I write like
Jane Austen

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

OK - I confess, every piece of writing I tried gave me a different result! I've chosen the one I like best - the others were Dan Brown, Arthur Clarke and David foster Wallace and Cory Doctorow - none of whom I've read although I may have crossed paths with an Arthur Clarke publication or two in my youth - and the last two I've never heard of.

I looked up David Foster Wallace (his name seemed significant, because David Foster RIP founder of the Catholic Summer School in Pangbourne, was a good friend of mine) and found I liked some of the things he had to say....

Sadly this man suffered severe depression (something I have experienced myself) and committed suicide in 2008. For someone with a reportedly great mind, and more vision than many, I suspect what he lacked was God. Although I don't know for sure. He certainly seems to have been aware of 'the better path'...

Here's a sample, from a Commencement speech he gave at Kenyon College in 2005 - after outlining the choices we have in how we choose to see and value life's boring, petty, frustrating day-to-day situations [emphasis mine]:

Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship--be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles--is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.

Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings.

While I don't agree with all the above, he has come upon some eternal truths, and put them very well. His language can be a bit 'earthy', but if you're up for it, that speech can be found in full here. The 'trick' I emphasised is the very lesson I need to keep learning.

Have you ever seen the Disney short cartoon (from the 1960s I think or maybe earlier) Mr Walker and Mr Driver? At least, the names may have differed but that was the lasting impression. Goofy was the Jekyll and Hyde character - a mild-mannered genteel neighbourly type when walking; a vicious, impatient, arrogant ogre when driving! While I truly believe I drive well and carefully - my observation of others on the road when I drive are very close to the ogre's!!! I wouldn't have even realised - but I have developed an awful habit of narrating - aloud - every awful thought that enters my head when behind the wheel. So my 4 consciences - I mean children - hasten to point out how uncharitable I am whenever they get the chance.

The lesson Mr Foster Wallace offers in this speech is the secular companion to the priestly advice I've had in the past: 'make excuses for others'!  When, I wonder, will I achieve this in default, distracted, day-to-day mode...?