Six weeks ago [nearly 10 weeks now], I was in a potentially deadly accident, and had a miraculous escape with only six stitches to my scalp and a few joints and my back in deep pain, bruises in around six different places. After 2–4 weeks of rest, physical therapy, and x-rays, I am grateful to be mostly alive … as I write this. What if the Audi driver had been just a few seconds slower in applying her brakes? These words wouldn’t exist, nor would your opportunity to read them.
Meanwhile, I have silently been experiencing nearly four years of Parkinson’s Disease and perfectionist hesitation and delay, and nearly 8–10 books, which took 15 years of my time, await completion and publication. What if I pop off, and the books are lost forever?
Therefore: Better something, than nothing.
Better something, than nothing — that should be the title of this [I am pretending, at this point, that this is the Preface of a real new book, tactically designated as a work in progress or privately published book, though this is just a blog post] privately published book which I had promised my friends would come out in June 2022, but, deprived of that energy and strong willpower to finish the last one-tenth (in terms of editing, formatting, designing), had postponed it, with health problems taking me to Rochester, New York, where unexpected troubles awaited me (along with the brief joy of spending a few hours with my two grandsons).
But — and I’ve kept this to myself, until now — for nearly four years now, I have been sinking into the paralyzing swamp of symptoms that are the result of Parkinson’s Disease (which affects different people very differently), and whose most devastating symptoms for me, as a writer with around ten thousand pages of writing to finish and bring out in the form of publishable, readable books, is my slowness in action and thinking; and my fatigue and excessive sleepiness. So I have had to repeatedly postpone my self-decided and sometimes publicly announced “deadlines” to publish … and I fear my audience, my past and potential readers, are thinning out and disappearing into the Covid and post-Covid void.
And yet, how do I know, and who am I to judge which books could be useful, enjoyable, or insightful to the many? I am not in the fortune-telling business. My prophetic powers are dim and, in any case, untested. So, despite not knowing how I will regard my books six months, a year, ten years, or even two weeks from now, I have decided: damn my endless doubts, I will publish this collection of odd chapters loosely bound together by a few common themes. Nothing more. Not the Truth, not eternal truth, just one small book that tries to be true to my present state and brings out words that I have already written, and hate to hide, because I hate to think of myself as a coward.
This is a privately published book. Which means that if you bought this book from me (or from my website, https://richardcrasta.com , then you have agreed to the condition that you do not pass it on to anyone else except to one friend or partner or family member — with the condition that they return it to you after reading it, destroying any proof of its existence. The “privately published” label gives me two advantages, I think:
— In case something happens to me (and why should I think myself immune? I lost a friend, just two days before New Years Day, 2023), at least a few hundred pages of my hitherto secret writing will have been published and available online, in case I am no longer around. As a signal to my devoted readers, such books will be published under the series name, “Works in Progress, Volume 3/4/5 …etc. as the case may be.) But sometimes, it may be a book I had previously published and withdrawn, because of its “imperfection” or “non-completion.”
— Also, I realize, acknowledge, and almost guarantee, in advance, that this book, along with all my other books, is variably flawed, and possibly not more than 40 percent “right” (whatever that means). Don’t take my word for it, just arrive at your own judgment as you read it. However, by admitting that this (along with most of the books that follow) is an incomplete book, and therefore a potentially flawed book, I free myself from my irrational and paralyzing desire for more and more perfection, and will or may return to editing it and to bringing out a more acceptable edition when I have time, when there is strong demand, or a publisher willing to invest money in my present and future living or existence, which is really precarious and on the edge. (Imagine being kept as a prisoner for an entire day in a hospital — after you had been given a discharge order — because you didn’t have three thousand dollars to pay your hospital bill?! This happened to me just a few years back, at a hospital where the director was supposed to be a “family friend”.)
Until then, I request at least the few people who care enough about me to buy a book from me just because it is my request (and it could be my last request to them). For no other reason, perhaps, than that they once took a small risk on a writer they once loved, or presently do love, or are neutral or even negative towards, perhaps, and therefore wish to encourage. Because if all we have before us is writers who think like us, who write like everyone else, who are like us, and who want us above all to like them and so pander to our prejudices, the world would be a heck of a boring place, with no place for provocative and new ideas that challenge or provide alternative perspectives to the ones we already have.
Other people may love me or be interested in what I have to say, even when I risk being wrong (which I often do, anyway — there’s no other way for creative writers to go on). And then they may have gotten hold of my book when there’s no certainty that a second, complete, refined edition will ever come out, because life itself is uncertain: especially after a certain age. With every step that I take in the capital city of Cambodia (where I presently am, though my “home state” is New York), I risk death. Motorcycles and cars whiz by within centimeters of me — because Cambodians are nimble and expect most people to jump out of the way within seconds, or to fall and pick themselves up, laughing, and run away, unhurt — not realizing this is not understood or workable for foreigners, especially older foreigners with fragile health.
By buying this book, you agree that your money is nonrefundable; because I simply cannot handle the mechanics of returning money (and what if I’m not around?). You buy it in good faith, just as I sell it to you (or rather accept your support — contribution towards the endless battle for true free expression, in return for continuing writing and publishing what I see as the Truth (rather than as ‘entertainment” despite being its being a financial disaster and a hugely difficult undertaking) in good faith.
— You don’t publish or quote this book in a review, because the author is only sharing this book with you and no one else; as a writer in real life would pass on a draft of a book in progress to a fellow writer, friend, for his comments and advice as a friend and potential reader. This is still not a fully published book, but a book in progress. No friend, in such a case, would feel he had the right to provide samples of this privately published writing to unauthorized others.
Partly for financial reasons, I have lived 85 percent of my life in the last 22 years outside the US, and in societies that are very mixed-gender, relaxed, and unconcerned with issues that seem to obsess, weigh down, and even crush Americans. If I had to reconsider every sentence in the light of how a woman or transgender or fluid-gender person might write it, it would take forever, and I would or might forget to think of how a man would write it. I love all human beings, and I am a fervent antiwar, pro-peace humanist — including compassion for all human beings in my writings and thoughts, but without trying to pretend to think for both (or multiple) genders.
This is an offer made only to kind human beings, my friends, who are not trying to trick me (or I them), but who genuinely feel that original and fearless thought and opinion must be exchanged between kindred or would-be kindred souls, those who welcome peace and justice on earth. And who have empathy for the dispossessed, whether emotionally, physically, legally, those dispossessed of their homes and families, and living as refugees in faraway cultures where they are, on account of their foreignness and non-belonging, allowed to exist partly because of their hoped for contribution to the economy, or to education, or simply because these cultures are, by nature, welcoming to strangers and tourists. I wish you well, and when I feel ready, I will publicly publish the book, possibly for a lower price (or maybe higher): in any case, you will have bought this book, I hope, to help support my writing (which would also require living and getting the medical care I need).
Thank you.
Richard Crasta
Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
February 8, 2023