It struck me that my writings (my children) will be largely misunderstood if they are read through the filter, lens, prism, etc. of essentialism. The style of my thinking permeates through with an anti-essentialist vibe. Do I believe in a unitary soul? No. Do I believe reality is monistic? No. Ideas such as qualitative multiplicity, schizophrenia, shamanism, rhizomes, many-worlds, anti-irony, anti-hyper realism, etc. find a natural home in my writings.

It is a fluid discourse, smooth before a beat skips, tonal asymmetries abound, Artaud’s Theater of Cruelty flashes. It’s not in praise of irrationalism but the necessity of breaking free from the ever-pervasive hyper-realism of modernity. Breaking free? My sunshiny optimism always slips out even in the worst moments of narrative or character disintegration. If not breaking free from the hyper-real, at least calling attention to it. The experience (even that connotes a unitary set theory) isn’t meant to be satisfying, or pleasant. More like a haunted house tour on a broken, rickety old mine cart.

Indeed, so much has my mind and thought rejected the essentialism of Platonic forms in their myriad of zombie manifestations (“straight because that’s the way nature intended” “male because gender is found within ones genitalia”) that I am often taken aback by those who proudly endorse such philosophical / pseudo-scientific dribble without shame. A lot of lives, dreams, hopes, and loves have been burned at the essentialist stake. I wish that was hyperbole, but essentialism, especially in its cruelest forms (e.g. religious zealotry and political fanaticism) has been responsible for bathing the earth in blood many times over.