I haven't had problems with normal word processing. Only with blog posts does Word 2007 crash, which happens with distressing regularity.

Sometimes even after I've clicked "save," but before the saving.

So I've learned to copy into memory what I've written before I save a post, just in case Word decides this would be a good time to test my Buddha-nature by losing my carefully crafted prose. (To its credit, Word 2007 has a generally reliable crash recovery feature; that's good, considering how often I've needed it.)

The Macintosh version of Word doesn't offer this blogging feature, I'm pretty sure. Anyway, Office 2008 for the Mac has gotten such atrocious reviews, I decided to skip it and go with Apple's iWork suite.

Good move, but now I was stuck with using TypePad's Compose Editor on my new MacBook. I gave it a try last night and found it frustrating for reason (2) above. It took me much longer to write a post that way, compared to using a real word processor.

That led me to Google and a further search for some way to easily write and publish formatted blog posts. I'd already learned about the usual Macintosh suspects in this area: MarsEdit, Ecto, Qumana, and a few others.

I'm sure they're good programs. And I resonated with the opening MarsEdit sales pitch:

Browser-based interfaces are slow, clumsy, and require you to be online to use them. While your blog's web interface struggles to perform the simplest of tasks, MarsEdit uses the power of your Mac to provide an amazing blog editing experience.

Well, right now I'm online using Google Docs to write this post. I don't see that as a big downside, since I need to be online to publish to my blog and with DSL there's no penalty to being connected to the Internet (admittedly, with dial-up there usually is).

On the plus side...

-- Google Docs is free.

-- It's basically a scaled down Word, with undo and redo, plus all the other features I normally use in blogging (italics, boldface, quotation indent, insert URL, spell check, and such).

-- It saves the document automatically, and often. Nice. I've had zero glitches while writing this fairly lengthy post, but it's good to know that I wouldn't lose much if a problem occurred.

-- Publishing to a blog with Google Docs is easy (caveat below). Here's how you do it.

I ran into the caveat because TypePad, the blog service I use, isn't one of those on the Google Docs drop-down list. However, after I contacted TypePad support I learned the secret  to making Google Docs work for me. 

All another TypePad user has to do is substitute their personal info in the "Existing Blog Settings" boxes. If you have more than one blog with TypePad, be sure to include the exact name of your blog you're posting to. 

Like life, the Google Docs way of blog posting isn't perfect. So far as I know, there's no way to publish a draft. Thumbnailed photos and HTML code (needed for a YouTube video embed, for example) need to be inserted after the post is published. 

That's no big deal, if you attend to it right away to avoid making your readers wonder where the stuff is that you mention in the post. And a category also has to be inserted via a visit to TypePad.

On the whole, though, I'm happy with Google Docs. It's much easier to write a post with it than to fumble my way through TypePad's Compose Editor. The line spacing between paragraphs is a bit larger than it was in Word, but maybe there's a way to fiddle with this. [Update: well, maybe not.] Again, no big deal.

So bloggers, give it a try. I bet you'll like it as much as I do.

One million page views…so what?

Given the self-referential nature of the blogosphere, it seems obligatory for me to put up a blog post about a blog post milestone – namely, TypePad having informed me that today HinesSight passed the one million page view milestone.

Congratulations to me, from me.

However, the question to me, from me, is "so what?" A embarrassingly high proportion of those 1,000,114 page views came from people looking for photos of Paris Hilton.

So whoop-de-do, I'm serving humanity by including some photos from other web sites that got ranked high on a Google Images search for "Paris Hilton," thereby generating thousands of page views a day for a while.

Even though I called my all-time most popular post "The Tao of Paris Hilton," I have a suspicion that visitors to my blog were more interested in her physical attributes than the deep philosophical implications of her seeming vacuousness.

Still, a million page views for any reason is cool. And many of my posts lie higher on the social value scale that my Paris Hilton musings.

For example, "Corporation Compliance Recorder scam."

Since I dashed off this expose of a mailing that tries to con corporations (non-profits included) into forking over $95 to $125 for submitting annual meeting minutes that don't need submitting, I've gotten almost three hundred comments from people who are thankful that a Google search turned up my post and saved them the money.

I figure that I helped these folks alone save over $30,000. And this doesn't include all the others who learned about the scam and didn't leave a comment.

In the end, blogging isn't about numbers. It's saying what you want to say, whether or not anybody pays attention.

Three years ago, this guy estimated that of five million or so active bloggers, 100 averaged 150,000 hits daily per blog; 2,000 averaged 1,500 daily hits; and 18,000 averaged 500 daily hits.

The rest were virtually hitless. But the way I see it, how many people does it take to have a great conversation with? Answer: one.

And that person could be me. So I'm pleased to consistently get over 600 page views a day on this blog – now without much help from the Paris Hilton post.

The most satisfying emails and comments I get, though, come one at a time. Whether it's a "thank you" or "you're an idiot," I know that I've made contact with someone.

That's what blogging is all about.

Bloggers, you’ll love Word 2007

Oh, my god, I'm in love. At first blog post. I just installed Word 2007, which I bought at Amazon for a reasonable $90 (upgrade price). Right away I wanted to see if the blog publishing feature worked as promised.

It did. Appropriately, my first Word 2007 post was about Shakira's "Hips don't lie" Grammy performance last night. She's beautiful. So is Word's new blogging capability.

I write my posts in Word. I don't like to use TypePad's online editor. One glitch and all your writing can disappear. Plus, I like to have a backup of posts on my laptop.

But it's been frustrating to have to reformat the Word 2003-generated post after I copied it into the TypePad post editor. Italics, boldface, hyperlinks—all that stuff had to be manually put back in, because of some incompatibility between Word and the HTML TypePad expected (I'm vague on the technical details).

Now, though, what I write in Word is what appears on my blog. I can publish directly from Word 2007.

The setup was simple, once I figured how to get the blog post ball rolling (strangely, Word's Help wasn't much help in this regard—I discovered on my own how to click on the circle thingie in the upper left, then select "publish," followed by "blog").

Here's some set-up tips from another happy Word 2007 blogger.

This is going to change my blogging life. I'll have more time to cruise YouTube for Shakira videos, now that I don't have to fuss around so much with the TypePad text editor.

Except for photos, it seems. I had no problem inserting a photo into my post, but it was full-sized. It'd be nice to be able to use TypePad's thumbnail feature directly from Word. For now, it looks like I'll have to add photos from the online text editor, along with indenting quotes, perhaps.

"Well, let's try a test. Can I indent the left side of this fake quoted paragraph? Yes, I can. But whether it can be indented on the right side also, that is another question. But I can highlight it!"

Aside from its blogging feature, Word 2007 looks much improved in other ways. The "menus" now are tabs, laid out in a pleasing writer-friendly fashion. Microsoft does a lot of things wrong. With Word 2007, though, I give the often evil software empire a big thumbs up.

[Update later in the day: Well, here's one downside to Word 2007. If you buy it singly, like I did, you'll find that now you can't compose email messages in Word with Outlook 2003. You're confined to using the Outlook email editor, which doesn't do spell checking and some other stuff.

So, okay, I'll play the Microsoft game and fork out another $90 to get Outlook 2007, even though I didn't really want or need it. A bit frustrating, though.]

Blogs or books, it’s cool to comment

These “Pearls Before Swine” comic strips humorously address the sad state of the blogger who doesn’t get comments. I know just how the goat feels.

It’s cool to get blog comments. Or, reader reviews. Last month Boudewijn Koole of The Netherlands made my day when I noticed his lengthy Amazon review of my book about Plotinus. The ending made me smile:

Altogether this is a very valuable introduction into the original philosophy of Plotinos. Not difficult to read, nor does it reduce to meaninglessness the sometimes profound or complex questions that can be posed. On the contrary, this book is often elucidating and inspiring. Very much recommended.

Thank you, Boudewijn. We’ve connected across two continents, which is the beauty of the Internet. You also have inspired me to get off my lazy commenting/reviewing butt and do more connecting of my own.

For someone who loves to get comments on my blogs, I don’t leave many on other peoples’ postings. Usually I don’t even think about it. My mouse finger clicks on another link and, zip, I’m off to somewhere else in cyberspace, having lost the opportunity to say what touched me about the post I just read.

I vow to change my ways. Tomorrow, when I next venture into the blogosphere, I’ll leave a comment or two. I’ll remember how much I enjoyed a brief eleven words from someone who left a comment yesterday about “My grocery list system, a gift to the world.”

Darn good list. I’m a list man myself and I’m impressed.

My friends, pass on praise (or criticism) when it is deserved. Writers will love you for it. A few minutes ago I began to atone for my dearth of Amazon reader reviews by submitting a 5-star review of Linda Hess’ “The Bijak of Kabir.”

Published in 1983, mine is only the second review. I’ve read the book twice and have enjoyed it immensely. I’ve quoted from it on my Church of the Churchless weblog, yet until now never thought of sharing how much I like it.

I’m pretty sure that one day Hess will read my words. I hope she smiles.

Wenn Gott flüstert, donnert es in der Schöpfung

If you can understand the title of this post, then you should buy the recently-published German translation of my first book. Heck, even if you can’t understand it, go ahead and buy the book with the same name anyway.

Currently Amazon is selling it at a generous discount. So for $10.17 plus shipping you get 300 pages of either comprehensible or incomprehensible German. Either way, that’s a great deal.

Kudos to Matthias Schneider-Marfels, who I know as “Matt,” for having the linguistic fortitude to translate a revised version of my “God’s Whisper, Creation’s Thunder,” which has been out of print for quite a while. Matt lives in New Zealand. We’ve only communicated by email, but I feel like I’ve come to know Matt well. He’s become a friend.

Working on a complicated book project that spanned many months brought us close together. Matt wanted to make my book available to German-speaking readers. So we agreed that he’d contribute his time and energy, and I’d contribute whatever else was needed to get the book in print.

I ended up publishing it under the aegis of my own imprint, Adrasteia Publishing. It’s a print on demand title that gets produced one copy at a time through Lightning Source, an Ingram subsidiary.

One day I’ll write about the benefits of writers setting up their own “publishing house.” It’s not as good as finding a big name commercial publisher for your book, but it’s a heck of a lot better than signing up with a print on demand firm like IUniverse, XLibris, or Trafford—who are going to charge you for the privilege of keeping a good share of the profits from your book sales.

Getting this book successfully published, with the invaluable aid of ace book designer Charles King, has given me the confidence to get the English version of my shorter, simpler, and less preachy “God’s Whisper, Creation’s Thunder” back in print. In my utterly biased opinion, it still is one of the best treatments of how the old mystics and the new physics relate.

“Wenn Gott flüstert, donnert es in der Schöpfung” is available on Amazon Germany, but for reasons known only to Lightning Source, Ingram, and Amazon, at the moment the umlauts are messed up on the book’s listing. This is just one of those many things in the book distribution process that drives writers/publishers/translators crazy.

[Next day update: naturally, after writing the previous paragraph the title now looks fine. I can only wish that every time I blog about some gripe, the world will change according to my wishes.]

Of course, anyone who goes through all the trouble to write, publish, or translate a book that likely will sell only a few hundred (or, if you’re lucky, a few thousand) copies is already demonstrably crazy. So a little more post-publication craziness isn’t bothering Matt and me all that much.

I’d like to close with some profound phrase dragged out of the memory bin of my four years of high school German, but all I can remember is the beginning of the record that I was given my freshman year and listened to so many times it is forever burned into my brain cells.

Guten tag, Luisa. Wie gehts?
Sehr gut. Und dir?

(my apologies to the Germanic world for any spelling errors; 1962 was a long time ago)

What I’ve learned after 500,000 page views

Today my HinesSight blog passed the 500,000 page view mark. In celebration of this milestone I’ll reveal what people look for most in my corner of the blogosphere. Can you guess?

Three choices: (1) Cogent political analyses, (2) Profound philosophical insights, (3) Photos of sexy women.

No big surprise here. I should have said: “three choices, and the first two don’t count.”

My “The Tao of Paris Hilton” post accounted for a large share of those half a million page views. After Google Images put several of the photos in that post on the first page of a “Paris Hilton” search I began getting over 10,000 visits a day from Paris fans.

Another popular post, not surprisingly, is my “Most beautiful woman in the world” offering that features Aishwarya Rai. After a link was included on a Pakistani newspaper web site, the post became a forum for passionate debate about which country—such as India or Pakistan—has the most beauteous babes. The comments got so nasty I eventually decided to shut them down.

Other posts with at least a toe in the prurient interest water that attracted quite a bit of attention include “Shocked!—I discover my wife’s late-night Internet lusting,” “Lust and longing at the dog park,” and the innocuously titled “The clouds speak to me” (the Sky Goddess photo spoke to lots of Google Images searchers).

Every blogger wants gobs of visitors. The question becomes: to what extent are you willing to sell your blogging soul in return for page views? Do you write about high-minded important subjects that, by and large, generate a “yawn” from Internet surfers? Or do you give people what they want?

These are important questions that deserve my careful consideration. Which I’ll get to after I post a few photos.

Cool! I’m a Diogenist

I was admiring Keith’s remodel of his Word Shadows blog when I noticed that his link to HinesSight now was in a “Diogenist” category.

Wow! My heart fluttered. Diogenist sounded so cool.

At first. Then I started to wonder if it meant what I thought it did: someone who, like Diogenes, searches for an honest man or, more broadly, truth.

Maybe it’s really an insult, something bad, like misogynist. I rushed to my dictionary.

And couldn’t find it. “Diogenes,” yes. “Diogenist,” no.

Clicked on to Google. Found a mere 36 entries. None seemed to be informative.

Keith, man—I think you’ve come up with a new word. Congratulations!

In hopes that the search engines will find this post, I hereby declare that Keith, a.k.a. Imaginary Keith, a.k.a. the Garden Poet, has revealed a new word to the world: Diogenist.

Of course, he might have stolen it from someone else. In which case I take back what I just said.

In any event, a Word Generation Prize will soon arrive in Keith’s mailbox. It may look a lot like payment for a Garden Poet tree-cutting and pruning bill that I’ve had for a while, but it should be considered a literary prize.

In Imaginary Keith’s mind, at least.

Blogging fame proves easy to handle

A day after my blogger self was prominently displayed in the Salem newspaper, complete with not one but three photos of my blogging face, I’m finding it easy to handle my new fame.

I’m handling it in the same way I handle the leprechauns in our garden, since managing something non-existent doesn’t require a lot of work.

But before I realized that those who say “fame is fleeting” are vastly overstating the duration of my local blogging notoriety, I wasted quite a bit of time yesterday fretting about how to deal with the repercussions of the newspaper article.

I wanted to buy three more copies of the Friday paper. I planned out the best way to do this without looking like an egomaniac. If I went to a convenience store and plopped the papers down on the counter, a front page facing the clerk, he could glance at the photo in the upper left corner, match it up with the guy buying all the papers, and think to himself, “What an egotistical asshole.”

I thought of wearing a ski mask, but that didn’t seem like a good idea given that it’s August and I’d be walking up to a 7-Eleven cash register. So my preferred plan was to find six quarters and an isolated Statesman-Journal paper box.

However, when I went into town in the afternoon I needed to get gas and figured that I might as well venture into the station’s mini-mart and scope out the newspaper supply. “Praise Allah!” I said to myself, even though I’m not a Muslim, when I saw that (1) there were exactly three papers left in the display rack, and (2) there wasn’t a clerk visible anywhere in the store.

So I plunked $1.50 down on the counter, held the copies so my photo wasn’t showing, and walked back to my car with a “I left a buck fifty inside for the papers” to the attendants. Mission accomplished.

My next worry was how I was going to run a bunch of errands without getting engaged in lengthy conversations about the story with people who knew me. I rehearsed witty repartees to the expected “So, how are you dealing with your fifteen minutes of fame?” I practiced humble expressions in the rear-view mirror.

More wasted time. First, I had to drop off our neighborhood group’s checkbook at the treasurer’s house. He and his wife were pruning their extensive garden. I chit-chatted longer than the occasion demanded, waiting for them to bring up the subject of the blogging article, how I look younger in person than in the photo, and so on.

I waited. And waited. Either they hadn’t read the paper, or the blogging story didn’t catch their eye sufficiently to match up the featured blogger with the human presence standing right in front of them.

It turned out that this either-or hypothesis was going to be repeated in my mind quite a few times. Like, at the Animal Clinic; at Oak Tree Pharmacy; at Office Depot; and at the Courthouse Athletic Club.

Some of these were long shots for recognition, but I had high hopes for the athletic club where I’ve been a long time member, copies of the Statesman-Journal are scattered all over, and you spend quite a bit in a room with fellow exercisers, thereby allowing sufficient time for them to make a connection between the fascinating article that they had read only that morning and the graying man on the Stairmaster or Nautilus machine.

Realizing that many people are reluctant to intrude upon a celebrity’s privacy, in both of the exercise rooms I used at the athletic club I listened carefully for any hint of a whispered “Is that really him? The guy whose photo was on the front page of the paper today? I think it could be. He’s better looking in person, though.”

I listened. And listened. The either-or hypothesis made its appearance again. Sigh…

So far only my friends Patricia and Keith have commented on my blogging story glory. Patricia via a phone call, and Keith via his weblog, where he cries in his beer (or, rather, tofu) about not being featured in the story himself. Hey, like I said in my previous post, I tried to get the reporter to contact Salem bloggers Keith and Trey along with William (who did make it into the story).

Oh, yes, I should add my sister to the “Wow! That’s cool” feedback list. She just posted a comment saying, “I knew one of us would be famous! I'm glad it's you.”

Um, not quite.

Local blogger featured in Salem Statesman-Journal

Namely, me. I pulled our paper out of the box today and saw a graying, grizzled, plaintive face peering from the top left corner of the front page next to a “Local blogger likes instant feedback” caption.

It didn’t take me long to realize, “Aaaagh, that’s me! I look horrible.” Well, at least I got some instant feedback from myself. Fortunately, the larger photo in the Life Section article “Got blogs?” cast my quizzical look in a broader context and, thankfully, reduced the focus on my face.

Unfortunately, Serena (our dog) was crouched just out of sight. She had popped up just before the photographer snapped the picture, but ducked down too quickly to be included in the photo. I shall remedy this slight with a link to her oft-linked Wonder Dog portrait that was posed on the banks of the Metolius River.

Speaking of slights, when I wrote to the Statesman-Journal suggesting that they do a story on local bloggers, I said that the paper should buy us coffee at a local café and have a roundtable discussion about our blogging lives. I certainly didn’t expect that one blogger, moi, would be the central focus of an article about blogs. But reporters and editors do what they do, a fact I learned long ago when I was a publicist for a statewide health organization.

Salem blogger Keith of WordShadows and Scrine is much more literary and creative than I am. Plus he uses Expression Engine to design his weblog, which requires hugely more expertise than tinkering with a preset TypePad layout, like I do. And Salem blogger Trey of The Rambling Taoist is much more progressive and politically active than I am. He also contributes to Blue Oregon, a blog that I visit daily.

On the corrections front, I’m pretty sure that I told the reporter it was Trey who said that he, a self-professed liberal, “can post comments on a conservative blog, but he [Trey, not me] said his comments are deleted immediately.”

And a statement by the reporter that my books, “including a 2004 meditation on the Greek philosopher Plotinus, seemed to disappear as soon as they hit the shelves,” could be misinterpreted as meaning that the books were best-sellers (I only wish). Actually, I think she means that after a book is bought by a reader, the author rarely gets any feedback about what he or she wrote—which is absolutely true.

I’m pleased that my post, “American Splendor/I learn to wash lettuce,” was mentioned in the article. Google has this highly ranked in the “wash lettuce” results, but like the article says, my theme wasn’t so much about how to wash lettuce as how men and women relate in the kitchen (and elsewhere). I can report that my lettuce washing tutoring continues episodically, Laurel being ever vigilant to preserve the Right Way of Doing Things, which is a sacred wifely duty that I heartily endorse.

Up to a point.

Nice review of my book, but...

I really appreciate an Amazon reader review that's titled, "All my life I've been looking for a book like this."

But I do wish that the "suck" in the first sentence could have read "such." That is a typo, I hope.

Rejection letter humor

There's a lot of rejection letter humor on the Internet. The best of it is put there by people who reject the rejection letters rather than letting the letters drag them down into drunken despair, which is just what the bastards who sent them want.

I came across this classic today. It's probably been circulating in cyberspace for a long time, but I hadn't seen it before.

And I like this rejected writer's sardonic reply style.

I'm still waiting to hear back from Beacon Press about my query concerning my own ultimate rejection letter. I'll keep checking the mailbox.

Blogging retrospective

I’m in a look-back mood today…

The position I took in “Religious zealots run amok in Terri Schiavo case” has been proven to be absolutely correct, now that the results of Schiavo’s autopsy have been released. Schiavo was brain-dead and blind when Frist and other Christian fundamentalists were claiming that she could recognize people and follow a moving balloon with her eyes. Memo from God to Earth: Science, including neurology, is how you learn about creation—faith is a crock of shit when it comes to knowing reality. (When She speaks through me, God likes to use earthy language to get Her Point across).

I appreciated the comments I got on “Corporation Compliance Recorder scam” from people who found my post via Google and had their suspicion confirmed that sending $95 off to these rip-off artists would be a complete waste of money. Now the Oregon Department of Justice has launched a probe to determine whether the mailings violate the Unlawful Trade Practices Act. Way to go, you 280 people who complained to the Department about this scam (I was one of them).

It’s still outrageous that “Oregon’s climatologist denies global warming,” and I haven’t backed away from my view that George Taylor has fringe views on global warming that are at odds with the consensus of the scientific community. But I will admit that Taylor was right on the money with his prediction of a wet spring. His short-term forecast was good; it’s his long-range outlook on the world’s weather that continues to bother me.

Watching TV last night I saw a report about a machine that may be the solution to the anxieties I expressed in my “Oh, God, I’m shrinking!” post. In China “stretching machines” are being advertised that claim to increase a person’s height. I just noted that the claim is that it can “boost young people’s height,” but I’m willing to, um, stretch the definition of young to include 56 years old. I had been thinking about building a medieval rack torture machine similar to what Mel Gibson found himself on at the end of “Braveheart” (I’d be screaming “taller!” instead of “freedom!”), but this machine looks to be slightly less tortuous.

We’ve learned that the nearby Measure 37 claim that I wrote about in “Measure 37 hits close to our home” has been denied by a Marion County hearings officer, Ann Gasser. Gasser concluded that “It is not clear who the current owners of the subject property are and who should or should not sign the measure 37 compensation claim application form. Under current zoning regulations the subject property cannot be subdivided.” That’s good news. However, the Oregon legislature is considering Measure 37 “reform” bills such as HB 3120 that would make the state’s land use problems worse rather than better. Laurel has testified against HB 3120 and, along with 1000 Friends of Oregon, we urge others to express their opposition.

Lastly, I’ve still got my broadband hopes pinned on “WildBlue satellite internet, my backup to Lucy Liu.” It’s becoming apparent that not even a crazed band of samurai sword-wielding Yakuza would be able to convince the S.O.B.s at Qwest to extend DSL service to our area. So I’m patiently waiting for WildBlue to rescue me from my deathly slow dialup connection. WildBlue installed its first customer early this month, who unfortunately wasn’t me. They keep saying that a Salem-area dealer will be announced in June or July. Before it was the “second quarter.” They’d better not keep slipping on the date or I’ll have to sic Lucy Liu on them.

Political blogger bumper sticker quiz

Here’s a can’t-miss quiz for you. Match this blogger’s car with the political weblog that he or she contributes to. Is it (A) The Oregon Republican Party’s Journal, or (B) BlueOregon? (enlarge the photo by clicking on it to read the bumper stickers).

Answer is here.

Yes, this car belongs to Trey Smith, BlueOregon contributor who was the Socialist Party candidate for Governor in 1998 (I like Trey’s statement in the election guide under “Prior Governmental Experience: none”—to my mind that’s an excellent qualification.) Trey is someone who definitely doesn’t need to go to a How to feel free to publicly express your views workshop.

Laurel and I met Trey and his wife, Della, yesterday afternoon for some tea/lattes at a Salem coffeehouse. I’ve come to know Trey through his The Rambling Taoist weblog, but previously we’d only met in the blogosphere, not in three dimensional reality. We had a good time talking about all sorts of progressive and philosophical subjects.

When I saw “The right-wing blogger aristocracy” post on Daily Kos this morning, I recalled that Trey talked about the fact that the conservative blogs he frequents don’t allow him to post truly independent opinions. He said that they’ll let him agree with a right-wing viewpoint, or mildly disagree, but if he marshals forceful progressive arguments—especially if combined with links that support his conclusion—then his comments get deleted.

That’s precisely the point of Chris Bowers’ political blog analysis, “Aristocratic Right Wing Blogosphere Stagnating,” that was summarized in the Daily Kos post. Bowers says, “The anti-community nature of right-wing blogs has resulted in a stagnant aristocracy within the conservative blogosphere that prevents the emergence of new voices and, as a result, new reasons for people to visit conservative blogs.”

I don’t regularly visit right-wing blogs like Trey does, but recently I came across a mention of a post on the Benton County Republicans blog about the outrageous attempt by House Republicans to defy the will of Oregonians and allow counties to authorize hunting cougars with dogs and bears with bait (of course, the Benton County folks' take was that Democrats were “blocking local management of bear and cougar populations.”

I’d written about this subject myself and wanted to comment on the Benton County Republicans post. However, I found that you have to prove that you’re a registered Republican who lives in Benton County before you can leave a comment. This assures that few dissenting views will be expressed. It also assures that I won’t return to the Benton County Republicans weblog, just as Chris Bowers said, since they only are interested in preaching to the right-wing choir and don’t want to hear any other voices.

The moribund state of conservative blogging in Oregon is reflected in the above-mentioned Oregon Republican Party’s Journal, whose most-recent post is dated April 19. As several people commented on a Blue Oregon post about the site, this blog is horribly designed.

I guess they figured that since President Bush gives most of his speeches in front of a backdrop festooned with the theme of the day—such as “Making America Stronger”—having a conservative blog wallpapered with rows and rows of Oregon Republican Party symbols would be really cool.

It really gives me a headache, as appears to be the case with right-wingers also, given the blog’s death-bed status. R.I.P., Oregon Republican Party’s Journal. You won’t be missed.

PostSecret, a confessional blog

A NYTimes.com article, “Bless Me Blog, for I’ve Sinned,” pointed me to the PostSecret weblog where anonymous 4x6 confessional postcards are displayed. They’re wonderfully creative and moving.

You need to see the artwork pasted on most of the cards to get the full impact of the PostSecrets. But here’s a sampling of words:

“My older sister has tried to kill herself three (3) times. Sometimes I wish she’d succeeded.”

“I make up fantasy stories because my real life sucks. And now my fantasy life is starting to suck, too.”

“Sometimes I think that other people are reading my thoughts so I think to myself ‘stop reading my mind,’ just in case they are listening.”

“I know that sending in a stupid postcard to share a secret with a bunch of strangers won’t do a damn thing to change the daily loneliness and unhappiness in my life. And I sent this anyway.”

Here’s another article about PostSecret from The Telegraph of Calcutta, India. People from all over the world are sharing their secrets. Most of the comments at the bottom of the PostSecret page are positive, though one questions the weblog creator’s motivations.

A PostSecret traveling exhibit exists now; a stage production is in the works; a book surely will be published. But I don’t begrudge the creator, Frank, from publicizing the secrets beyond the Internet.

That’s what the people who sent in their secrets want: to not have them be secret anymore.

Blogmobile

Here's a depiction of the Blogmobile concept car, courtesy of the April 4, 2005 The New Yorker. The driver kind of looks like me. Given how much time I spend on my weblogs, my wife probably would say "It is you!"

Ultimate rejection letter

Last month I was excited to receive an ultimate rejection letter from Beacon Press. Like most writers I’m a connoisseur of rejection letters. Since I’ve received so many, I figure I might as well appreciate them.

I’d sent a copy of my book, “Return to the One,” off to Beacon Press, The University of Chicago Press, and the State University of New York Press. I told them that on Amazon it was currently the #1 best selling title about the Greek mystic philosopher Plotinus. And this was with very minimal publicity/promotion.

I candidly admitted that I’d probably been wrong to publish “Return to the One” in a POD (print on demand) fashion. As good as the book is, most reviewers won’t even consider reviewing it because it’s tainted with the dreaded POD Mark of the Beast: Unclean! It's self-published! Quick, cast this work of the literary devil into the trash!

Most rejection letters include boilerplate language like “Although your work would no doubt be of interest to many…” (U of C Press) and “Your project seems to us to be an important one…” (SUNY Press).

Gee, guys, if it’s interesting to so many and so important, why don’t you publish it?! Oh, I forgot. You’re just trying to soften the smack of the rejection letter.

Beacon Press, on the other hand, didn’t mess around with any niceties. They sent me this postcard.

Which, when I turned it over, contained this message.

So beautiful. Nothing. A marvelous rejection letter literary device. I could make up my own rejectory language:

“Mr. Hines, we have read every word of your book with great enthusiasm. Truly, you have written a masterpiece. Sadly, we consider Beacon Press unworthy to publish such a work of genius. You deserve so much better than us. We could never live with ourselves if our acceptance of ‘Return to the One’ prevented it from being published by the most prestigious book company in the world. Hopefully you won’t mind that we have forwarded your book to ________ with our highest commendations, whom we expect you’ll be hearing from soon.”

Of course, another possibility is that Beacon Press’ rejection card printer ran out of ink at an inopportune moment. And it could even be that the back of the card was intended to say, “We are very much interested in publishing your book. Please contact us immediately to discuss the terms of our generous agreement.”

I suppose I should write Beacon Press and ask them to send me a non-blank card. But I’ve gotten attached to the nothingness of what I now have. I don’t think that I’m ever going to get a more Zen rejection notice. Maybe it’s time to quit while I’m behind.

Icon envy?

If you have a weblog or web site, do you have icon envy? When your beloved cyber-creation loads in a web browser, does the address bar just show a bland generic icon next to your URL? Have you ever thought to yourself, “I’d be so much happier if I had an icon of my own?”

Until recently I answered “yes” to each of those questions. Now you likely can see (if you’ve got Firefox) that I’ve got my own HinesSight “H” favicon (favorites icon) proudly displayed. With a few fairly easy steps, you can have your own favicon just like me, CNN, and Google.

If an HTML-ignoramus such as myself can get a favicon up and showing, just about anyone can. The kind folks at Chami.com make it pretty easy. I just added a favicon to my Church of the Churchless weblog and I didn’t even need a triple latte to get me through the process.

Step 1. Come up with a image for an icon. All you need is a graphic of some sort that will be recognizable when it’s teeny-tiny. I took the easy way out and simply used the first letter of each of my weblogs: “H” and “C” Today I made a JPEG file of the Church of the Churchless “C” and saved it on my computer.

Step 2. Then, using the Chami.com tool, I browsed to that image and clicked on the “generate FavIcon.ico” button. Don’t worry if you have no idea what an “.ico” file format is. The tool takes care of that worry for you. If you’re like me, you don’t have a way of saving an image file in that format on your own, so Praise Chami.com.

Step 3. I now had a favicon.ico file that I downloaded to my desktop. I then uploaded that file to the folder on my weblog where files are kept. TypePad conveniently has a button that gives you the path to a file. I jotted down that path: http://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/files/favicon.ico

Step 4. All I had to do now was plug a little bit of HTML code somewhere into my weblog. I chose the “Welcome” section, using Method 2 described on the Chami page. The code in between the angly things, < and > (see, I really am an HTML doofus) looked like this: link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/files/favicon.ico"

And then came the big chills-up-the-spine moment (my life isn’t very exciting, so adding a favicon to my weblog is a pretty big deal, right up there with throwing caution to the winds and having two handfuls of Kettle Chips as a midnight snack inside of just one).

I clicked on the Church of the Churchless bookmark. And voila, there my “C” icon was. In Firefox, at least. I haven’t had any luck getting the favicon to show up in Internet Explorer 6, but that doesn’t break my heart. I hardly ever use IE anymore. Plus, my IE browser doesn’t even show a icon for CNN (or any other site, for that matter), piece of junk that it is.

You can validate your favicon work here. Somewhat strangely, I didn’t get a very positive validation. The validator said it couldn't recognize the HTML code and apparently just found the old generic TypePad icon. Yet every time I check, I’m able to fondly gaze upon my personalized “H” and “C” in the address bar (and in the Firefox Bookmarks list).

Go figure. The ways of the Internet are passingly strange, and I’ve spent more than an hour on a sunny late afternoon trying to unravel the strangeness. All for a 16 x 16 bunch of pixels. (Looking upon them makes me happy though, so it’s been worth it).

“Return to the One” reviewed in Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Soon after my book about the Greek mystic philosopher Plotinus was published, I sent a copy off to the Bryn Mawr Classical Review. Since I managed to write “Return to the One” without any formal education in the classics or Greek philosophy, I figured it would be cool to even have a chance of being reviewed by an entity that “publishes timely reviews of current scholarly work in the field of classical studies.”

Yesterday I decided to see if a review had been posted. My timing was excellent. A review by Dr. G.S. Bowe of Bilkent University had just appeared. You can read it here.

I’m fairly happy with the review. Applying editing techniques similar to those used in writing movie ads, I’ll be able to make good use of Dr. Bowe’s positive comments: Written in a fresh and accessible style…surprisingly sane, clear-headed, and well-written. Well, maybe I should leave out “surprisingly,” which Bowe apparently threw in because of my “idiosyncrasy of presentation” and “jarring insistence of naming all 43 sub-sections with alliterative subtitles.”

Hey! I should get extra credit for those subtitles (God is the Goal, Love is Limitless, Beauty is Beyond, and so on). You can’t believe how long it took me to find alliterations for every one of those 43 subjects. My dictionary was exceedingly well-thumbed by the time I got to the final “Vision is Veracity” chapter.

I could also quibble with some other critiques in the review. I might send off a response to the Bryn Mawr folks on a few points where I feel Dr. Bowe, well, missed the point. Most notably, he doesn’t appreciate my emphasis on looking upon Plotinus as a mystic who urges us to experience the metaphysical truths described in the Enneads, as opposed to intellectually understanding them.

Right on p. xvii, before the book even starts using regular numbers on the pages, I said: “I do believe that it is possible to know the spiritual truths that Plotinus knew, but only if we inwardly become our true selves, which will be found to be identical with Plotinus’s true self. This obviously separates my approach from most scholars, for they poke and probe Plotinus’s teachings as if they were external objects of knowledge akin to fossils excavated from an ancient riverbed, which is exactly how Plotinus says we should not consider his philosophy.”

So when Dr. Bowe laments that I fail to discuss how Plotinus’s teachings were influenced by Aristotle, Parmenides, and other philosophers, I don’t feel that I failed to be true to the heart of Plotinus’s mystical message. Plotinus doesn’t want us to think our way to wisdom, but to intuit our way to union with the One—the ultimate source of all that is good, true, and beautiful.

All in all, though, I’m pleased that Dr. Bowe took the time to read and review a book by a non-scholar. I entirely agree with him that my approach limits “the text’s usefulness to Plotinus scholarship.” I never intended that “Return to the One” be a scholarly book. It is a book aimed at those who want to really return to the One, not just think about returning.

Google God, your blessings overwhelm me

As the saying goes, “Be careful of what you wish for, since you may get it.” Previously I have prayed that the great Google God would grace me with a multitude of hits, allowing me to know that my weblog labors are bearing fruit in the garden of the blogosphere.

And now, ever since Google Images indexed some photos that I included in a “The Tao of Paris Hilton” post, my Google cup runneth over. Whereas previously daily visitors to HinesSight typically numbered in the hundreds, now my weblog statistics reveal that it is in the thousands—today, over eight thousand, most of them interested in an image of Paris and Nicole provocatively posing with a pole.

I’m happy to be providing so many people with something they want. Which, clearly, isn’t my profound musings about Greek philosophy or the other posts where I reveal how the mysteries of the universe appear to my HinesSight vision. Google and the other search engines reveal what humanity is actually interested in, not the high-minded and largely hypocritical assertions that we publicly proclaim.

“Man seeking woman for long walks on the beach at sunset.” Yeah, right.

I am not asking for the Google God to withdraw her blessings. Yet I do miss the days when I could peruse my Typepad statistics and see the full range of what led visitors to this weblog. Now I click from page to page on the referral list and observe a endless stream of “images.google.com/imgres,” the link leading to the much-desired Paris Hilton photo.

On the plus side, my sense of being connected to the international community—more precisely, the community of Paris Hilton-obsessed human beings, many of whom are female, judging from weblog comments—soars as I scan the countries the Google image search originated from: Italy, France, Spain, Great Britain, Germany, and many others.

We are one world when it comes to interest in Paris Hilton. Now I must turn my Google prayers to making the world interested more metaphysically in how to “Return to the One.”

Anxiously analyzing Amazon’s text stats

Just what I didn’t need the first “work” (using that term in a writer’s sense, extremely loosely) day after a relaxing vacation in Maui. In the course of checking on my book’s miniscule sales status, I discovered that the geniuses at Amazon.com have added some new features to their already filled-to-the-gills web site that can make an author anxious:

Readability statistics for books included in their Search Inside the Book program (where authors/publishers send Amazon a book to be scanned, after which every darn word can be searched for and sample pages perused). Plus a concordance of the 100 most frequently used words in a book. And a statistically improbable phrases feature helpfully described by Amazon in a pop-up window:

“Amazon.com's Statistically Improbable Phrases, or ‘SIPs’, show you the interesting, distinctive, or unlikely phrases that occur in the text of books in Search Inside the Book. Our computers scan the text of all books in the Search Inside program. If they find a phrase that occurs a large number of times in a particular book relative to how many times it occurs across all Search Inside books, that phrase is a SIP in that book.”

I was thrilled to see that “Return to the One” garnered five SIPS: mystic philosophy, mystic philosopher, intuitive intelligence, first emanation, inward contemplation. I would have been disappointed if there weren’t any interesting, distinctive, or unlikely phrases in my book.

I also enjoyed looking at the graphically enhanced concordance (elsewhere on the page linked above). Of the 100 most common words in a book, Amazon apparently puts the most common of the common in a larger, bolder font. So I could quickly see that my book talked a lot about soul, Plotinus, spirit, and spiritual—which is absolutely true.

It wasn’t quite as much fun to anxiously analyze the readability statistics. At first I fantasized that my score of 14.6 on the Fog Index sounded admirably low. But then I saw that 7-8 is considered ideal, and anything over 12 means the book is difficult to read. OK, I’ll admit to “Return to the One” being more or less guilty as charged.

Yet let’s see the developer of the Fog Index write a really easy to read book about one of the densest and most profound philosophers of all time. (Oops, make that “mystic philosopher”—might as well use my special Statistically Improbable Phrases as much as I can.) So I decided to check out some of the related competition, a few of the Books on Related Topics that Amazon lists on my book’s page.

Yeah, baby. Let’s go head to head with Pierre Hadot’s “Plotinus or the simplicity of vision,” which is one of the most popular (in the sense of both best-selling and easy to read) books about this Greek philosopher.

Fog Index: Hines scores 14.6 and Hadot 17.5. Yay, a point for Hines!

Flesch Index (90-100 appropriate for 5th-6th graders, 0-30 means you need a college degree to understand the book): Hines scores 51.5 and Hadot 44.0. Boo, a point for Hadot.

We’ve got a tie, one point each. It all comes down to the Flesch-Kincaid Index, a refinement of the Flesch Index that relates the score to a U.S. grade level. You would think that Hadot would win out again here, but no…

Flesch-Kincaid Index: Hines scores 11.5 and Hadot 14.2. Yay, another point for Hines! He wins 2-1! If you just made it halfway through your senior year in high school, you can still enjoy “Return to the One”—no need to plow onward into the junior year of college just to be able to understand Hadot’s book.

Plus, take a look at Amazon’s Fun Stats: with my book you get a whopping 10,324 words per dollar; with Hadot’s book you just get a measly 2,755. Where can you get 10,324 of anything for just a buck? And here you get 10,324 words of profound mystic philosophy for your $1 (to work in another SIP; by the way, Hadot only managed to come up with two SIPS, “total presence” and “our true self”; you get five in my book.

Sure, you could get your philosophy from the “Tao of Pooh” and only need a 6th grade education to understand it. But come on: the concordance shows that you’re going to read “Pooh said” over and over and over. For about $4 more you can get almost 100,000 additional words in “Return to the One” and learn about a mystic philosopher who wrote that the nature of God, the One, can’t begin to be expressed in language.

To get at the root of that paradox you’re going to have to buy the book.

Blogging about Nightline's blogging program

If you missed it, here’s a recap of last week’s Nightline program about bloggers and blogging. True to the blogging spirit, I’m working from my middle-aged memory. I didn’t take any notes while watching the program, nor do I want to take the time to review it—though it still resides on my digital video recorder.

This is my take on the program. Take it or leave it.

Bloggers, said Nightline, are wonderfully opinionated. Well, if you are on the wrong side of their opinion, then it won’t seem so wonderful. But the subjectivity of weblogs is what makes them so appealing. And, to some, dangerous. A blogger was asked if she feels that she should be subject to journalistic conventions such as having at least two sources for every significant news item. “No,” she said. “I’m not a newspaper.”

And yet she is. Nightline showed two computer screens, one with the New York Times online home page and another with a weblog home page (I’ll use BlueOregon as a nicely designed example). To compete with the New York Times newspaper you’d need many millions of dollars, printing presses, distribution channels, and lots of employees. However, anyone can become a blogger, With minimal expertise and $$$, in a few minutes you can have a weblog that can be read worldwide. And it can look just as good as the New York Times web presence.

Bloggers spoke enthusiastically about their love of blogging. How blogs are interactive, allowing readers to click on links that lead to more information about the subject, which lead to even more information, and so on ever deeper into the blogosphere. By contrast, traditional media are one-way streets where news and opinion are transmitted, but rarely permit responses by readers, viewers, or listeners.

Blogs create communities. They allow people with common interests to congregate in cyberspace, people who otherwise never would have been able to find each other. Amen. Whenever I peruse the TypePad statistics for my weblogs, I get a warm feeling as I see that someone from India, say, has used a search engine to find a post that I wrote on some esoteric subject. I realize that just a few people in the world care about my subject. But that person did. And I do. Two makes a party when it comes to weblogging.

Nightline featured a woman who was aghast that a state legislator was sponsoring a bill requiring that miscarriages be reported to a government agency. This wasn’t the main intent of the bill (which I can’t clearly remember), yet it would have been an unintended consequence of the way it was written. She fired up her weblog and began writing about the bill. Soon her posts got the attention of expecting mother’s groups and the like. Emails started flooding into the legislator’s inbox.

He withdrew the bill. And he wasn’t happy about becoming the brunt of a blogger’s righteous indignation. “Why didn’t she talk to me first?” he asked. When Nightline asked her the same question, she said, “I didn’t feel like I had to. He is a public official. The proposed bill was a public record. I have the right to express my opinions on my weblog.”

I side with the blogger, though I commiserate with the legislator. As bloggers become more visible and influential, they need to be increasingly careful that opinions are clearly separated from facts. In the blogosphere, these lines can easily become blurred. The anti-bill blogger spoke of how her original posts opposing the legislation got more and more garbled as other web sites passed on her words. Like the game where a message is whispered from ear to ear around a circle of people, errors accumulate with repetition.

All in all, though, watching the Nightline program left me standing prouder as a blogger. Blogging is helping to restore a sense of balance to media outlets that have gotten way too big, too corporate, too powerful, too unfair and unbalanced.

One of the most memorable images I remember from the program was when the moderator spoke about the above-mentioned woman pressing the “post” button on her weblog. Nightline showed a Formula 1 race and a voiceover something like, “Bloggers, start your engines.”

This is the power of weblogging, they said. One person’s opinion can become amplified into a powerful howling mass of supercharged outrage. If you’re standing on the track watching the energized blogosphere speed toward you, it can be an awesome experience.

Just ask Dan Rather.

Blogging focus of "Nightline" tonight

Bloggers and those who love them will want to watch "Nightline" tonight (ABC, 11:35 pm on our local Portland station). The scheduled subject is blogs and their effect on society. Here's an excerpt from today's Nightline email:

Tonight's piece is a fascinating one. Turns out that as John and producer Elissa Rubin were conducting interviews with bloggers, they were being blogged. The bloggers had some interesting opinions, to say the least. And as this program airs (and this e-mail is read by viewers), there's no doubt that bloggers will blog about it.

Yes, they got that right.
(See post continuation for the full Nightline email about this program).

I feel your Google pain

Burnside skateboard park blogger, via Orblogs I noticed your “Google can kiss my …” post where you complained that the Great God Google had dropped you from page 1 to page 23 on a “burnside skatepark” search.

I feel your pain, my friend. I’ve also written about how “Google hath forsaken me.” I too have wandered in the search engine wilderness, wondering if I ever would be found again.

Hearing of my difficult times, several Oregon bloggers took pity on my poor weblogged soul and linked my site to theirs. Eventually I returned to Google’s good graces, though the reason for my temporary exile seems different from yours. Still, though the ways of Google are deeply mysterious, we do know that links are loved.

Clearly, it is an affront to all that is good and Googley to have a blog called Burnside Skatepark so far down in the "burnside skatepark" search engine rankings. I hope this mention helps. Maybe some other bloggers will similarly give your blog a Google charge.

Skate on. At the end of the day, Google (and everything else in the world) will do what it has to do and you’ll do what you have to do. That’s the only way for you, or me, to stay sane.

I'm 56 years old and have never skateboarded. But some 46 years ago I used to attach roller skates to my shoes and zip around our flat concrete California carport. Different times; a lot different technology; hugely different topology.

Majnun, madness, and blog writing

Bloggers want to know that people read what they write. I’ve followed with interest Betsy’s (“My Whim is Law”) passionate call for comments on her posts, and Michael’s (“Michael J. Totten”) desire to have an accurate count of how many visits are made to his blog.

I too am happiest when I am noticed. Every morning I peruse the daily statistics TypePad keeps on my two weblogs, my spirits rising when a post reaps lots of clicks and falling when the world fails to beat a path to my HinesSight and Church of the Churchless doors.

And yet…the madness of blog writing cuts two ways. There is the lesser madness (as in “angry”) of not getting the reader responses that you want. Then there is the greater madness (as in “crazy”) of not caring a whit about how anyone responds to what you’re saying.

I wish I had more of the latter madness, and less of the former. What I love most about blogs is coming across a post that is written from the heart: raw, open, honest, unfiltered. This sort of writing flows from a passion to speak, not to be heard.

I’ve only taken one writing workshop in my life. I don’t remember a thing about it except a question I asked the workshop leader while we were eating lunch together: “How do you decide what to write about?” She looked at me as if the question was so ridiculously easy to answer, I was a fool for asking it: “Why, you write about what you feel passion for.” End of discussion.

“The Story of Layla and Majnun” by Nizami is the tale of a classic Persian love story dating from the seventh century and retold many times in various forms. I often think about Majnun when I click the “post” button and send something I’ve written off into the blogosphere.

There are many twists and turns in the telling of the star-crossed love between Majnun and Layla. They come together, and then are parted. When Majnun is unable to be with Layla, he wanders around the wilderness composing love songs to her:

Desperately longing to speak to Layla, but unable to reach her, he engaged the wind as his messenger, and many were the verses he sent to her. The wind obligingly carried his lines away, but response there was none. Bitter is the wine of lonely love, yet, if sometimes in his grief Majnun doubted Layla, his own passion did not abate. So he went on singing.

Sequestered, Layla doesn’t hear him directly, and can’t speak to him directly. But Nizami tells us:

Yet her lover’s voice reached her. Was he not a poet? No tent curtain was woven so closely as to keep out his poems. Every child from the bazaar was singing his verses; every passer-by was humming one of his love-songs, bringing Layla a message from her beloved, whether he knew it or not.

The Internet always has existed, though only recently in electronic form. Passionate voices from the heart will be communicated by a network of people who pass them on; no power can stop them. It isn’t necessary to force the hearing; simply speaking will suffice.

Layla secretly collects Majnun’s songs, memorizes them, and composes her answers. She writes them down on little scraps of paper and entrusts them to the wind—the ancient equivalent of the info-breezes that blow today through the atmosphere of cyberspace.

It happened often that someone found one of these little papers, and guessed the hidden meaning, realizing for whom they were intended….And true enough, there was no veil which could hide his beloved from Majnun. He answered at once, in verse, and whoever received the message saw to it that Layla should hear it at once. Thus many a melody passed to and fro between the two nightingales, drunk with their passion.

Whenever I hear from someone who comments on, or expresses appreciation for, a scrap of prose that I released into the blogosphere, I feel good. But I also feel good just from the releasing itself, whether or not I learn that the message has been received.

Such is the love of writing: when requited, it is wonderful; yet even when unrequited, it is still as strong.

Laurel gets published

“I’m at LifeSource and I can’t believe it!” So began Laurel’s cell phone call to me this afternoon. I immediately thought that, for the second week in a row, our regular “save us a loaf” order for Alpine Bakery’s 2 Seed Sourdough Whole Wheat bread hadn’t come in (great bread, by the way).

But no, it was good news. Laurel had picked up the January issue of Salem Monthly from a stand outside of the store and her “Religion Should Unite, Not Divide” article had been published! This was a surprise, as the Salem Monthly folks had never responded after Laurel emailed in the article, so we assumed that the article had been rejected.

It’s fun to see your name in print, so I could share in Laurel’s excitement—especially since my name also got in at the end, along with a plug for my Church of the Churchless weblog. The title of her piece was changed to “Fearing Fundamentalism” and several paragraphs got cut, but such is par for the writer’s course.

Salem Monthly is on its way to becoming a valuable Willamette Week-lite countercultural asset for our overly staid community. Congratulations to the paper’s staff, plus whoever redesigned their web site, which is much improved. I found Laurel’s article without any trouble using the site search engine (though the unformatted format leaves something to be desired: paragraphs).

Speaking of search engines, I got the Google bug yesterday morning and managed to figure out how to install a search capability for HinesSight. Now, I realize that any HTML competent person reading this would have been able to get a Google search capability up and running in a few minutes. For HTML challenged me, it was much longer.

Yet when I finally got the search box in the left column to more or less fit in 200 pixels, I felt as excited as Laurel was today. “I’m searching my own weblog and I can’t believe it!”

Wanting to be prepared with a response in case my daughter thought of this, my first two searches were on “Celeste” (23 relevant results) and “Serena” (56 relevant results). And my response is: This doesn’t mean that I love our dog twice as much as I love you, my daughter. Serena simply lives with us, and you don’t, so she gets more press.

But when you and Patrick have your first child (which, gosh, I guess would be my first grandchild—but don’t let this fact put any pressure on you) I guarantee that your HinesSight Google ranking will go way up.

I’m losing all sense of proportion

While clearing blackberries today with my new best friend, a cordless chainsaw, I thought about how I’m losing all sense of proportion.

Thank heavens. I just hope I can keep going until every last bit of proportionality is lost. I feel like I’m halfway there, but the fact that my mind can spit out an expression like “halfway” shows how far I have to go.

This afternoon I took a break from the blackberries to eat some lunch and get the mail. A letter had come from a book reviewer to whom I had written a plaintive query: “Why haven’t you reviewed ‘Return to the One’ when it is so obviously an important book that your readers should know about?”

He told me that his editor wants him “to keep his column confined to basically ‘general audience’ books” and that he wouldn’t be reviewing my book. I spent a few minutes rehearsing eloquent counter-arguments until I realized that I’d never talk with this reviewer, nor his editor.

If they don’t think there is an audience for one of the best-written books about one of the most important Western mystic philosophers, to hell with them. And to hell with all of the other reviewers who have ignored “Return to the One” so far. That’s the attitude I took with me as I returned to my blackberry labors.

Ever since Christmas, when I got the chainsaw as a gift from myself, I’ve been spending a lot of time clearing blackberry brambles. There’s a lot of other things I could be doing, and indeed should be doing, but I’ve been ignoring them. I like getting dirty (and bloody). I like freeing willows, ferns, and other oppressed vegetation from their blackberry prisons.

As it was getting dark today I finished clearing this rotting stump from a tangle of vines. I felt really good. I like to imagine that the ferns felt good too.

It can take hours to clear a small blackberry-infested area on our newly-acquired five acres. I have no idea what the cost-benefit ratio is of what I’m doing. I don’t think there is such a ratio. What is the worth of revealing a marvelous mossy log that we will enjoy looking at every time we walk by?

I don't know. Nature makes me lose all sense of proportion. When I’m pulling blackberry vines off of a tree, at that moment it strikes me as the most important thing in the world to do. And so it is.

Often I’m embarrassed to tell the truth when people ask me, “How long did it take you to write your book?” I mumble something like, “Oh, a few years. It was a lot of work.” For some reason I don’t want them to know how much time I put into the book, and how little I’ve gotten back—in terms of money, sales, recognition, that is.

I looked in my thick “Return to the One” correspondence file just now to remind myself of when I started pondering Plotinus. It was June 1996. Eight years from vague idea to concrete published reality. I didn’t work full-time on the book, but my labors deserve a grander description than “a lot of work.” Words fail me. Let’s just say, “It was more work than you can imagine.”

So, today I’m clearing blackberries and thinking about what I put into the book and what I’ve gotten out of it. Input: eight years, thousands of dollars, dozens of manuscript drafts written and rewritten, dozens of scholarly books read and analyzed. Output: a few hundred books sold, a few obscure reviews published.

And would I do it all over again? Of course. Those “inputs” and “outputs” are bullshit. They don’t begin to describe what I put into the book and what I’ve gotten out of it. Even more: really, there isn’t any difference between the two. Input, output. Cost, benefit. Cause, effect.

I have no idea where one begins and the other ends.

Somewhere in the midst of those crazy, unproportioned eight years I made a vow. To Plotinus, and to me. To a long-dead Greek philosopher and to a still-living Oregon writer. I vowed that I would write the best, the truest, the clearest book about Plotinus’s teachings that I could.

If other people liked it, fine. But I cared a lot more about whether Plotinus liked it. And whether I liked it. I’m not sure about Plotinus; I am sure about me. Eight years of work, two readers to please in the end. The work and the pleasing—they all blend together. There’s no way to tell how proportional something is when you can’t tell one side from the other.

I took a photo of my blackberry clearing area today. The setting sun was behind me. I could see a shadow of me taking a photo of my shadow. It struck me that I’m as unsubstantial as that one-dimensional Brian projection. Fifty years, five years, five months, five days, five minutes, or whenever from now the blackberry clearer is going to be no more.

Where is the proportionality in that? I’ve spend a lifetime working on being me, and then…what? The known of my life bears no proportion to the unknown of my afterlife.

Compared to that (there I go again, still trying to hold onto proportion), it doesn’t matter whether I’m writing a book or clearing blackberries. Whether anyone reads the book or if the blackberries grow back. Whether what I’m saying right now makes sense to anybody else or if it sounds like gibberish.

There’s freedom in losing all sense of proportion. Maybe the only real freedom.

Collected Christmas Letters

[Note: all our Christmas letters, 1995 to 2008, are available below. I update this post annually with the newest creation.]

“A man’s soul is revealed through his Christmas letters,” it has been said (by me, just now). So I’ve decided to express my essential self this holiday season not by going downtown and volunteering at a soup kitchen, but by sitting at my laptop and converting my past holiday missives into PDF files that can be admired by the world. Or, at least, the few people who find them on this weblog.

Previously these Collected Christmas Letters of Brian Hines resided on my website, where, as I wrote about recently, they took a significant dive in search engine rankings after I fiddled with the content of a page. “What profiteth a man if his works are not looked on with favor by the great god Google?” I pondered. “Noneth at all,” came the reply from the divinity that I serve with such devotion—namely, my ego.

Thus I was led to pour the wine of my annual Brian, Laurel, and Serena (a.k.a. "The Wonder Dog") news summary into a new PDF bottle for easier reading, and to post these files on HinesSight where, hopefully, they will be more visible to those who might wish to study my oeuvre. I’ve reduced the size of some photos for a quicker download by those who, like me, have not yet been blessed with a broadband connection. To say what barely needs to be said, “get Acrobat Reader if you don’t have it already."

In the same way as the soul’s essence defies description, any attempt to summarize the theme of each wonderfully amusing and wise Christmas Letter in a few words is doomed to failure. Nonetheless, I have tried.

2008 Christmas Letter. We get into the holiday spirit with our usual fear and trembling. Turning 60, Brian notes his increasing resemblance to Willie Nelson. And his passionate love affair with a classy lady called "Mac."
Download 2008 Christmas Letter

2007 Christmas Letter. The birth of my granddaughter heals old fatherly scars (like paying out of state tuition so my daughter could win a "Best Party'er" award). A TV news screen shot adds...something to the letter. Our dog looks good, though.
Download 2007_christmas_letter.pdf

2006 Christmas Letter  Brian ponders his incipient grandfatherness, a scary prospect. We also speak of dog walking, colonoscopies, Tango, land use activism, and why blogging is better than book writing.
Download 2006_christmas_letter.pdf

2005 Christmas Letter  It finally hits us: We're getting old! The ramifications of this astounding discovery are explored. Photos of us are bravely shared, along with images of a headless dog and a disturbingly youthful-looking daughter/son-in-law.
Download christmas_letter_2005.pdf (778.0K)

2004 Christmas Letter  We found a new realm, Hinesland, having made a post-November 2 decision that a psychic secession from the policies of the USA is called for.
Download Christmas Letter 2004.pdf (15.7K)

2003 Christmas Letter  Ponderings about the nature of time and the purpose of earthly existence are stimulated by a mention of changing the sheets.
Download Christmas Letter 2003.pdf (13.9K)

2002 Christmas Letter  Our EMOTE system is used to Express Moral Outrage Trenchantly and Entertainingly.
Download Christmas Letter 2002.pdf (191.1K)

2001 Christmas Letter  Serena the Wonder Dog enters our life and naturally becomes the centerpiece of this year’s message.
Download Christmas Letter 2001.pdf (144.0K)

2000 Christmas Letter  Locked-up in the basement by Laurel until I finish the letter, writer’s block gets eliminated by hunger, thirst, and rat bites.
Download Christmas Letter 2000.pdf (14.1K)

1999 Christmas Letter  Laurel turns 50, a birthday-gift digital camera captures us and our new landscaping, and Tasha the Psycho Dog looks unnaturally peaceful.
Download Christmas Letter 1999.pdf (186.4K)

1998 Christmas Letter  Depression, terror, joy, renewal, and relief get crammed into two scintillating pages.
Download Christmas Letter 1998.pdf (22.1K)

1997 Christmas Letter  The “Adam” comic strip features an excerpt from my 1996 Christmas Letter. Nobody notices. Fifteen minutes of fame shrink to nanoseconds.
Download Christmas Letter 1997.pdf (54.0K)

1996 Christmas Letter  Much to be thankful for: no lawsuits; no need to cope with adulation, fame, and fortune; no lack of pantry room to store supplements.
Download Christmas Letter 1996.pdf (12.2K)

1995 Christmas Letter  All about angels who spark up sex lives, book pyramid schemes, menopause, a pricey intimate companion, and my daughter’s new love.
Download Christmas Letter 1995.pdf (11.8K)

The mysteries of Google ranking

How Google ranks web pages in a subject of great interest to those who care about such things. Unless someone is completely ego-less (which I’m certainly not), this includes most people who desire that others see what they put on the web. So attempts to fathom Google’s mysterious page-ranking methods abound. Here’s an example.

Today I found something interesting. I’d be interested to hear from anyone with more knowledge in this area of Googleology about whether my experience truly reflects a Google Law of Ranking. Is my conclusion in this post correct, that changing the wording of a Google excerpt that appears in a search result can be dangerous to the health of your ranking?

As I wrote about yesterday, my collected Christmas letters have been on my www.brianhines.com web site for several years. Periodically my ego would lead me to check on how my Christmas letter page fared in the “Christmas letters” Google search ranking. I noted that it gradually ascended as time passed, seemingly not so much because of links to the page, but mainly from its stability and longevity.

Then I became Google-greedy a few weeks ago. I saw that the page excerpt which appeared on Google was rather bland. So I added a few flowery (and entirely accurate) adjectives so that the excerpt would read: “the wonderfully amusing and wise collected Christmas letters….”

Is it possible that Google punishes displays of ego? No, that can’t be true, or you wouldn’t see what you do when you type a single “p” in the beta Google Suggest search box.

I thought this, though, when I saw today that my beloved collected Christmas letters page had plummeted in the Google page rankings after the revised page had been found and indexed. Google didn’t like my adjectives! Or, more likely, Google didn’t like that the key words on this page had changed.

So on the one hand Google is known to reward web page stability. But on the other hand Google seems to punish certain types of changes. Go figure. Google giveth and Google taketh away.

I’ve read that Google likes weblogs because they tend to have numerous links and are updated frequently. I certainly have found, as other bloggers have noted, that a simple weblog post on some subject will quickly become a Google favorite. For example, I was pleased to find today that the #1 result of a search for (Salem) “Mayor Janet Taylor” turns up a recent ranting by yours truly about Salem City Council shenanigans.

I love Google because it is so powerful, wise, and mysterious. Such a being deserves to be worshipped. And I do.

I just wish I could better understand what pleases you, Almighty Google, so that I could serve you better. Not selflessly, of course, but so you can reward me and elevate my writings above less deserving acolytes.

Bill Long, a friendly reviewer

Yesterday I was pleased to have Bill Long tell me that he had posted a review of my book about Plotinus, “Return to the One,” on his web site. Bill is a friend, so I sort of expected a friendly review. But Bill also is a most straightforward and honest guy, so the “sort of” was a necessary qualifier.

Bottom line: Bill liked my book, though he has some reservations about what he considers Plotinus’ excessively abstract approach to spirituality. Bill is an ordained minister, an attorney, and much more besides. He has as much capacity for abstract thought as anyone I’ve ever met, which should tell you that Plotinus is way out there.

And he certainly is. I like how Plotinus advises us to strip away everything physical and personal in order to reach what is metaphysical and universal. But I’ve been wrestling with this stripping process during almost thirty-five years of daily meditation. I’m convinced that Plotinus’ via negativa (negative way) teachings are the most likely means by which any non-material reality can be known. Others can validly disagree.

But enough about me and my book. Let’s talk about Bill. I encourage you to visit his web site and browse around the many and varied writings. Bill’s “Latest News” section on the left side of the page reflects the scope of his interests and activities. For example, this year Bill took second place in the National Senior Spelling Bee, for which he got a trophy.

This stimulated him to write a erudite essay on the root meaning of the word “trophy,” something I doubt most trophy winners do. Probably the best compliment I can give Bill is that he is one of a very few people who make me think, when I’m with them, “I may not be the smartest person in this room” (also, not the most humble person). If you read Bill’s abbreviated autobiography, you’ll probably agree that “may not be” should be replaced with “definitely am not” (Bill also has written a longer autobiography.)

“A Hard-Fought Hope: Journeying with Job Through Mystery” is Bill’s latest book. I’m planning to return the favor and review it soon. I don’t know much about the Bible, and Bill does know a lot about Plotinus and Greek philosophy, so this isn’t exactly a symmetrical reviewing exchange. But I’ve suffered, as we all have, which I guess makes me qualified to discuss a book about the meaning of suffering.

Bill notes in his review of my book that we are both members of a monthly “Salon” discussion group here in Salem. This is how I’ve gotten to know Bill, through the group’s always-stimulating three hour meetings in member’s homes where we try to rekindle the art of serious (and not so serious) conversation.

I like how Bill often is unpredictable in his comments, whereas most of the rest of us tend to repeat previously stated positions. He also is wonderfully open to criticism, as befits a scholar. The group met last night. We were talking about gay rights and how this issue affected the presidential election. Bill said “A lot of people think what I’m about to tell you is crazy.”

That’s a nice rhetorical attention-getter. I perked up. Craziness is interesting! Bill went on to say how he thinks a lot of men in the Red states have been in the armed forces, where you spend most of your time with other men—often in intimate settings, such as a barracks. Many men in these situations have sexual thoughts about other men. They may not have acted on the thoughts, but they still had them.

These repressed homosexual inclinations lead to homophobia. And thus to voting against gay marriage. So the right-wing frenzy to turn out and vote for the anti-gay marriage initiatives, which helped Bush win reelection, can be traced to the veterans in the Red states.

When Bill was finished explaining his thesis he sat back and waited for some reactions. I immediately said, “You’re crazy!” He smiled. I like it when you can tell a friend he’s crazy, and that’s the reaction you get. Next time we meet I’ll try telling Bill, “You’re absolutely right.” Knowing Bill, I bet he won’t smile as much. He likes a good argument, as do I. That’s what friends are for—to smilingly argue with and to smilingly agree with.

“Science, Spirit, and the Wisdom of Not-Knowing”

When is it wiser to not know something? What distinguishes scientific knowledge from spiritual knowledge? Could I cram an Oscar Wilde quotation into the essay right off the bat? These are some of the questions that I pondered when I began to work on “Science, Spirit, and the Wisdom of Not-Knowing” some years ago.
Download science_spirit_and_the_wisdom_of_notknowing.pdf

It is 24 pages long, so takes a little while to download on a slow connection (you know the mantra that accompanies PDF files: “get the free Acrobat Reader if you don’t have it already”).

This essay is, like so many of my writings, a masterpiece of intellectual brilliance, spiritual inspiration, and crisp writing. Sadly, the essay also is, like so many of my writings, virtually unknown to the world outside of my own cranium.

I submitted it to “Sacred Web: A Journal of Tradition of Modernity” after the editor of this journal asked me to write a piece on the evils of scientism—the cocky attitude of modern science that it has all the answers. The editor had read my first book, “God’s Whisper, Creation’s Thunder,” liked it, and wanted me to put science in its place again.

The problem was, “Sacred Web” is a promoter of the “Traditional” metaphysical perspective that the editor describes here (scroll down the page to find the editorial). Frithjof Schuon and Seyyed Hossein Nasr are some of the noted writers and thinkers in Traditionalism. I had to familiarize myself with them before I could write the essay.

And the more I learned about Traditionalism, the more I became wary of this approach to religion and spirituality (the intellectually voracious can read an extensive critique by a Muslim here; I agree with his basic points about Traditionalism, but disagree that Islam is the one true religion). For example, Traditionalists have a strange fondness for medieval times, when the Church ruled every aspect of society.

Since Traditionalism has a close connection to Sufism, and thus to Islam, any philosophy that longs for the good old days when fundamentalist religion ruled the cultural roost has to be looked at with a wary eye after 9/11/2001. Especially after 11/2/2004, because the American religious right would exchange hearty high-fives with most of the tenets of Traditionalism—leaving aside the minor detail of whether Islam or Christianity is the traditional religion that we bow down to.

Anyway, the essay wasn’t at all what “Sacred Web” wanted, as I ended up being much more supportive of science than the editor had anticipated. That was rejection #1. I then sent a shorter version of the essay off to “Science and Spirit” magazine, figuring that my title was right up their alley. That was rejection #2.

So now I say, screw this one at a time rejection business, I’ll put the piece up on the Internet for everyone in the whole world to ignore simultaneously. Or not, depending on the whims of Google, Google-searchers, and HinesSight readers. It’s fairly serious, because I had to write it in a quasi scholarly journal style. But it also will be of interest to anyone interested in the via negativa approach to spirituality—emptying your consciousness of what isn’t real so what remains is.

Why did I decide to put it up today after years of languishing on a hard disk? OK, I’ll admit it: I just bought a $20 program that makes PDF files, and I had to try it out.

If a PDF creator has been missing in your life, check out Tracker Software’s free trials. I got the “Lite” version. You just click “print” in Word, choose the virtual PDF “printer,” and, voila, a PDF file is produced. Real simple, real slick. There might be better cheap/free PDF creation software, but so far I like this one.

Ranting reaps a review

Proving either that ranting results in a rapid response from the cosmos, or, more likely, that magical thinking is alive and well in my twisted mind, after yesterday’s posting I was pleased to find an email from the Radical Academy waiting for me when I turned on my computer this morning. My book had been reviewed!

My fingers were trembling slightly as I clicked on the link to Dr. Jonathan Dolhenty’s review. For while I have been eager to have “Return to the One” reviewed, naturally I was envisioning positivity at the end of the Review Rainbow, not negativity. Thankfully, a quick read through Dr. Dolhenty’s thoughtful analysis of my book about Plotinus allayed my anxieties.

He ends with these words: I highly recommend "Return to the One" to all those interested in the philosophy of Plotinus, the general history of Western philosophy, religious philosophy, or mystical philosophy. The subject is interesting and important and Brian Hines' prose is crisp, concise, and easily understood.

Well, I may have to revise my potential (and so far utterly unrealized) sales projections. As noted in the posting below, I’ve been considering that this book would appeal to enthusiasts of mysticism and Greek Philosophy. But, hey, if we open the door to “the general history of Western philosophy” and “religious philosophy,” a lot more readers could enter in.

The Radical Academy is an interesting website. On the home page it says, We discuss traditional philosophical, moral, and religious questions; contemporary political, social, and cultural problems and policies; current scientific and technological issues and speculations; challenges to the "conventional" wisdom, "popular" ideologies, and "accepted" paradigms of our culture; and the application of commonsense realistic principles to all human affairs.

Dr. Dolhenty lives in Port Orford, so the Radical Academy has Oregon roots. He is President and Webmaster of the Academy and its parent organization, the Center for Applied Philosophy.

A lot of people would consider a Center for Applied Philosophy about as useless an enterprise as you could think of, especially since it has a significant emphasis on classic Western philosophers. And a lot of people would be mistaken.

I’ve been re-reading what Thoreau has to say on this subject in his “Reading” chapter in Walden. Maybe one day the New Age Retailer reviewer who declined to write a review of my book because it was “not relevant to today’s issues” will read Walden’s words and change his or her mind:

The oldest Egyptian or Hindoo philosopher raised a corner of the veil from the statue of the divinity; and still the trembling robe remains raised, and I gaze upon as fresh a glory as he did, because it was I in him that was then so bold, and it is he in me that now reviews the vision. No dust has settled on that robe; no time has elapsed since that divinity was revealed. That time which we really improve, or which is improvable, is neither past, present, nor future.

…I aspire to be acquainted with wiser men than this our Concord soil has produced, whose names are hardly known here. Or shall I hear the name of Plato and never read his book? As if Plato were my townsman and I never saw him, --my next neighbor and I never heard him speak or attended to the wisdom of his words. But how actually is it? His Dialogues, which contain what was immortal in him, lie on the next shelf, and yet I never read them. We are under-bred and low-lived and illiterate.

…How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. The book exists for us perchance which will explain our miracles and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhat uttered. These same questions that disturb and puzzle and confound us have in their turn occurred to all the wise men; not one has been omitted; and each has answered them, according to his ability, by his words and his life.

Since “Return to the One” was published I’ve been told by several people, “I’ve started your book, but I haven’t been able to get past the opening chapters. It’s heavy.” Well, yes, it is. And also exceedingly light if you allow yourself to soar with Plotinus’s spiritual vision. At the risk of sounding like George W. Bush, I’ll say that “Reading a classic philosopher is hard work. You have to be steadfast.”

Thoreau: To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.

I get an exclusive interview with myself

It’s been three months since my non-fiction book about Plotinus, a 3rd century Greek philosopher, was published. So I thought I’d catch up with myself and provide an exclusive update to my HinesSight weblog readership about what is happening with “Return to the One.” I found Brian outside, enjoying an unusually warm October Oregon day on his deck.

Me: Thanks for taking the time for this interview.

Brian: No problem. I’ve managed to fit you in between reading the Oregonian sports page and taking my Sunday afternoon nap. Always got time for someone I’m so close to and admire so much. Fire away.

Me: Well, let’s start with how book sales are going. Are they meeting your expectations?

Brian: I’ll put it this way. “Return to the One” is a wonderfully-written, extensively-researched, skillfully-edited book about a philosopher who is recognized as one of the greatest mystics and metaphysical thinkers in Western history. My book is inspiring, profound, and easier to read than any other book about Plotinus. It describes a highly persuasive, scientifically compatible, non-religious system that is as close to a universal spirituality as you’ll find anywhere.

Me: So, book sales must be…

Brian: Absolutely awful, naturally. The book is staying on the downhill side of Amazon’s million ranking, but not by much. Embarrassingly, according to Amazon my out-of-print book, “God’s Whisper, Creation’s Thunder,” is selling better than “Return to the One.” And I note that Mitch Albom’s “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” is #24, while my book is, well, it’s too depressing to say. That’s one difference between the Albom book and my book. Another difference is that I can pretty much guarantee that none of us really is going to meet five people in heaven, while I am quite confident that we are indeed going to encounter the One after death, because the One is what is really real.

Me: Are you surprised by how poorly your book is selling?

Brian: No. As I say in the book, most people don’t want to know the truth about what lies beyond the world that we know now. They want to remain with their own comfortable beliefs about what happens after death, what “heaven” and “God” are like, all that stuff. So religious writings that reinforce existing beliefs naturally are going to be more popular than mystical writings that say, “You’ve got to find out the truth for yourself.”

My intuitive pre-publication projection was that maybe 5% of readers are interested in mysticism, and maybe 1% in Greek philosophy. Since my book is billed on the back cover as “Greek Philosophy/Mysticism,” I multiplied 100 million potential readers by 5% and got 5 million. Then I multiplied 5 million by 1% and got 50,000 possible sales to aficionados of mysticism and Greek philosophy. But somewhere along the mathematical line I must have omitted a zero multiplicative term, because zero is much closer to actual sales than 50,000.

Me: How much publicity has the book gotten? Maybe that is the problem.

Brian: “Maybe”? For sure. The publisher and I have sent pre-and-post publication copies out to lots of reviewers. So far, nada, nothing. I do feel, however, that I’m able to track the review copies through used bookstores that have “Return to the One” for sale. For example, if I send a book to a reviewer with an address on Broadway in New York City, a few weeks later a used book will pop up for sale—guess where!—at a bookstore near Broadway in New York. I like to fantasize that the clerk from the New York Times Book Review glances at my book before she plops it down on the store’s used book buying desk and says to herself, “This looks pretty interesting.”

Me: It doesn’t sound like reviewers have been very kind to you.

Brian: They haven’t been kind, and they haven’t been unkind. The nastiest thing about book reviewers is that often you don’t even get a rejection letter. They just ignore you, which is the cruelest cut of all. I did hear back from the “New Age Retailer” folks, though. They said in an email: “This is to let you know the reviewer who read ‘Return to the One’ by Brian Hines decided not to review the book. He found the book a bit dry, not relevant to today's issues. I regret to say we will not publish a review on this title.” I loved the “not relevant to today’s issues” comment. Hey! Understanding the nature of reality is relevant to today’s issues, New Age Retailer!

Me: You seem bitter. Does it bother you that reviewers aren’t giving your book the attention you feel it deserves?

Brian: No, not exactly. It bothers me that reviewers and publishers didn’t give my book the attention it deserved. If I had been able to get “Return to the One” published by a more mainstream publisher, maybe my sales wouldn’t be languishing. But I’m not alone in having such a “are all you guys idiots?” attitude toward book publishers. A friend recently turned me on to a great web site by Ashland author Gerard Jones. It’s amazing. And often hilarious. He includes actual email correspondence between he and countless agents and publishers. This is one of the publisher pages. Scroll down and you’ll have some good laughs, especially if you’re a writer. Take a look at his agent pages and you’ll learn why it’s so important for a writer to have a good vocabulary: you need to have a wide variety of swear words at your command to be able to respond appropriately to the fools who, sadly, so often end up evaluating book proposals at publishing houses.

Well, it’s almost nap time.

Me: OK. Let’s end with a quick peek at your next book project.

Brian: Given my experience so far with “Return to the One” I’m strongly leaning toward something with more popular appeal. “The Five Pets You Will Meet in Heaven” is my working title. It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

Bumper sticker wisdom

Here’s some bumper sticker/wooden sign wisdom that I picked up in several artsy-crafty Sisters stores yesterday:

“My greatest fear is that there is no PMS, and this is my personality.”

“If life were logical, men would ride side-saddle.”

“Isn’t a smoking area in a restaurant like a peeing area in a swimming pool?”

“My wife keeps saying I never listen to her…or something like that.”

“If I want to hear the pitter-patter of little feet, I’ll put shoes on my dog.”

I started paying more attention to this pithy literary genre because I was looking for a way to entertain myself while Laurel pawed through seemingly endless bins of prints, searching for some artwork that we needed in our house for some reason that never quite registered on me (guess I should have bought #4 above.)

So I’d get out my always-handy notepad and pen and jot down sayings that struck me, figuring that this was more courteous and less likely to result in annoyed looks from the store owner than taking a flash photo of the bumper sticker or wooden sign whose message I wanted to remember but didn’t want to buy.

Now I have a shopping purpose in life, somewhat comparable but much less intense than Laurel’s quest for the ultimate pair of dichroic glass earrings. I shall continue accumulating the best short sayings I see until I have several hundred. Then I will publish them in a Best Bumper Stickers book, sit back, and wait for several hundred copyright infringement complaints to flow in, the cost of which to settle will suck up all of my royalties.

Better think of another book idea. Like the wonderful “Walter the Farting Dog” that Laurel bought yesterday. This is a great book and appears to be a best-seller, which isn’t surprising given the title. “Farting” is a guaranteed attention-getter, whether the word is spoken or written, and even more so when the action is enthusiastically indulged in.

A bit more about George W. Bush and bumper sticker wisdom: in the September 13 issue of “The New Yorker” there is an article on “Bush Speak—the President’s vernacular style.” The author, Philip Gourevitch, concludes what I have always thought myself. Namely, “He is grossly underestimated as an orator by those who presume that good grammar, rigorous logic, and a solid command of the facts are the essential ingredients of political persuasion, and that the absence of these skills indicates a lack of intelligence.”

Actually, says Gourevitch, Bush’s intelligence “is—if not especially literate—acutely verbal.” Bush clearly is a better speaker than Kerry, and I’m afraid he is going to clean the floor with Kerry in the presidential debates. One reason is that Bush knows how to put his points across as if he was reading from a series of bumper stickers. His words are simple, understandable, and strong. In contrast, Gourevitch observes, “John Kerry can speak rousingly for whole paragraphs without saying anything precise or concrete.”

Kerry would do well to spend some time as I did yesterday: reading bumper stickers and being exposed to writing that says a lot in a few words. I’m no one to talk, of course, as I love to spend a page saying what could be said in a couple of lines. But I’m not running for president. Kerry is, and we desperately need him to learn how to speak effectively. Now!

Imaginary Keith, Real Keith

Yesterday I got to sign and sell a copy of my book about Plotinus to two people who share one body. Reading Keith’s posting today on his always-entertaining blog, it seems that I sold the copy to Imaginary Keith, who then took it home to Real Keith. Or maybe it was the other way around. No matter. I’m just happy that “Return to the One” is in the hands of two more readers, who just happen to inhabit the same brain.

I also was happy to learn from the posting that whichever Keith it was who fixed our sprinkler head is only going to charge for the few minutes of actual garden maintenance he put in during the several hours he was at our house. The rest of the time Keith and I talked about our blogs and writing, which is ever so much more interesting than trying to figure out why some spots in the lawn aren’t getting watered.

Luckily, landscapers don’t bill like lawyers. If Keith was an attorney I could expect to get a bill from him any day now: “Sprinkler repair, five minutes--$3.75; pre-repair conversation with client about miscellaneous matters, ninety minutes, $67.50. Total--$71.25.”

We covered quite a bit of “miscellaneous matters” ground standing in the shade by the front door while Keith’s two man crew bustled around in the hot sun doing our annual pruning. Maybe they thought we were engaged in a deep discussion about the Hines’ landscaping needs. Yeah, right…

We had bigger fish to fry that day, like talking about how it is that authors can stay (minimally) sane when they spend years writing a book, and then (1) publisher after publisher rejects the manuscript, until finally the book is printed and (2) reviewer after reviewer sits on their hands rather than review the book, after which (3) distribution glitches lead to online retailer after online retailer screwing up the book’s listing and stocking status, until at long last the book is finally ready to be bought and then (4) prospective reader after prospective reader decides to watch Jeopardy instead of delving into some Greek philosophy.

Oh, did I say “authors” in the paragraph above? I should have said “Brian.” But things probably aren’t as bad as 1-4 sound. I’m just in the one-month-after-publication stage, the authorial version of post-partum depression. You look forward so much to getting your book born after a seemingly endless four-year gestation. Yes, it will be so great to nestle the little tyke in your arms and have people come up and say, “She’s so cute! Can I pick her up?” Sure, at Amazon for $16.99 plus shipping. Take her home with you.

But the Real book adoption process always takes longer and is more involved that the Imaginary process in the author’s dreams, Oops, there I go third personing again. My dreams. My Erica Jong-like fantasy is not for zipless body f__ks but for effortless book s__es. Which actually happened with Imaginary and Real Keith, but they’re a special case: natural born philosophers, born to be wild--ly enthusiastic about a 3rd century Greek named Plotinus who they want to have coffee with.

I liked how the Keiths could write so much about my book after reading just two paragraphs of it. Good writers can weave a rug from a single thread. It will be interesting to see what happens when they get to the “Myself Is Multiple” chapter. Will they agree with it?

Hilarious “This Land” Bush/Kerry download

“You’re a liberal sissy. You’re a right-wing nut job. This land will surely vote for me.” I’m sure glad that Laurel is such a careful reader of yesterday’s Oregonian Entertainment section, where a great www.jibjab.com online song/cartoon was mentioned. With my 24 Kbps connection I usually don’t have the patience to download 3.7 mb of anything that isn’t essential, but this wait was well worth it.

Give it a try. You’ll be glad you did, whatever your political persuasion. “This Land” has plenty to offend anybody. I especially liked the cameo appearance by Bill Clinton, and also Hillary in a slapping role.

On an unrelated note, if you’re one of my all-too-few loyal book readers (or potential readers), and you’re frustrated with how the online booksellers are treating my newest priceless (well, $16.99) prose, I’m even more frustrated. See my web site for what I’m trying to do about it.

Blogs: fast, funny and totally biased

I finally got around to checking out the blogs mentioned in TIME magazine’s June 21, 2004 issue, in the “Meet Joe Blog” piece. The sub-headline was: “Why are more and more people getting their news from amateur websites called blogs? Because they’re fast, funny, and totally biased.” Right on! We bloggers also can bask in these words (by Lev Grossman, who wrote the article) about blogs:

“They represent—no, they are—the voice of the little guy. And the little guy is a lot smarter than big media might have you think. Blogs showcase some of the smartest, sharpest, writing being published. Bloggers are unconstrained by such journalistic conventions as good taste, accountability and objectivity—and that can be a good thing. Accusations of media bias are thick on the ground these days, and Americans are tired of it. Blogs don’t pretend to be neutral: they’re gleefully, unashamedly biased, and that makes them a lot more fun.”

Just in case you don’t already spend enough time surfing the Internet, here’s a list of many of the blogs mentioned in the article. I haven’t perused any of them in depth. But since we bloggers are supposed to be unashamedly biased, I’ll unashamedly throw out a first-impression quick take.

Fark.com Got sort of a “news of the weird” feel. I like the snap judgments about the items: weird, dumbass, sappy, sad, etc. And I have to give a thumbs-up to any blog that has a “Top Boobies” section.
Instapundit.com Politically oriented blog of a law professor who says that a top interest is the intersection between individual liberty and new technologies. Intelligent and classy, the yin of Fark.com’s yang.
Boingboing.net A little bit of everything. Billed as “a directory of wonderful things.” One of the Classic Blogs, I believe. Entertaining, but a bit unfocused for my left-brain taste.
Wonkette.com Washington (D.C.) gossip. Her home page highlights some “reviews” a blogger would die for: "Profanity-laced and sex-obsessed...[a] vain, young, trash-mouthed skank." "A foulmouthed, inaccurate, opinionated little vixen." "[H]er enthusiasm for penis jokes cannot be as great as her blog suggests"
RebeccaBlood.net Seemingly liberal take on public affairs. Clean and clear. Doesn’t look like there are any penis jokes here. I like the Wonkette better.
TalkingPointsMemo.com Looks like serious political blogging from a serious Washington D.C. writer. Good stuff, though pretty mainstream.
TheMemoryBlog.org Blogger who knows how to use the Freedom of Information Act. Brings out info The Man would rather keep hidden. I think this was the blog that first released the Iraqi war dead photos.
AndrewSullivan.com Political blog by a gay blogger with fairly conservative leanings, which makes him interesting. I like to read his articles in TIME and elsewhere. Intelligent and open-minded.
SlashDot.org A techno-blogger. Billed as “news for nerds.” I couldn’t understand the terms in most of the postings, so I guess I’m not a real nerd. If your everyday vocabulary includes “router,” “Apache” (not the Indian tribe), “wi-fi,” and such, here’s a blog for you.
ArtsandLettersDaily.com Wow! The most intellectually meaty (or tofuy) blog I’ve ever seen. You could spend your whole day working your way down the “Articles of Note, “New Books,” and “Essays and Opinion” headings. Terrific.
BookSlut.com Great name for a book-oriented blog. Seems to feature original (rather than linked) reviews.
BlogDex.net A blog about blogs. Tells you “the most contagious information currently spreading in the weblog community.” Sort of a one-stop blog, I suppose.
Technorati.com Another blog about blogs. Claims to watch over 3 million blogs. I like the “Current Events” link, where you can find out which are the most talked about issues on blogs.

Plotinus's Philosophical Viagra

After plugging my new book about Plotinus yesterday to everybody in my Outlook address book, I got a great idea in a response from one of the recipients. Richard Smith said, “I knew it would happen sooner or later – spiritually oriented junk mail!” “Damn!” I thought, “Why didn’t I think of this myself? Philosophical spam!”

Right away I visualized a whole different approach I could have taken in my email message.

Have trouble keeping it up?
Are you embarrassed when you can’t keep up your side of philosophical conversations? Do you find your arguments getting all limp and soft just when you want them to be Rock Hard and Penetrating?

Relief is at hand: Philosophical Viagra, a maxi-dose of Greek mystic philosophy. For only $16.99 “Return to the One” will be delivered right to your door in a plain box that looks exactly like it contains a book (which it does). Soon you’ll be feeling much more potent and confident. No more worrying about those frustrating Premature Explanations that fail to satisfy.

If your philosophical stance leans more toward the feminine than the masculine, be assured that this product will work great for you too. “Return to the One” will help make your arguments more attractive, working to eliminate flabby thoughts and drooping concepts. You can expect that at least a full size will be added to your chest of philosophical ideas. Imagine the reaction of that special someone when you proudly reveal your more fully formed psyche!

So buy now. Automated systems are waiting at Amazon, Barnes&Noble, and BookSense to take your order. Click here if you want to learn more about the benefits of Philosophical Viagra.

Pretty persuasive, huh? Don’t you want to try this? Sure you do. You owe it to yourself. Order now. Become that Philosophical Stud or Studette you’ve always wanted to be.

Sadly, ego-loss didn’t arrive in the mail

I had been waiting and waiting for ego-loss to arrive in the mail. When the envelope finally was delivered on Saturday you can imagine how excited I was. I’ve been meditating every day for nigh on thirty-five years, and so far I’ve made scant progress in laying aside that devilishly strong “Me! Me! Me!” part of me that doesn’t want to stop thinking about Me, Me, Me.

But I was expecting that one glance at what was inside the envelope was going to produce a short-cut to satori land. For this was a copy of an article that I had written for a spiritual magazine, “RS Greetings,” as noted in a weblog posting a few months back. I’d been told that the magazine was going to publish the article, but I had let my subscription lapse. So a friend told me when the issue came out and agreed to send me a copy of my piece.

What does this have to do with ego-loss? Well, the magazine’s editor had told me that it was now their policy to not print authors' names, so I was going to be Anonymous. Not even that, actually. Just blank. I argued some with her, not so much because I love to see my name in print (though I do), but because this magazine is published by a group called “Science of the Soul.” What kind of a science is it, I asked, that puts forth anonymous “research findings”?

Admittedly, my article was more humorous than serious. Still, I tried to make some substantive points about the nature of happiness, and why material things usually don’t bring us the satisfaction we expect they will. I might have made some errors in what I said. I might quoted somebody incorrectly. I might have misinterpreted some happiness research. I might have drawn the wrong conclusions from the articles I cited.

If I did any of these things, I’d like to know about it from someone more knowledgeable than me. Heck, even if they weren’t more knowledgeable and simply disagreed with me about something, I’d like to know about that too. So I told the editor that their Anonymous policy prevented readers from offering valuable feedback, and from authors learning from those readers. That’s the way of science, open discussion and review of purported findings.

The magazine powers-that-be apparently felt, however, that not publishing authors’ names was spiritually healthy. I guess not being recognized for a charitable article contribution earns more karmic Humble Points than having your name attached to it. OK, I could sort of understand that.

So I was eager to find out what would happen when I opened the envelope and didn’t see my name associated with the article. I’ve seen enough movies to fantasize about what might happen: as I tear open the seal, a bright light glows from within and flows out of the envelope, enveloping me, appropriately enough, in a cozy warm cocoon of enlightenment.

Or so I hoped. Sadly, my first glance was of a misspelled article title that I had labored to come up with. It’s “enlightenment” not “enlightment”! Then, I had an irresistible urge to get a big thick pen and write in my name. Guess the ego-loss thing didn’t work.

So I learned that there is no short cut to enlightenment. Or even enlightment. Guess I’ll have to take the long route, which I probably would traverse a lot more quickly if I took to heart the great cartoon that Bart Goldman drew--included at the end of the article. Bart and I collaborated on a series of cartoons some years ago, he supplying all the artistic talent and me supplying some concepts. Glad one of them finally got to be published.

For those interested, here’s another copy of my “Secrets of Happiness” a.k.a. “My Mini Enlightenment” article. It’s the same as in previous posting, but hopefully formatted to be easier to read.
Download rs_greetings_article_204.doc

Top Ten Reasons to buy my book

At long last, my book about Plotinus, a third century mystic Greek philosopher, is available for purchase. At the moment a photo of the “Return to the One” cover is missing from some of the Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and BookSense listings. You can mosey on over to this Unlimited Publishing “Return to the One” page if you want to read more about the book and have a vision of what the book looks like.

Why did I write this book? Hard to say. Like life itself, and consciousness itself, what we do in our lives with our consciousnesses is a mystery. We make up reasons for why we do something, but whether the reasons we weave bear any relation to rock-bottom reality is another question. What I do know is that I've come to love Plotinus, in the best Platonic sense.

On p. xvii of the book I say, “Up to a few years ago I knew next to nothing about his teachings. But I was strongly drawn to his mystic philosophy once I started to seriously study the Enneads. For most of my fifty-five years I’ve cast my intellectual net widely in the world’s ocean of philosophical, religious, mystical, and metaphysical literature. Yet I’ve never found a spiritual system so simultaneously appealing to the mind and the heart, to reason and intuition, to logic and passion.”

So here’s my Top Ten Reasons to read “Return to the One.” Half are serious, half are light-hearted. That fits with the style of this book, which one advance reviewer said is “written in a lively, accessible way.”

10. Plotinus espouses a universal non-religious metaphysics that is wonderfully refreshing in these times of “my God is better than your God!” pseudo-spirituality.
9. Most of the chapters are just 4-6 pages long. This is a book that begs for bathroom reading.
8. The philosophy of Plotinus and Plato was highly praised by St. Augustine, who incorporated many Platonic notions into his metaphysics. So Christians will find in Plotinus strong echoes of their own faith.
7. With the Athens Olympics slated for August, no coffee table will be trendily complete without a Greek-related book on it (so buy two, one for the bathroom and one for the living room).
6. Plotinus doesn’t ask you to leave your rationality at the church/ temple/ mosque/ wherever door. His spiritual philosophy makes tremendous sense, and also is tremendously inspiring.
5. You’ll be able to casually throw “Well, as Plotinus says…” into your conversations, thereby simultaneously perplexing and impressing those with whom you speak.
4. The spiritual truths Plotinus points us toward are to be found within our own selves, not without. So there’s no need to run around looking for wisdom and well-being in all the wrong places. Meaning, anywhere outside of your own self.
3. You won’t be able to write and get a response from Bill Clinton after you read “My Life.” But if you let me know what you think of “Return to the One,” we’ll have a real interchange.
2. This book can be read again and again (I’ve done so dozens of times), and you’ll never fully plumb the depths of Plotinus’ meaning. Colloquially speaking, this dude is deep, man.
1. Plotinus’ philosophy is called Neoplatonism. Its central feature is the One (or what many call “God”). In the Matrix, Keanu Reeves’ character is named “Neo,” and Morpheus believes that Neo is the One. So is Plotinus cool, or what?

In honor of my book’s release, I have added a “Plotinus” category to HinesSight. Here I will place Plotinus-related postings, which hopefully will include laudatory reviews. Or, maybe not. As much as I like praise, I try to remember than with writing it’s the from-the-heart saying that is important, not how others respond to what I’ve said.

View my blogified photo (quickly)

When Jack Bogdanski emailed me and asked to use my recently-posted photo of the Three Sisters on his way-cool and way-popular Jack Bog’s Blog, I was thrilled.

Wow! I never dreamed I’d be almost a professional published photographer, the “almost” a necessary qualifier because (1) naturally I’m not being paid for use of the photo, (2) the heading of a weblog isn’t really a publication, and (3) simply snapping a digital photo when the camera is on automatic barely qualifies as photography (I did, however, press the zoom lens button with my right index finger, which involved some minimal decision-making).

All that aside, I’m thrilled that the cropped photo looks so nice on Jack’s weblog, viewable by clicking on the link above. However, I’m not thrilled that Jack has decided to close down his weblog on July 6. I’ve only been a reader of Jack Bog’s Blog for a fairly short time, but I’ve enjoyed it, and will miss it.

Maybe if we all send out a message to the universe, “Keep going, Jack,” we can create an altered reality in the Force/Tao/Providence/Destiny/Karma that guides such matters. I do respect Jack’s reasons for taking a break from his blog. But shutting down an interesting, thoughtful, informative weblog is a loss to the Blogosphere.

There’s still thirteen days until July 6. A lot of mind-changing can happen in that time. If not, thanks for giving my photo a nice home for a few weeks, Jack. May the spirit of the beautiful Three Sisters always be with you.

Eccentrics make the world go unround

When you attend a meeting of 500 aspiring mystics of both Eastern and Western persuasions, as I did last weekend, you’re bound to run into some interesting people. But there is “interesting” and there is “eccentric,” the latter being a pearl of greater price. For eccentrics, by definition, make the world go unround. They remind us that neat and tidy isn’t nature’s way. Rivers don’t take a straight course to the sea. Trees sprout branches in every direction.

I’ve had the pleasure of knowing some wonderful eccentrics. Eric was a friend of my youth. A few years older than me, he would ride his bike down the highway and whip it with a riding crop while wearing his authentic white Bengal Lancers helmet with a plume on top. We had great times playing Embassy, dressed up in his astounding collection of British army/navy surplus attire (after the Brits were kicked out of India, it seems that a lot of equipment went on the market in the 1950s). Eric was a true eccentric.

My Uncle Jack played the bagpipes. To people. Also to cows, who would moo in return. And to dogs, who would howl in return. He was a profound practical joker, never growing up even as he grew in years. He was astoundingly direct, even to a fault. Once my mother, Carolyn, and I took a train from California all the way across the country to visit him in Massachusetts. I remember us stepping onto the Boston station platform and hearing Uncle Jack’s effusive greeting in his New England accent: “My god, Carolyn, you’ve gained so much weight!” Uncle Jack was a true eccentric.

After I gave my talk at the Science of the Soul meeting last Sunday, I went backstage and got some congratulations from a few people. One was an English guy a bit older than me who I had corresponded with by email, but had never met. Right away I felt like we had been friends for years, especially after he said, “I liked your talk. You remind me of me.” Exactly.

William Pryor is a writer, an ex-addict, a great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, a poet, a publisher. And, I could tell instantly, a true eccentric. In the best sense. Meaning, William, like Eric, like Uncle Jack, is absolutely himself. Not someone trying to play the role of an eccentric, or someone trying to not play the role of an eccentric, or someone not trying to not play…(I’m starting to confuse myself). No, an eccentric is so really true to himself or herself there’s no room for the usual interpersonal bullshit that wastes so much time and puts up so many barriers.

Five minutes after I met William, as we were walking along with Laurel to find a place on the lawn to have a chat, I showed him the copy of my book, “Return to the One,” that I had read from during my talk. I said, “Well, I just got this advance copy, so I wanted to use it in speaking about Plotinus, but at least I didn’t use this spiritual setting to overtly plug my own book.” With that, William started slapping me on the shoulder with the book, yelling “No! no! no!” And laughing.

Touché. Yes, he was right. I did indeed have in mind that by being so seemingly humble (not mentioning the title of the book, not holding it up for people to see, not even mentioning that it soon could be bought), this low-key good-karma approach to plugging still would lead to some sales. I liked how William playfully punctured my pretense. Eccentrics make you comfortable with being as imperfect or as perfect as you really are.

Sitting and talking with him was a welcome change of pace from the preachy “thou shalt” tone that pervaded some other messages I encountered during the weekend. Such as the “No cell phones. No cameras. No PDAs. No voice recorders” signs at the doors of the meeting hall. No one could offer a good reason why cell phones couldn’t simply be turned off. Or why photographs of the Science of the Soul facilities couldn’t be taken. It was just a rule. An opportunity for bureaucracy to try to make an eccentric world into a perfect circle. Which can’t happen. Which shouldn’t happen.

One day I left my cell phone in my hip bag instead of leaving it in my car, as the meeting organizers wanted, or checking it before entering the hall, another option. I felt deliciously rebellious. The next day, to avoid falling into a rebellious rut, I left my cell phone in our hotel room. For the first time, when I walked into the hall, an Indian sevadar (volunteer) looked at me and said, “Cell phone? Cell phone?” I replied, absolutely honestly, “No.” I felt deliciously obedient.

William is on a book tour, promoting his “The Survival of the Coolest: An Addiction Memoir.” I’ll let you know how I like the book after I read it. I hugely enjoyed William himself, so I suspect I’m going to also enjoy his writing.

An author’s scariest moment

An author’s scariest moment is when the first advance copies of a book arrive from the printer. Also, this is an author’s most wonderful moment. But scariness precedes the wonderfulness. “Are the pages printed all screwy? Is the cover color wrong? What major typo did we miss?”

Yesterday Laurel yelled from the front door at me: “A box just came. It looks like books.” Oh, God, I thought. This is it. My writing life is over. And it is just beginning. Both. Neither. I couldn’t think straight. I didn’t want to go up and open the box. I dearly wanted to go up and open the box. Dearly finally won out over didn’t.

Here’s what I found. Actually, I found 20 copies, but 4 seemed enough to demonstrate the physical reality of what I’ve spent several years working on.

369 pages. I’ve read and re-read them so many times I almost know them by heart. But holding a real book in my hand makes all the words seem brand new. I’m 125 pages into “Return to the One.” Blessedly, I haven’t found anything really amiss so far.

My only scare came when I got to the First is Formless chapter, where I couldn’t resist quoting a poem my ten-year-old self wrote. It used to begin, “Look up to the heavens. What do you see? Tiny pinpoints of light. But is that all? Look past the stars, into the blackness of the void.” Hey, it’s pretty good for a kid.

But in the book it begins: “Look up the heavens.” A chill ran down my spine when I first read that. My poem had been changed!!! Stop the presses!!! Then I calmed down. I’m sure this change was in the galleys my editor sent back to me. I just didn’t catch the altered wording.

Then, driving into town yesterday, I began thinking about looking. “Look up the tree.” “Look up the river.” “Look up the road.” OK, that sounds fine. So why did “Look up the heavens” sound wrong to me? Because I was used to the way I had written it. Just like I’m used to so many other things in life that, when they change, I go, “Hey! What gives?! This isn’t the way things should be!”

I’ve got a chapter called “Philosophy as a Way of Life.” The theme is that a philosophy that isn’t consonant with our life isn’t real. It is just ideas, wordplay. Here I am, writing about how formlessness is the highest reality, and I get all freaked out when the form of the first line of my 45-year-old poem changes. How philosophical is that?

Well, if I really knew everything that I write about, I probably wouldn’t have a drive to write. I’d simply go around with a smile on my face, not saying a word. Until then, writing and reading is necessary.

Keep $17 open on your VISA/MasterCard credit line when July 1 approaches. I’m told that is when “Return to the One” should be available for on-line ordering. The book has to be held back for a while to give pre-publication reviewers a chance to look at it.