Every so often I go to my Residua website, select a random year, and then select a random entry without looking. More often than not I am surprised by the names I encounter in my own writings. It takes me a while to remember the people who figured prominently enough in my life to mention them by name. Even when I manage to place them, no matter how vaguely, I can rarely remember their faces, let alone their voices, or the shades of their laughter. Regardless of all this, I still maintain that I am the one who has written everything I can find in the random searches of my website. Actually, it would be a child’s play for a resourceful hack to populate my writings with all sorts of ghosts, whom I would take most seriously upon chance discovery. It is quite likely that I would confabulate many a heartfelt story to bring the fake characters to life. And I would defend them tooth and nail, as though I was the sole and indisputable master of my own writings.

Addendum I (February 6, 2015)

Bingo! I just came upon this piece in one of my random searches. And no kidding. It was as random as random can be. Putting the resourceful hack aside, at least for the time being, it is amazing to read that I still maintain that I am the one who has written everything I can find in random searches of my website. The farther back in time I venture, the more ridiculous this supposition strikes me, and not only on account of so many people I have forgotten in the meanwhile. How about my own beliefs and attitudes? And how about my aims and ways to reach them? Over the forty years, much has changed. As well as many times over. In fact, I can hardly remember my own face so many years back, let alone my voice, or the shade of my laughter. If I am indeed the one who has written everything I can find in random searches of my website, then the “I” designates an entire clan rather than an individual. There are at least ten clan members, I guess, and their number is growing all the time. Say, one member per stage of my life, which I reckon in seven-year cycles (“The Seven-Year Life Cycle,” October 23, 2008). At any rate, my random searches are an ever-greater fun. The fabulous “I” is full of surprises.

Addendum II (March 19, 2016)

Bingo, bingo! Here I am once again, and my excuse is no different than before. Pure randomness! This time around, though, I am quite fascinated with the notion that there are at least ten members to this fabulous “I” clan of mine. Indeed, I am about to complete my tenth seven-year cycle in less than a month, and each cycle of my life is different enough to warrant a clan member all its own. But I shudder when I think about the seven-year cycles to follow (“The Seven-Year Life Cycle, Again,” March 13, 2016). There may be as many as fourteen of them. If ten members of the “I” clan are already difficult to tell apart, how will it be with fourteen of them, I wonder? One way or another, the random searches through my writings will turn into an ever-greater challenge as years go by. Luckily for me, all my writings are carefully dated. Come to think of it, all I will need is a calendar organized by seven-year cycles…