Over the last 50 years or so, I’ve been many different things – a successful business owner, vocalist, actor, and mentor.  I’m a proud father, and I’d like to think that I’ve helped and been an inspiration to many people along the path of my professional and personal life.

I’ve always been enamored by the written word.  I’ve been a varied and voracious reader all my life.  I’ve written short stories that were too awful to ever publish, and I’ve written birth stories of both my adult children that still have enough power in them to make my eyes water.  I’ve written copy for websites and blog posts in my profession, and I’ve written countless emails, letters, and even a small bit of poetry.  I’ve performed on stages, read my work to audiences that both liked and hated me, and even once got to read one of my letters in my own divorce trial.  

My latest writing is a non-fiction book that takes an objective look at mass human deaths due to plagues, famines, and wars.   The Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 is there, along with politicides under Stalin and Mao.  The Irish Potato Famine is there as well as the conquests of Ghenghis Khan.  The underlying thesis of my book is that these human disasters are evolutionary events that benefit the species as a whole.  While this is not a popular opinion – in fact, my family advised me to write this book under a pen name – it’s become much more relevant considering the coronavirus pandemic that is currently sweeping the world.  You can view (and buy) a copy of The Next Human Die Off on Amazon.

As I approach the middle of my life (or maybe I’m watching it receding behind me – who knows for sure) I’ve become contemplative on the inspiration and reasons behind some of my decisions.  What seemed to be so mysterious when I was younger is clearer today.  Even though the choices I made in my youth were poor choices, it seems now like they always came from a place of creativity.  Every job I’ve ever had, from small jobs I’ve done as a young man, to companies I’ve operated that employed hundreds of subcontractors – they have all started as a creative spark.

It’s hard to describe the creative process, whether it’s writing a book, a song, painting a picture, or starting a company.  To me, it’s like having a butterfly zooming around inside your skull.  If you can, you let it out by writing, or painting, or sculpting, or playing an instrument.  If you don’t let it out, or can’t, that butterfly is likely to die and rot inside your head.  I’ll admit that’s a pretty grim analogy, but maybe that’s why there are so many creative people with mental illness – the corpses of their ideas poison their thinking. 

The alternative, of course, is to nurture the creative spark – the butterfly, if you will – until it is ready to be shown to an audience.  Then, the idea is ready to emerge, and it is let out on paper, on canvas, or in song.  With bright colors or dark, with brilliant marking or shades of grey, the spark, the idea, and the butterfly provide influence to people that are lucky enough to be moved by it.