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Famous Kilroy J. Oldster Quotes

“Philosophic thoughts allow people to use human reason and imagination to consider eternal matters and explore the ramifications of their own transience. American author Joan Didion postulated that we tell ourselves stories in order to live. Conceivably a personal crisis propels a person to delve into creating a guiding philosophy for living with reduced mental and emotional turmoil. Alternatively, perhaps we tell stories to examine, explain, and justify our failures.”

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“Reflecting on the past while living in the present, we make decisions that will reverberate in the future. Our daily actions, thought patterns, and the concepts we choose to cherish will create the paradigmatic structure of our life story; our collective decision-making determines our final manifestation.”

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“Storytelling is an imperfect methodology to provide a true accounting to a multiplicity of bilateral and three-dimensional interactions. Language cannot reach every recess of the mind, it cannot document every emotional chord, and it cannot splice the discordant pieces within us. Each story by a writer represents the sanitized accounting of the mind’s depictions. Try as one might, employing a panoply of traditional technique or other slick tools of modernist stage craft, it is impossible to separate the teller from the telling any more than one can distinguish the author from their doppelganger writer’s voice.”

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“A good story is both one hundred percent true and one hundred percent false. A good story uses small lies to take a stab at piercing larger truths. An overstatement and understatement are part of writer’s craft; each standing alone is an untruth. An understatement might be used as an attempt at humor, just as an overstatement might be used to probe a truth that lies beyond the exact retelling of who, what, when, and where style employed in police report writing. Even writing biography, autobiography, memoir, and personal essays that studiously and relentless adheres to established facts can distort the truth. Faithful adherence to stringing rote facts together omits many aspects of both the subject and the operable social, cultural, and political environment that stages human interaction, contest, conflict, drama, and strife.”

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“Storytelling is one means to entertain, share knowledge, and transmit cultural ideology. Through the universal lens of storytelling, do we become familiar with the life altering dilemmas and moral challenges that fuselage provides the linkage to mode the character patterns essential to leading a principled life? By shuffling through scores of loose leafed stories, can we glean the clarity of thought and the lucidity of perception needed successfully to tackle our own life with gusto? Is reading stories of struggle and redemption one way that we become acquainted with the chemistry of pain and suffering that permeates the arteries of all thinking human beings? Does appreciation for other people’s hardbound stories assist us place the vertebrae of our own experiences into a telling template? Can we draw upon the accumulated experiences of other people’s lives as well as our own hands-on experiences when we see our lives folded into a comprehensible scabbard depicting what it means to be human and, therefore, fallible?”

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“Self-knowledge enables a person to grasp what future decisions will define their final formation. The human mind habitually hits the rewind button and replays past events. Can looking back over the rim of time and engaging in thoughtful criticism of the precursor events of my formative years be of any possible assistance to expose the indurate truth of factual reality? Can I employ the tools of memory and imagination along with the techniques of logos – reasoned discourse – to escape strife and pathos? Does it make sense to write the story of my life so that I can ascertain who I am? With these unsettling thoughts and these maieutic questions in mind, I began writing an enantiomorphism-like scroll. The crystal molecules that comprise this text construct a mirror that replicates the multiple dimensions of a risky adventure into self-psychology. I harbor no expectation regarding the outcome of this reflective venture. Regardless of the consequences, all I can do is follow the psychic flow generated by this writing enterprise. I do not know where this positional analysis will take me or how this psychodynamic field study will end. I am simply dedicating all remaining personal energy reserves to capitulating to a tornado-like process of self-study, a turbulent procedure with an unpredictable outcome. Perhaps something sensible will result from deploying a series of narrative personal essays to deconstruct the parasitic evolution of an egocentric self.”

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“This narrative scroll is my story. It represents a peep show into a self-prescribed, ceremonial quest to stare myself down, mutilate myself, slice myself into minuscule pieces, exam and innervate my paralytic soul. Writing this manuscript documenting disenchantment with my selfhood’s unsatisfactory interactions with significant life defining experiences constitutes a calculated surgical disembodiment of my former egoistical self. The act of writing my life story serves as a spiritual dismemberment undertaken to reconfigure and reconstitute my essential being. Perhaps this anatomical deconstruction of a delusional self represents a talisman-like step in attempted self-healing. Alternatively, perhaps this megalomaniac manuscript, which amplifies my psychopathic condition characterized by narcissistic fantasies of power and greatness, and chorusing ring of self-doubt, is nothing more than the sound and fury of an idiot’s paranoid rant. Is my self-induced schizophrenia running rampant, writing page after page of pure drivel, descending me deeper into a private hell? Perchance writing this oscillating scroll is a well-intended personal attempt to escape my mortality, an effort to cheat death by entering into the web of eternity, immerse my voice into the collective consciousness of humankind by creating an immortality vessel. Conversely, mayhap the illogical rant that demarks this scroll proves that the devil does take the hindmost.”

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“We learn about ourselves by taking one footstep at a time along a road of discovery. Greek philosopher Heraclitus who lived around 500 BCE proffered cogent advice about how to acquire wisdom and achieve a proper perspective on all worldly events. ‘Whosoever wishes to know about the world must learn about it in its particular details. Knowledge is not intelligence. In searching for truth, be ready for the unexpected. The same road goes both up and down. The beginning of a circle is also its end. Not I, but the world says it: all is one.’ This script tells of one man’s journeying a full circle in an effort to become one with all that exists.”

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“A person can cultivate a new persona from a pâté of earthy personal experiences. How do I reconcile all my faults and propagate all my innate gifts to create the type of self that I am happy to claim responsibility for authorship? How do I go about turning over the peat moss that lines the feldspar of my rocky existence? How do I plow under the seedlings of my youth and grow a protective bed of winter clover to shield my adulthood? How do I mulch the clippings from variegated personal experiences, ferment the rot, harrow new rows, and plant hardy spring wheat to take root in the enriched chocolate loam of a fertile mind? Is all this laborious plow pulling work of creating a fresh and authentic self-identify worth the backbreaking effort? How does one go about revamping their personal storyline? How do I cast myself into a robust image that does not appall other people? My continued existence entails industriously giving seed to the lush myths that I live by, amassing dwindling personal willpower, and resolving to impose upon my weathered soul the missing character traits that wait forging in the glowering inferno fed by a rising mountain of ignited personal anxiety.”

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“Most of us suffer from the pangs of self-doubt; yet, the courage to tread forward must originate from within. I seek to articulate a definitive purpose behind my effort and then resolve to devote all interpersonal resources to achieve established goals. I need to be mindful of personal talents and imperfections, boldly face all fears, bravely straddle the unknown, and unerringly establish high-minded objectives. I must exhibit determination, resilience, and courage to give my best effort and never slacken a resolute pace. A seeker is obligated to be truthful; I cannot engage in self-deception if I hope to develop the integrity of my spirit. Comparable to all worthwhile tests of character, a person seeking growth must ultimately conquer his or her insecurities and discover a means to muster flagging personal fortitude. Can I throttle back from the black lagoon or did I travel too far as a chainless soul up the river of insanity to turn back now? Can I reintegrate myself in a normative world where self-preservation and reasonableness reigns? Can I conduct a Black Ops reconnaissance operation by reconfiguring the organs of a dismembered self with reawakened astuteness, and exhibit the determined stoicism indicative of my ancestor lineage?”

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“Metaphysical anxiety of knowing that I am nothing standing in the crux of infinity haunts me. Self-centered mind chatter is a symptom of the illness of my soul. I instigated this banal writing excursion attempting to escape the monotony of the self, the tedium of living an exclusively external life of sensation and acquisition. I lived a vain, materialist, and empty life seeking pleasurable diversions from thinking and perceiving. I stupidly asked what I can take from life and measured the value of existence by repeatedly assessing what I received from living and ignored what I illiberally refused to give.”

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“Good stories are thematic and thought provoking. Every story has a meaning to the teller; sometimes the actual meaning of the story is latent. Is storytelling evidence of how we go about taking measure of our action-filled lives? Do stories tell how we hunker down in a foxhole in an all-out effort to survive? Does storytelling also pay homage to how the mind is predisposed to roam about in a cloudbank while we are belly crawling on the battlefield of time? Does the sprawl of our stories delve into what cinematic themes we find worthy of living for and risk death chasing? What does the synecdoche of our stories tell us about people and how does this knowledge assist us fit into this diverse world as individuals? Do self-selected stories guide us in choosing how to go about life? Does the hard kernel of our personal story allow us to reconcile how we actually live with how other well-meaning people coached us to live? Do poignant stories of our generation tell us whether we should aim for a life of leisure, aspire to acquire wealth, pine to take pleasurable junkets, maneuver to climb the ladder of social prestige, altruistically give to charity, or stoically sacrifice personal delight in order to mollify a religious deity? What does the sanctified marrow of cherished stories tell us about life?”

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“Personal storytelling is akin to taking a detailed accounting of our actions, deeds, thoughts, and impulses, a comprehensive listing of our acts of depravity and kindness, an exhaustive statement of being. Scrolling backward through our muddling, taking an incisive look inside our hard case craniums, we gather a vision of the desired future course of action for ourselves and simultaneously send out a glimmer of morning light for people who witness our life force stammering its series of dashed, interlinear lines across the infinite galaxies of time and space. Analogous to the impulsive death dance of a shooting star, our final spasmodic rattle illumines the unrelenting darkness of unbounded space for other stargazing voyagers to witnesses. By being a dash of light in a wash of darkness, we inspire other intrepid explorers.”

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“Each act of writing represents a separate lock of the author’s tissue and all serious piecework folds into an ongoing anthology. A writer’s portfolio is comprised of interlocking ideas that are in a constant state of change. A writer’s ideas gradually reflect their current mental and spiritual composition and a writer’s way of living reflects the progression of their ideas. Each written version of a person’s life stands as mental testament of who the author was at a given moment in time. Just as we cannot sum up a person’s life with an isolated snapshot, truly to understand who a writer was we must read his or her entire body of work. No single work of writing tells us who the writer was. The compilation of a writer’s scripts defines the shady author, even if some of these works overtake, correct, or contradict previous efforts. Who we are is the summation of who we were as a child, teenager, young adult, in middle age, and as an elder. Only by viewing a person in successive stages do we truly comprehend them. Only by reading the oeuvre of an author, do we appreciate the writer’s ultimate act of creation. Only by reading a person’s obituary do we come to know what their living Magnus opus stood for.”

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“Confucius advised his disciples, ‘Wherever you go, go with all your heart.’ Giving all of oneself to an artistic effort is particularly apropos because even the most talented writer, poet, singer, painter, musician, or philosopher will tear a tatter from their soul in order to produce anything that will stand the test of time and affect the minds of other people. While I admittedly lack the talent, skill, poise, grace, intelligence, creativity, and persistence of esteemed writers, I share what every writer must, an awful craving to know what previously escaped me, to know thy self and my place in the world. An irrepressible hunger to know, searching for the truth that governs our being, is what makes us human.”

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“We each sketch the story of our lives. We tell other people whom we have become by making decisions how we carry out our daily affairs, how we confront personal crisis, and when we extend comfort to other people. By talking about our secret dreams, we reveal who we hope to become. Writing changes us. A sentence on paper reflects not only who we now are, but it also exposes who we used to be.”

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“My charter is to examine my egoistical self and alter my being by placing on paper whatever rests inside of me. I seek to develop a cohesive philosophy for living – and for dying – that is spiritually nourishing by dichotomizing the events in life that formed me. I aspire to discover an authentic core that will guide me through a physical world where human thoughts and deeds deepen our lives. Just as a flower must bud, every person feels in his or her marrow the need to express what it means to be human. Unlike a flower, which we perceive as a singular iridescent unit of material reality, we tend to perceive oneself as containing interlacement of multitudes, an array of interlaced voices.”

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“I seek to ascertain a way to breathe life back into my sunken chamber. I need to discover an incarnate means to replicate the meditative shadow that appears on the wall of my inner cave. I must eliminate the distorted manner that I look at the world through the falsifying mirrors of illusion and delusion. My innermost fear is that I wasted precious time, squandered opportunities, and the clock will expire before I create any worthy testament to the pristine beauty of nature or innate goodness of humankind. I shudder in the creeping shadows of the evening struck by the thought that I lack the discipline, talent, and fortitude as well as the crucial gift of evaluation and analysis demanded to add to the collective good. I fear that selfishly ensconced in a cosseted life I ignored the shaft of light that openly beckons each of us to unbolt. I am clueless of how to release the glorious expression of beauty that our nature seeks to burnish in our fleeting ambulation across the plains of time. Do I dare pull back the curtain and unmask the timid man that stands hidden behind the sheltering layers of untruth that conceal the demesne of his mangled personal thoughts, feelings, emotions, wants, and needs? Inside this crusted urn, is there a shard of anything that can be cultivated for goodness, if only I possessed the strength of mind and insight to will it into fruition? Does one know how to share their modest notions with other people who might yearn to hear that they too are not alone?”

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“Finishing large projects can result in a mild or severe thud of depression. The scariest part about completing any demanding project is that irrespective of how exhausting the labor might be the work also arrests a person’s attention. Working passionately is akin to a person consenting to a kidnaping. A person engaged in performing a princely task feels whisked away on a captivating voyage of undetermined final destination. At times, I wondered if the only thing that actually kept me going is the work of crafting sentences. Writing sentences is contagious. Finishing a sentence infects a person with a desire to write another sentence. The feverish rash of writing spread until it consumed all my resources. Once I stop writing, I will need to find a new reason to awaken each day.”

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“The tug of self-destruction and the desire to defy mortality by creating an everlasting mark upon this world are uneasy acquaintances. The strident edginess behind a writer’s searchlight voice is a product of the natural tension that engenders when an apathetic writer believes death could arrive tonight. Stunned by fear of a hard deadline, the writer is jolted from their state of laziness and mental neglect that trolling inertia dampens their aptitude to love life.”

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“The rewards generated from writing materialize at all stages of the work. Simply spending time organizing a person’s thoughts is edifying. Revising thoughts lead to clarification of conflicting thoughts and greater precision of thought. Finishing a piece of writing about hurtful personal experiences allows a person to examine it for everything that the writer learned.”

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“An essayist, unlike a fiction writer, needs to establish their objective reliability, equitable sincerity, intellectual integrity and maintain their authoritative trustworthiness because they are an acknowledged reporter of true events and relating or applying the ideas and principles of their sources.”

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“Akin to any other human being’s creations composed from inspirational toil, the textual rendering of a person depicted in personal essay writing asserts an existence independent of the author. A personal writing voice speaks to me from a secluded mental closet. Writing makes private mental musings a public act.”

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“When confronting their distorted way of living, personal essayists must inevitably deal with the horrors of the solipsistic self. Essayists remind us to be astutely aware that life is what occurs before death, and because life is the only truth that we will ever experience, we might as well attempt to get our arms around it and embrace it with all our might. In contrast to the essayist’s desire to make clear-cut distinctions, poetry is an airy art form that makes ample use of metaphors and allusions.”

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Author:Kilroy J. Oldster
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