I
did this podcast last Sunday night to promote my new book, The Chaos Cafe, along with my
other four books as well: https://youtu.be/33Jw_N2EL6Y It
was my second time on the show. The last time was to promote my sci-fi sex
comedy, Even on Mars, which came out last year. That podcast was done over
Skype. This one, however, was my first face-to-face one. Podcasts are always
fun to do.
I felt
kind of annoyed with myself afterwards for not clarifying better why exactly
the heated political conflict between my protagonist, Chris Connolly, and his
parents wouldn’t have worked if it took place in Canada Canada
Furthermore,
Radley asked me in the interview what my fascination with chaos was, and I gave
a very detailed explanation of only half the answer. The other half is my love
of the fact that because there’s no intrinsic meaning to be found in existence,
no inherent purpose in all this, no grand scheme of things and no divine hand
doing any guiding, I’m, then, the one who’s fully responsible for the meaning I
give my short time in this world and therefore all my failures and victories
are my own, and I love and cherish that. There’s self-empowerment and joy in
embracing that fact, that reality of things! There’s no cop-out of consolation
for any shortcomings within myself or my life as being part of “God’s plan,”
because there simply isn’t a God and therefore no divine plan. THAT’S real freedom, and THAT’S what I find so
liberating. I agree with Sartre’s worldview and assessment that if theism were
an accurate representation of reality, and therefore a deity was setting things
in motion for the fulfillment of some teleological end, that there could be no
real, substantial freedom for us because we wouldn’t be in full control of our
“destiny.” There’d be no possibility of taking the full load of the
responsibility of our very existence, due to the fact that everything would be
predestined in accordance with the will of an omnipotent overlord rather than
our own will. In fact, my own will wouldn’t mean shit. Most people
don’t want that responsibility, though, so they put it on “God’s purpose” as
the perfect cop-out for all their foibles and disappointments in life. I say,
“Fuck that.” As with Camus, I love affirming the absurdity itself. It’s so
freakin’ exciting and fantastic to me, and I wouldn’t want things to be any
other way. Fuck grand schemes! I’ve got my own “schemes” that I create and toil
towards, the outcome mine and mine alone, along with anyone who may have so
graciously helped me along the way.
The other
thing I wish I stated in the interview is that, at bottom, what bothers both my
lead characters in Screw the Devil’s Daiquiri and The Chaos Cafe in regard to their own mortality, is that they see
their own future deaths as leaving a gap in the world. However, that mistaken
gap they see is both an illusion and self-delusion, and will not come about at
all. And they, of course, know that. And there lies the rub, for that gap they
see actually lies within themselves. It’s the unbridgeable distance between
what they want to be true (that they be immortal) and what is actually true (that
they are very much mortal). That gap, then, can only be closed either with 1) the
acceptance that they are nothing and that the universe will go on and on for
eons, as per usual, after they die and/or 2) what in Buddhism is called “ego
death.” For in that actual gap within themselves, it is their egos that are
unable to see (at least without serious introspection or someone pointing it
out to them) - that there is a gap at all.
Oh, yeah,
and I remembered - there’s a scene in my fourth book, Even on Mars, where two sisters
are talking, and there’s no one else around. Whether or not a man is around is
irrelevant for passing the Bechdel Test anyway. It’s whether or not the two
women are talking about something other than a man, and so, yes, that scene
passes it by that standard as well - not that that bullshit matters to me
anyway.
You can find my books here: amazon.com/author/raymemichaels
You can find my books here: amazon.com/author/raymemichaels
