My origin myth

A couple of folks have asked for a little… clarity… about who I am, how I come to be here writing this, and about the cast of characters.

My strong inclination isn’t to go too far down that road – the blog actually lays out the answers to most of those questions if you read deeply enough, and anyway, it’s more interesting (isn’t it?) to read about it in a non-linear fashion than as if it were simply a story.

But here are a couple of biographical details that may be helpful:

Today, I’m the dude you’ve read about here.  I’m (I think) reasonably intelligent, but not academic.  I’m a sexual gourmand, and a gourmet too.  I’m just a little pretentious, but really not too much.  I don’t know much, but I’ve done lots, and ask lots of questions.  I’m a bit compulsive – mostly, currently, about writing, but also about parenting and my family, and about my career.

Yesterday, I was lots of other things:  I was a repressed guy from a shame-obsessed background.  I was a young married guy who hadn’t really figured out my sexuality.  I was a maniacally hard-working professional, slipping out for my fix in the middle of the day.  I was a cheating piece of shit who abused the love and trust of his family, friends and colleagues.  I was an absent father and husband.  I was an addict.

This blog recently has become a part of my journey out of the shadows.  (The world of sex addiction has, as one of its bibles – it’s a faith of multiple texts – a book called “Out of the Shadows,” by a recovery entrepreneur named Patrick Carnes.  I don’t mean to diss him too much:  I believe he’s helped a lot of people.  But I also believe that he’s done a lot to advance the mostly unfortunate thesis that “sex addiction” is a real addiction, recovery from which is best done on the same trajectory as other addictions.  I’ve written about this before, and will write more.  But for here, suffice it to say, although I think it would be meaningless for me to deny that I am/was an addict, I think that the moniker obscures and misleads as much as it reveals.)

So anyway, as I was saying….  Yesterday (a few years ago, now, actually) I was out of control; today, I’m mostly in control, if a bit dissolute.  And you, dear readers, are the lucky beneficiaries:  in this blog, I provide a bit of a lens into me, into my thoughts, my experiences, my fantasies, my memories.  Not all of what I write is true (whatever that means).

But all of it is real.

Or maybe it’s the other way around….

6 comments

  1. I love how you ended this… 
    “Not all of what I write is true…but all of it is real. Or maybe it’s the other way around…”
    I feel that it summarizes how most writers feel… or at least how I feel. 

    1. I revisit it every fucking day. It’s totally central. I’ve had several people ask me questions like, “Well, is that post true?” or “Did this post actually happen?” I’m old enough, and have a sophisticated enough (slippery enough) sense of reality, of truth, that I often don’t know, can’t say. I mean, really. And that’s what’s so great about writing for me, as a medium. Because it allows for the porosity of “reality” and “fantasy.”

      That said? I don’t write fiction. I’ll tell you that.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.