Why I Write

I’ve never been much of a joiner. After an early childhood trauma—the sudden death of my mother, when I was four—I found it hard to believe in much of anything. The election of Ronald Reagan, when I was nine, only underscored the feeling that the world didn’t make much sense. Then, when I was eleven, my school got funding to purchase new telescopes and the science teacher gave the battered old ones away to interested students. I was one of them, and that telescope changed my life.

Peering through the eyepiece and watching the surface of the Moon unroll itself before me, I felt a powerful sense of homecoming. Gazing at the terminator—the line that divides the light and dark sides of the Moon—I felt there was something here for me, a riddle I’d gazed at my whole life but never understood.

Ever since then I’ve been on a mission to explore this place, whether through psychedelics or my time in the D.C. punk scene. I sensed there was something beyond what I saw with my own two eyes, something that might explain the sense of unreality I’d felt ever since I was young. 

What I was writing towards, I only see now, was a sense of belonging.

It’s my mission to explore this topic. Living on Earth can feel alienating and anxious in the best of times; it’s my sincere hope that my writing serves as a beacon for those who feel like they don’t belong to their lives.

Every week, I share updates and dispatches through my Substack, Dispatches From the Fringe. If you’re curious, you can sign up via the form below. And as always: thanks for reading.