Do I have a story to tell?

Do I have what it takes to be the next Kurt Vonnegut? Genetics don’t fail me now.

Do I have a story to tell?

As a young boy, my father and I bonded over our mutual of sports. My father wasn’t a man of too many interests so in addition to watching our New York teams on television, the only other interest we seemed to share was in our similar tastes in movies. We both loved old black and white comedies, (Although they may not have seemed old to him since he was around when they came out.) the entire Pink Panther series starring the brilliant Peter Sellers who we both also enjoyed, Mel Brooks movies, and a good action movie featuring hard-nosed cops. His favorite was Clint Eastwood in his iconic role as “Dirty Harry.” While he loved seeing Eastwood blow away bad guys as much as the next middle age white man, what he really enjoyed was the fact that he was never forced to endure anything regarding “Harry’s” private life. My father only wished to see him doing what he did best, “blowing a man’s head clear off,” with his trusty .44 Magnum.

In the second movie in the Dirty Harry series, a film called Magnum Force, Dirty Harry is forced to battle rookie cops who have crossed over to the dark side, and gone rogue as it were. Eastwood in one of the movie’s many great scenes says at one point, “A man’s got to know his limitations.” While most would question whether the dialogue in any Dirty Harry movie provides the kind of sage advice one might seek out in perhaps deeper works of fiction such as Oedipus Rex, or Macbeth, or even The Great Gatsby, I believe that “Harry’s” suggestion regarding being knowledgeable about our limitations provides us with words to live by. For example, it doesn’t just mean that a man needs to know what his limits are so he never attempts anything challenging, it can also mean that we all have a built in ceiling regarding our abilities both physically and mentally. Knowing one’s limitations also lets us know how low that ceiling lies, and it provides us with a solid foundation of what our capabilities are, and where we can expect to run into trouble.

(Sometimes less is more. You Tube)

As somebody who has taught Psychology on the college level for 20 years, I’ve had an epiphany of sorts. I used to believe that humanity’s behavior was established through a fairly equal mix of nature and nurture. In other words, if you want to explain human behavior, 50% can be explained through the genetic makeup of an individual based on what they’ve inherited from their biological parents. The other 50% of what makes us tick can be gleaned from one’s surroundings, how they were raised, their town, school, as well as the culture of their native country. However, over the past 20 years, I’ve become convinced that the ratio is closer to 60–40 in favor of nature over nurture. Much of our personality, temperament, habits, and intellect as well as our physical abilities and limitations would appear to be predetermined. Here are a few examples:

1. Golfing Ability — Those who are born with an ability to stretch and torque their bodies in such a way that they can generate good power without having to overswing have a sizable advantage over those who struggle to turn their bodies further and with more ease. You can practice your swing, you can try to focus more, and go for lessons from the best instructors there are, but there’s a ceiling on how good a golfer you can be based on your physical limitations.
2. Speed — Sure you can argue that the reason there aren’t more Ashkenazi Jews playing wide receiver in the NFL is due to the copious amounts of time they spend studying the Talmud, however, when you can trace your ancestry back to Eastern, Europe, where most of your ancestors spent their time raising cattle for the Czar, the odds that they will pass down a set of genes that foster the ability to run fly routes in the NFL seems remote at best.
3. Jumping — Again you can work on your high jump skills, and perhaps improve on your personal best, but the chances that you will one day be emulating Dick Fosbury and his famed “Fosbury Flop” in the next Summer Olympics when every member of your family that you can trace back to possesses a high jump measurable by slipping a piece of paper under their feet would probably preclude you from ever seriously “flopping” on the big stage.
4. Math — You either get it or you don’t. You can tell the kids who do as early as around 5th grade when math begins to include more complex problem solving. Some students seem to follow everything that the teacher demands, while others are always asking to go to the bathroom when the teacher is looking for volunteers to explain the problem. (In my school this was known as pulling a “Hoffman.”) No matter how hard I applied myself, my efforts always proved futile when it came to finding success in math class. Some brains are simply wired for mathematical expertise, and can thank their genetic make-up for this advantage. Others say a silent prayer that they’ve never really had to do anything of any importance that involves sin, cosine, and tangent.
5. Writing — As a teacher with 29 years experience, I can tell fairly early on in the school year who can write, and who is going to need a lot of help. Some individuals are simply born with the ability to express themselves with the written word, while others struggle to get on paper what is coursing through their heads. You can teach a student grammatical skills, but eloquence would seem to be yet another example of a gift that is handed down through our sometimes disturbingly shallow gene pool.

This is Chris Sale, one of the best pitchers in Major League Baseball. Sale is 6″6, 180 lbs. He has a whip like body and delivery, and he is literally born to be a pitcher. His body and arm are genetic gifts, and they have made him very rich, as has his competitive drive, which may very well also be innate. (Getty Images)

If it is indeed true that to a large degree the skills we possess are inherited, and come with variable ceilings, then this realization has left me somewhat #sad. You see lately I’ve been pondering trying something new. I’ve been thinking about taking a stab at creative writing, or in other words plunging into the world of fiction. I’ve never seriously attempted this before, and I suppose I still haven’t, but at least I’ve taken the first integral step of accomplishing anything, and that is to ponder doing something. One can’t accomplish until one has pondered. Think about it, “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary.” The entire concept contained within this Edgar Allen Poe statement is based on his pronunciation that he has indeed pondered. It can be argued that everything that follows is gravy.

The first question however though that I must “ponder” is can I do this? Is this goal within my intellectual grasp? Writing a novel would seem to be a formidable challenge to say the least. It’s not like I can write a story about Romanian cobblers by taking a two-year trek to Transylvania and living amongst the cobbling folk of this particular Eastern, European burg. I also don’t have the ways or the means to go park myself in a Parisian Cafe, place a beret upon my head, smoke clove cigarettes, drink very strong European coffee, and consider whether man’s existence has any meaning by channeling a character who instead of making his way to work the way he does everyday of his mundane existence, instead grabs a machete from the local Machete Emporium, and goes on a killing spree in the local patisserie because, you know, what difference does it make anyway?

“C’est absurde! Huh, huh! I am going to write the next great American novel…in France.” (Getty Images)

One of the things I have considered when it comes to making my first foray into the world of fiction is to start small. Perhaps a short story. O. Henry for example when he wasn’t designing candy bars wrote wonderful short stories, and everybody’s heard of him. If a story seems like a good way to dip the proverbial toe into creative writing, then the next challenge would most likely include coming up with an actual idea as well as characters who the reader can relate to. Story and character development both present obstacles great and small. For example, how many ideas that seem like great fodder for a story haven’t been done to death? The other issue regarding the writing of a story is that I most likely need to actually feel a sense of competency regarding what it is that I’m writing about. Teaching would appear to be the obvious way to go, but any story I tell regarding teaching would seem autobiographical, and I’m not interested in doing that.

I could write something that delves into the realm of fantasy. In other words, I could explore something within the field of science fiction which would allow me to suspend my concerns regarding competence. For example, in Star Wars (Which is fictional for those who are challenged in the ways of the opposite sex and socializing) they often bandy about the idea of something called a parsec. The parsec is a measurement of distance, but being that it’s a made-up term, it means, well anything you desire it to mean. Therefore, you don’t have to know much about anything since it’s all imagination. That’s the kind of expertise I can flash.

The late Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is my favorite author. Vonnegut often combined science fiction with real events, and mixed in a healthy dose of comic relief. He was also a World War Two Veteran who was a prisoner of war who survived the bombing of Dresden. I can’t quite compete with those life experiences, so how could I develop that kind of prose when I’ve barely lived compared to a great author like that? (Getty Images)

There are several authors whom I would love to emulate. However that’s easier said than done. I love Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and the way he uses humor, science fiction, as well as contemporary issues, coupled with his own experiences. I’m also a fan of Stephen King as well as Philip Roth, but I could never write in as gritty and vivid a fashion as Roth who once spoke of pleasuring himself with a raw piece of liver in his first breakthrough novel Portnoy’s Complaint. As for Stephen King, am I the type of individual who could write a horror story? In the sameness of my world, the concept of horror usually manifests itself when I go to the cookie cabinet and discover that said cabinet is void of said cookies. “Oh the horror…the horror.”

As for character development, do I go ahead and draw from people that I’ve known, do I base a main character on somebody famous or infamous, or do I attempt to create a completely original character? Is that even possible? Can one literally create a fictional character from one’s own imagination when that individual has never existed and is completely unknown to even the author who has created this individual? While this doesn’t seem possible, John Kennedy Toole, the great and tragic author of A Confederacy of Dunces who failed to get his manuscript published and committed suicide believing he had failed, only to have his mother approach novelist Walker Percy and gain his assistance in getting the book published, created my personal favorite fictional character of all time, Ignatius J. Reilly.

Ignatius is grating, obnoxious, provocative, and yet somehow sympathetic. An obese agent provocateur who creates chaos, and then seemingly waltzes away from the meshugas that he has created, almost oblivious to what he has wrought upon all that he encounters. Was Ignatius J. Reilly an individual who Toole knew from his own experiences in New Orleans? Was he an amalgamation of several different individuals who he encountered throughout his lifetime? So many things to consider, and so little at stake, and yet I’m already feeling pressured. Even finding names for your characters presents a challenge. Do I look at street signs for inspiration, or do I peruse the phone book? (First I’d have to find a phone book.) What about the setting? Where should this short story take place? I can’t have everything take place in North Massapequa can I? How about Flushing? Oswego? Oh sure, they’re all exotic locales to be sure, but my reading audience might not feel the same way.

Ignatius J. Reilly is my favorite fictional character. Do I have the ability to create something so grand? No, but perhaps I can use John Kennedy Toole’s creation as inspiration for whatever story I come up with. Genius after all is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration, most of which seems to collect under my ass. (You Tube)

Of course if I do decide to dedicate myself to writing a piece of fiction, I may have to step away from “The Files.” (I will now pause while you all wipe away your tears.) This means that while I let down my guard to focus on my task at hand, you good people will have to keep a watchful eye on Donald Trump, the Jets, the Mets, The Who, Keith Moon, and our ever dwindling supply of Yodels. It’s lonely work, but somebody has to do it. (Although not really.) Now, how to start my short story? “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, which doesn’t seem plausible, and yet, here we are.” Oh yeah, that’s gold baby!