I ordered you r book based on the subject matter—I am a long-time advocate of psychedelic experiences—and the NYT article. Now, reading in this post that you have become a Christian, I await my reading with trepidation. I am open minded, but find my prejudice against Christian beliefs acquired late in life to be morally and intellectually suspect due to the readily available and atrocious history and hypocrisies those who claim to be Christians. I look forward to possibly squaring this seeming contradiction by reading your book. I have not found Christian-adjacent philosophy to ring true to my experience of life, consciousness, or conscience—so far…
Congratulations, nonetheless, on your accomplishment. Writing can be self flagellation, but publishing, and its marketing companion, is The Rack, to resort to Christianity-derived metaphors.
I didn’t expect you to. How could you? You don’t know me and most probably never will, but I will be knowing something of you soon by reading your book and was just expressing my thoughts here in this public forum you are choosing to enter—in a much more insignificant way, of course, than the writing, publication and, marketing of a book—but, due to the NYT article alone, I do care what you think. I was only hoping for a scintilla of “caring” in exchange for my $16.99, my subscription, and my congratulations. I suppose you writing me a terse, somewhat rude response is just that. I wouldn’t call it good marketing, but fair enough. I’m terrible at marketing, myself. Perhaps you’ll read my chapbook, here:
Another way to see it: you’re choosing to enter my quasi-public space. There’s no security at the door, but there are some rules of conduct. Whether that’s how you see it or not, even in the regular public sphere we generally hold to certain well-established norms of interaction, and one of them is that if you have prejudices about a group another person belongs to, unless you are that person’s familiar, heavens, you keep them to yourself! I know anyhow that that’s how I manage my own prejudices. Imagine for comparison that you meet a Muslim, and the first thing you say to him is: “Now I’m an open-minded guy and everything, but I kind of think you guys would like to impose Sharia law on all of us.” That Muslim would be well within his rights to reply: fuck off, bigot. I’d be well within my rights too, though this time I restrained myself.
Congrats and well-deserved media attention. Looking forward to getting my hands on a copy.
I ordered you r book based on the subject matter—I am a long-time advocate of psychedelic experiences—and the NYT article. Now, reading in this post that you have become a Christian, I await my reading with trepidation. I am open minded, but find my prejudice against Christian beliefs acquired late in life to be morally and intellectually suspect due to the readily available and atrocious history and hypocrisies those who claim to be Christians. I look forward to possibly squaring this seeming contradiction by reading your book. I have not found Christian-adjacent philosophy to ring true to my experience of life, consciousness, or conscience—so far…
Congratulations, nonetheless, on your accomplishment. Writing can be self flagellation, but publishing, and its marketing companion, is The Rack, to resort to Christianity-derived metaphors.
I really do not care at all what you think about “Christian beliefs acquired late in life”.
You care enough to write a reply! BTW, congratulations on the book and actually being an open minded philosopher.
I care enough to seek to ensure that this salon not be crashed by people who know nothing of noblesse oblige. And thanks!
I didn’t expect you to. How could you? You don’t know me and most probably never will, but I will be knowing something of you soon by reading your book and was just expressing my thoughts here in this public forum you are choosing to enter—in a much more insignificant way, of course, than the writing, publication and, marketing of a book—but, due to the NYT article alone, I do care what you think. I was only hoping for a scintilla of “caring” in exchange for my $16.99, my subscription, and my congratulations. I suppose you writing me a terse, somewhat rude response is just that. I wouldn’t call it good marketing, but fair enough. I’m terrible at marketing, myself. Perhaps you’ll read my chapbook, here:
https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/mrs-silva-walks-to-the-azores-a-story-in-ten-cantos-a-sra-silva-caminha-para-os-acores-uma-historia-em-dez-cantos-by-michael-bickford-translated-by-bruna-dantas-lobato/
or my poems, here: <michaelmbickford.com>
See? I’m terrible at marketing.
Another way to see it: you’re choosing to enter my quasi-public space. There’s no security at the door, but there are some rules of conduct. Whether that’s how you see it or not, even in the regular public sphere we generally hold to certain well-established norms of interaction, and one of them is that if you have prejudices about a group another person belongs to, unless you are that person’s familiar, heavens, you keep them to yourself! I know anyhow that that’s how I manage my own prejudices. Imagine for comparison that you meet a Muslim, and the first thing you say to him is: “Now I’m an open-minded guy and everything, but I kind of think you guys would like to impose Sharia law on all of us.” That Muslim would be well within his rights to reply: fuck off, bigot. I’d be well within my rights too, though this time I restrained myself.