A Writer's Writer

My last entry will never be published because the innocent, old, sick and unaware, would never understand.

This reminds me of great writers of the 19th and 20th century who, knowing they were about to leave this earth, stacked their writings of a lifetime upon a grand fire, destroying the evidence of a life lived.

Destroying primary historical sources (as a teacher of history) is like killing the one you love, an act of insanity; the secret remains a secret, and will remain so forever.

There are certain details of one’s life that should never be revealed, as this certain information, for some, will and can cause great harm, at least on a social level.

As a writer, writing for writing sake, is a central target of social gossip, entertainment, food for the crowd, which, in the end, will have no positive use.

In no way comparing myself to this man, Franz Kafka’s diaries were never meant to be published. Yet his diaries are spread across the internet, the actual published diaries in their 10th or 11th printing. These dairies are very personal, and the gentle Prague Jew would certainly be appalled.

Why do we continue to find these writings so fascinating?

Well, simply, they’re terribly honest. Kafka never meant for these diary entries to be published, let alone read by another person. For those interested in the mechanics and soul of writing, Kafka’s diaries are a source of true wonder. A confessional of a gentle soul, a man trapped in an insurance job, staying up through the night writing his heart-out, his thoughts, pains and acute observations of a time of great change, cruelty and oppression in Europe.

When reading Kafka, there is an overwhelming darkness, loneliness, a strong shadow that continually hovered around him, a “something” he tried to rid himself of but never, in his short life, accomplished.

Kafka’s life story is a tragedy. A painful experience as one, sometimes, can feel his self consciousness, that subtle pain at the back of the neck, when, you know, you’re being stared at…

I’ve attempted to read Kafka’s diaries many times, and only now, for some reason, can withstand the pain of his perceptions, his precarious relationship with his father, and the few women he loved from afar.

Kafka is a man that loved writing for writing’s sake, an artist who experimented daily, till dawn most nights, to pick up his little brief case and begin his work as an insurance assessor. ( A bureaucratic hell if one reads his novels.)

Kafka’s writing was for the act itself without pretension or gradious dreams, an act of instinct, pure and natural.