It’s been months now but it seems days since I released the second volume of my autobiography titled Reality of the Unreal Mind: Normal Street. I can’t get past it. I reread and reread passages and lines, even entire books, and I’m not sure why.
It might be that I do not remember parts of it. I simply wasn’t there for most of it. You hear tales from Shadow, from Guardian, from Artist, and many others, but I have not shared myself with anyone. My name is Ronin and I am not a writer. I am not good at expressing myself and I am not ready for everyone to know the life I have led.
I do not brag. I do not see the point. If a deed needs to be done and someone does it, then it was their obligation and they deserve no praise. They should ask for none. DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) has a lot of alters yelling, “Me, me, I did that! I said that!” But I do not see the point. Shadow snuck out of the house at night while living in Allenton. Good for him. It was for his own survival. If he did not have a way of breaking free then he would have died. He did what he needed to make it to the next day. Why should he tell us all about it?
I say these things to you knowing that this is not good press. Might be the worst marketing a writer could make for his or her work. I understand that. I can take that into account when I tell you that to me, talking about the things you have done to the world at large carries with it a bit of hubris. But still I read. Still I come back night after night addicted to these books.
I’m writing this to find out why. I’m here in front of you trying to make sense of the reason I read Reality of the Unreal Mind over and over again. It might be to understand the age I grew up in. The culture of Rambo and Dracula. It might be so that I can understand the places I grew up and the ramifications of being there at that time. Can I ever really understand Demon Duck and what he meant to me? Can I understand living in the aftermath of the Vietnam War? Can I even understand the things we did and why we did them?
I’m not built that way. I rifle through my past night after night trying to figure out why I care. Why I need to know everything that Shadow said and Servant did. Maybe to understand myself I need to learn why Lenore does not feel, and why Shush screamed without a mouth? I am not sure.
I can say that I believe in Reality of the Unreal Mind but I don’t understand it. My mind was not created in a way that can comprehend its necessity. But I do know it is necessary. I think I ought to stop trying to wrap all of it up into a neat package. Brown paper and twine. I can see now as I write this that it is not for me. Never was. It is for you. I am the worst person to be saying this to you, but in the mind displayed in these books, you might find you. You may figure out the things that went wrong in your own life and maybe how to fix them. Maybe inspiration will come to you to stand up. Maybe inspiration will be in these books for you to sit down and shut up. I don’t know.
Race. Poverty. Violence. Abuse. Art. Honor. Love. Homosexuality. They need to be looked at. Need to be understood.
I can never be healed by Reality of the Unreal Mind. I ought to stop reading it. It’s a record skipping in my head that is not getting me anywhere. It’s a circle I could run for the rest of my life and never escape. But maybe you can.
While writing this I can see that this book is not meant for Ronin. This book is meant maybe for you. Maybe you need to see it all to make sense of your life. Because I will never make sense of mine.
This book is not for me. This book is for my other alters. This book is for you. I hope you can experience it and it will free you. I hope you can read it and not get trapped in it.
I’ve never been good with hope. But you might be.
