I am writing my first book at http://toosmallforsupernova.org
You may read for free.
The title comes from the fact that our sun is too small to end in a supernova. Only a star with eight times the mass of our sun or larger may end in such a spectacular fashion. Our sun will fade away as a white dwarf in 8 billion years (give or take a billion). There are things we could theoretically attempt to preserve terrestial life and human culture beyond the demise of our solar system, but as a species we seem forever incapable of uniting and pursuing any long range goal which might ensure our survival.
In my book, I explore many ideas, some of which are philosophical, some religious and some literary.
I investigate our desire for immortality.
I discuss what it is that we seek from the activity of authorship.
The book has some humor and some elements of science fiction.
I do not seek financial gain from my activity.
I write anonymously under the pen name "Sitaram."
It is my hope that one or two of my ideas will live on after me and change the world in some way.
But the end of life on earth spells the end of all human culture and endeavor.
Memorial lasts only as long as posterity.
Thanks for your time and interest.
I seek readership and value feedback.
Best regards,
- Sitaram
I already have the sense that this book of mine will become quite famous. I realize that a thousand generations of junior high school students will be required to read it along with Stephan Crane’s “Red Badge of Courage” and Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.”
Therefore, it behooves me to include some Spark Notes to help those yet unborn to fathom what I was really trying to say. Notice, I could have said Monarch Notes, but I chose to give a plug to Spark because I once saw their notes on Melville’s “Moby Dick” and found them breathtaking.
Speaking of “Moby Dick,” I am looking around for someone to design a graphic for this site depicting a swirling galactic sort of supernova with a coffin swirling somewhere in the midst of it all. Melville’s image of the one who is spared to come back and tell it all, floating upon a pagan’s coffin is a powerful image.
During our junior and senior years at St. John’s, we would have a Preceptorial for six weeks on one book of our choosing. I chose Plato’s “The Statesman,” led by Jacob Kline, for my junior preceptorial and Kojeve’s “Introduction to the Reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology of the Spirit,” led by William Pitt, for my senior preceptorial. Until today, as I write this, I never questioned the origin or meaning of “Preceptorial.” An Internet search engine reveals that it means something pertaining to a preceptor, which is simply a teacher. An example of usage is given from “The Prince” by Machiavelli, who wrote, “But in considering Cyrus and others who have acquired or founded kingdoms, all will be found admirable; and if their particular deeds and conduct shall be considered, they will not be found inferior to those of Moses, although he had so great a preceptor.” Of course, the preceptor of Moses was God. Jacob Kline came close to being God in those days.
St. John’s was always against using Monarch Notes, or textbooks or commentaries. They believed that one should go to the source, the original Great Books, and attempt to understand them unaided by the theories or opinions of others. Even the instructors bore the title of “Tutor” rather than “Professor” since a Professor in theory professed to know something with a certainty and offered to instruct others in it with authority, something like the Sophists of Socrates day who would teach you something for a fee.
Why do we need commentaries and notes and introductions and aids to understand what another has written? Why am I writing study notes for my own book?
Mrs. Pike, my high school Latin teacher for four years, called such books “ponies” or “trots,” because they let you ride through the course with ease without doing much labor. I used an interlinear translation of Virgil’s Aenead to get through her Latin course. Each test would cover two hundred lines of translation. The night before the test, I would commit to memory the two hundred lines of Latin and their translation from the interlinear “trot” or “pony.” I passed Latin as a student but I failed as a person and robbed myself of a valuable experience.
So, why should you read this book I have written? What will you gain by reading it?
I am a lens which passes through a portion of time and space, bringing various lights and images into focus in the unique form of my perspective. If you read this book, then you are entering into my mind, and experiencing these years as I experienced them.
The Talmud states that when an emperor stamps out coins with his image on them, then each coin is identical, each emperor face is the same. But when God stamps out people in God’s likeness and image, then no two are alike, each one is unique.
My fame would be assured if the entire world were destroyed except for this book, and some method for deciphering it. My fellow college students used to mock me by saying, “Imagine if the entire world were destroyed except for him, and aliens came and he had to explain to them how everything was.”
The Rosetta stone was possibly nothing out of the ordinary as far as writing goes. It stayed sunken in mud for so many centuries. But when it was discovered, it was a key unlocked the secrets of Egyptian Hieroglyphics.
I see my book as a pagan coffin adrift in the swirling eddies of a supernova, bearing the testimony of one lone survivor to tell a distant race how it all was.
I was born in New York City in Women’s Lying-In Hospital in February, 1949. As Snoopy would write, years later, seated upon his dog-house, “It was a dark and stormy night” (dogs do not often suffer from sleeplessness.)
I had the good fortune to be born smack in the middle of the twentieth century. I don’t suppose there is really a bad time to be born into. Every age has had its triumphs and tragedies.
My earliest memory is lying in a carriage and gazing at a red translucent plastic toy. I thought it must taste like cherry flavor, since I associated the red color with cherry candy. I yearned to taste that color. I desired to enter into that translucent brightness as into another world.
My next memories were our house and yard on Suydam drive in a neighborhood called Rollingwood in town called Huntington.
I was five years old when my family purchased a television set in 1954. I was the first television generation. I thought that the people in the screen were actually inside the television set. Once I was watching a program and my mother turned off the set and took me to the stores. When we returned home, I turned the television back on and expected to see the same program resume right were it had left off.
Once I heard some adults discussing how time goes quickly when you are doing something you like and goes slowly when you are doing something that you dislike. I decided to perform a great experiment regarding the passage of time. My mother would put me to bed in the afternoon for a nap and give me a bottle of milk. I was really too old to drinking from a bottle but I enjoyed it so much that she gave it to me to comfort me and encourage me to take a nap and give her some time to herself. Falling asleep was always a difficult challenge for me. I considered the ability to fall asleep as a great mystery. I used to work at it very hard. But for my experiment with time, my afternoon nap was the ideal setting. I took my least favorite book, a red book with fire engines, and gazed at it for a while as I sucked upon the warm soothing bottle of milk. I tried to detect whether the passage of time had slowed down appreciably. Then I switched to my favorite book, with was about the nativity and showed the Virgin Mary in soothing blue colors. As I gazed upon my favorite book, I tested whether the flow of time had speeded up any. Alas, I discovered that I was unable to determine the true nature of time with my experiment.
My father fought in World War II for 5 years. Even though it was the 1950’s, it seemed as if the war had ended only yesterday. My father would speak of it often. Talk of the war was frequent on the television. I would wake up around five or six each morning and tip-toe out to the television, turn it on, cover myself with a blanket, and quietly watch with the volume turned quite low so as not to disturb my parents who were still sleeping. At that early our, the only shows available were things like “Victory at Sea” and other war time newsreels. Being a child, I did not understand that World War II was an unusual event. I assumed that war was a normal part of life. I thought that I would grow up to be in the army just like my father and fight in the next war. War seemed like a glorious, heroic thing to me, a manly thing. I assumed that I would not be manly if I did not grow up to be a soldier and fight in a war. I did not understand about pain or injury or death.
Another vivid early memory was the forest of lush blue hydrangia, pregnant with mysterious bumble bees. It was summertime. I was suddenly there, aware, aware that I am me and not someone else, that I have a name. I ran and played and did not realize that I was carefree because I did not understand what care was.
One day my mother tried to explain to me about the sky and the sun and the earth and how the earth was constantly rotating. I looked up at the sky and imagined how the earth rotates in a mighty fashion, and how I should really be bouncing back and forth across the sky, a victim of such motion. I became quite dizzy from this meditation.
Rollingwood was a new development in those days, sparsely populated. Many new houses were under construction. Mommy took me for a walk to look at the new houses. It was a brilliant perfect summer day. All around us was a breeze and the whispering of the leaves of bushes and trees and the chirping of birds and the chattering of squirrels. She sat on the doorstep of a new house. She saw a delicate daddy longlegs walking along the wall. I was quite startled when she gently picked up the insect in her hand. I was frightened of the spiderlike creature. She told me that daddy longlegs do not bite. She placed it on her lap and I watched as it walked down the fabric of her trousers. Years later, as an adult, I learned that the daddy longlegs is not a member of the spider family.
There was a forest behind the houses on the next street. My father would take me for long walks in those woods. We would climb and climb through the tangled limbs up a steep incline until we finally emerged on a trail beaten smooth by the passage of many horses; a bridle path. One day, as we emerged from the undergrowth and stepped onto the bridle path, we saw two people on horseback, approaching. I was certain that they were engaged in some heroic adventure. On television, all the people on horseback were either heroic, or else anti-heroes being pursued by the heroic. I was certain that great adventure and intrigue could not be very far away.
There was something erotic in my childish anticipations. I was certain that I might possibly glimpse a girl undressing in the bushes, or naked upon horseback. I was confused by the term "bridle path." I thought people were saying "bridal path." I did not really understand what a bride is or what sexuality is, but I knew it had something to do with females and that I very much wanted to see one naked, though I had no idea why I wanted this, and sensed that I should not speak of this with anyone. This was my cherished secret. Everyone should have a secret, and something to cherish, something that is uniquely theirs. I guess if I am going to tell you my entire story, then I must tell you about the sex as well. Is that okay with you? Do you mind terribly? I shall try to be tasteful and tactful in the telling of it. I have always wanted to tell someone about these things before I die, so I shall tell you first, and then die, later.
My mother was always listening to the radio and the phonograph.
One of the popular songs said:
"Well, if you have something that must be done,
and it can only be done by one,
why there's nothing more to say...
I enjoyed her songs, but did not understand what the words meant.
A very popular song that year was "Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream..." That was my favorite song for such a long time. Whenever I heard it, my mind was aflame with imaginations of a make-believe world of stardust.
Another popular song that year was "Once, I had a secret love, which lived within the heart of me." One line said,
Now I shout if from the highest hills.
I even told the golden daffodils.My secret love's no secret anymore.
My mother took me to the movie theater to see "Peter Pan." I was so convinced that I could enter into the screen and join all those delightful beings in their enchanted world that my mother had to hold me back and restrain me, and explain that it was only make-believe.
Are you beginning to catch on to the joke yet. This page is entitled "A few words from the author," but it will be my entire life story.
The best advice which the world always gives to writers is to write about what you know. This is so easy for me. Like breathing.
Here I am, Odysseus strapped to the mast, Christ-like, in amidst a thronging multitude of oarsmen with wax-deafened ears, while the lusty naked Sirens flog my tormented vision with their glistening quivering breasts and reddening hirsuite loins, singing their forbidden song for me and me alone. I am enflamed by the perfumed scents of their secret places and can almost taste the salty condiments of their ardour and desire.
Yet my greatest torment is that there is no one else to hear. There is no one to admire my unique priviledge. I am free with a freedom long-sought, free in my bondage to savor what can never be mine, free from that cannibal Cyclops, and yet I must shout my true name from my safe harbor and risk all for the sake of recognition. I am no longer No-man but Everyman. I make my gift of peace with Diomedes and then loose myself, consumed like a moth in his Oresteia.
I need to tell you about a very important event in my life, at the age of five, in Rollingwood. There were also woods behind the Smith's house on Suydam drive. All the children in the neighborhood would play in those woods for endless hours. One day, when I was five years old, I was in the woods climbing trees with a large group of children. The rest of the children tired of tree climbing and were slowly strolling away in a talkative group. They did not notice that I was hanging by my arms from a low branch. My legs were drawn up in the fashion of a frog ready to jump. I wanted to descend and rejoin the others, but something stopped me. I was beginning to have a feeling that I had never before experienced, a physical feeling in my body, in my groin. I watched the group of children recede into the distance. I wanted to run after them. But this feeling of pressure somewhere deep in my groin kept building. There was something quite seductive about this feeling. I sensed that something was soon about to happen, and that I wanted it very much to happen, wanted it more than companionship or food or toys or even my parents, but I did not know what was about to happen or why it was happening. Slowly the pressure and anticipation and desire built up, higher and higher. My breathing became rapid. I could feel my face reddening. Suddenly, the feeling climaxed in convulsive spasms. I gasped. My eyes rolled up in my head. It was over in a momemt. I hung limply from the branch for a moment and then dropped three feet to the ground below.
I felt so happy! I must never tell anyone! This must be my secret. I instantly understood this much. No one else had ever experienced such a thing before. This was my discovery. How could I be so lucky?
I quickly discovered through experimentation that once I achieved that feeling, I must wait several hours before I could attempt to feel it again. This constraint of time upon ecstasy disappointed me. I would have liked to experience that sensation continuously. This activity of hanging suspended in mid air and feeling this wonderful feeling had nothing whatsoever to do with other people, or with my curiosity to see someone naked. Nudity and arousal would not form a partnership until some years later, around the age of eight.
Are all thills and desires in essence one? Was my first taste of ecstasy then in some way related to my desire now for inspiration and immortality? Pleasure and desire lead us on through life. Eden is our secret garden.
One of my girl friends once confessed to me that, as a child, she would sit in her grade school classroom, at her desk, cross her legs a certain way, and feel that same ecstasy. Years later, as a teenager, she read about "self-gratification" and realized for the first time that this was exactly what she had been doing in those early years.
I am an artist. Your mind is my canvas. Words are my brush strokes and your imagination is the pallate of colors. We shall call this freedom. It is my freedom. It is not your freedom. You must find your own freedom to be truly free. No one else can find it for you.