Ethics and Theater…

I haven’t weighed in on a couple of things in a bit… so, here we go…

I stepped down from my position as Literary Manager at Hunger Artists Theater recently for one simple reason: I was lied to far too often. It wasn’t just one lie and it wasn’t just on one occasion. I was lied to for about six months, non-stop. Like someone in a toxic relationship, I kept waiting for things to change, for things to get better. I kept telling myself, “They’re supposed to be my friends. They’ll stop treating me like garbage any day now.”

Of course, they didn’t.

So, I finally gathered up my courage and dismissed the fear that I would lose if I left – I just accepted it – and moved on.

Which takes me to the subject of ethics, oddly enough.

Now, with plenty of free time, I have returned to work on my book on ethics: Dynamic Pluralism.

The first step remains entering all of my research into a central file, then indexing it. Once it’s all indexed, I’ll have a better view of the connections exist and what the central narrative will be. Then, I’ll go back and update all the research as things constantly change before finally starting the book.

It’s a lot more work that I originally (and Pollyannishly) supposed about a year or so ago.

I’ve reached 75,000 words in research alone – and I’m not finished, yet. It could total as much as 100k before I’m done. But the thing is, it’s absolutely necessary because there’s no way I could draw connections with (what is now over 650 pages of notes) if I didn’t use the index system. There’s just too much.

This is actually a very good thing because I want this book, which is something of a spiritual descendent of Climbing Maya, to be more than just a book on ethics or memoir. I want it to be one of those books with some interesting tidbit or factoid on every page, so you keep reading not just because of the central premise but also because of how it unfolds.

With any luck, I’ll be able to start writing the book by 2012, which is only two months away.

After what happened at Hunger Artists, a book on ethics feels apropos to say the least.