Greetings from an Old Recluse

Hello . . .

Before I die sometime in the next decade or two I want to get a few things off my chest, and I thought some obscure blogsite might provide a platform (read or unread doesn't matter much) to put my thoughts, beliefs, opinions, attitudes, prejudices, jealousies, anxieties, gripes, and so forth, in order -- at least for my own edification and comfort. Hopefully a few of you out there will respond with insights and thoughts of your own that I might benefit from and take to heart to strengthen my own soul, too. That would make this blog a forum, maybe, and that would be good.


The thing is, I'm not very comfortable with the world -- especially with us human beings and how we interact with the rest of it -- and I'd like to blather on a bit about that in this blog. Again, it doesn't really make much difference whether anyone bothers to listen; at least it's therapy for me. And the good thing is that I don't have to stand up before any of you to expound (or preach) my philosophical insight to you in an exuberant effort to sway you to my way of thinking, and I don't ever have to come out of my personal cave to meet you or greet you or talk to you unless I want to. That makes me happy, for I doubt that you (unless you're a goddess) and I'd get along for fifteen minutes -- not necessarily because of you, of course. My son-in-law calls me Grumpy. I suppose my social reticence and my frequently grim attitude explain why I've become the reclusive loner that I am, and that I intend to remain, although I do get depressed and lonely sometimes, and I do have my libido.


I expect I'll set something down here every week or so, since I've always been a fairly well organized person with lots of stuff to say; and since I'm running out of time to say it publicly, I'll have to put myself on some kind of a regular schedule. Let's see -- today's the 13th so I'll try to have something cogent or profound to offer up by the 20th. That'll be the goal anyhow. Once a week ought to work. The specific material will generally follow the summary listings in the labels, below.


I'll leave this first post with a little about me, so as to let you know some of who the hell you're dealing with in case you've stumbled across it. I've called myself the Recluse, because that's pretty much what I am. I'll go by the pen-name of Albert Lloyd Williams; I've been called Lloyd all my life, and I'm comfortable with that. Even my enemies call me Lloyd. I'm old, too -- just a hair past the mid-sixties -- and I've seen and experienced a spectrum of life on this planet that's spiraled all the way up to the top and plunged all the way back to the bottom. I've been a corporate executive, president, chairman, and all that; an athlete, a sportsman, a hunter, and a soldier; a rebel, a husband, something of an accidental gigolo, and a homeless person; a convict, public offender, and a prisoner. I've been well-off and I've been dirt-poor. But I've always been a dreamer.


The soul-lifting soars and mind-jarring plummets of my life have given me a broad practical education and a perspective to go along with it. Sometimes I'm cold, bitter, and hard; and sometimes I'm humble, compassionate, and weak. Sometimes I smile, but oftentimes I cry. I don't like to cry, yet I seem to find myself doing too damn much of it these days. I have a strong aversion to men and their duplicity and a great affection for true women; I am a devout feminist -- far beyond the understanding of any other man I've ever met. I believe the feminine soul is divine, and that the male soul cannot achieve spiritual peace without uniting with the soul of a true woman -- what I call a goddess.


I'm about three-quarters honest, which is more than I can say about you, probably, or most people I know about, anyway -- unless you're a true woman. But I promise (to myself, at least, and you if you're a reader) that the stuff in this blog will come from my soul and it will be as honest as I can muster up.


A degree of honesty is important, and it's been put this way in a profound but amusing way:
"I don't have enough respect for men," she said. "I've found very few men who are honest, and you ain't one of the few."
"I'm about half-honest," Augustus said.
"That's right," she said.
- from Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, 1985

Regards . . .

the Recluse

Copyright Albert Lloyd Williams (©2008)