Yin, Yang, and Me

The ancient Chinese symbol for perfect balance--Yin and Yang--features a circle divided equally between a white area with a black dot in the center of its thickest part, and an identical white area with a black dot. Each one represents one of any opposites: Good and evil, right and wrong, day and night. And I am the line between them.

If you've read any of my blogs, you know that I am absolutely fascinated by me, as you should be with you. Not to the point of ignoring the rest of the world, but rather of always being aware of the fact that of seven billion people on earth, I am--again, as are you--the only "me" that has ever existed or ever will exist. I go through life constantly comparing myself to everyone else, who I generally consider as belonging to a gigantic private club of which I am not a member.

The problems my unique views of the world have created are endless, and as a result of comparing myself to everyone else as a single unit, it really isn't surprising that I have severe problems with self esteem. But the Yin of self-deprecation is balanced by the Yang of an odd sense of…well, superiority, for lack of a better word; of having a perspective on seeing and realizing things very few other people do. My Yin is truly embarrassed by praise, yet my Yang craves it.

Over the years, I've found myself being divided into two distinctly separate entities, though not necessarily Yin-Yang opposites; half of me is the non-corporeal Dorien Grey, the writer, the other half is Roger Margason, the corporeal being from whom Dorien emerged. Strange as it sounds, I find dividing myself into two people avoids a lot of confusion over which side of me deals with which of life's problems.

While I'm always uncharacteristically proud of my books, because I truly consider that Dorien writes them, the Roger part of me doesn't take much credit for them. I have had only one book published under the name of Roger Margason, and that was Stagecoach to Nowhere, which was rewritten many years later as Calico, and published under Dorien's name.

Dorien writes fiction, creating worlds and people which exist only in my heart and mind. But while Dorien writes the books, it is Roger who writes these blogs using Dorien's name largely for the purpose of recognition (far more readers recognize me as Dorien's than are even aware that I'm also Roger).

And now, for the first time, I've published a book for which my Roger side can take full credit (though, again for recognition purposes, it bears Dorien's name on the cover, though a "Roger Margason" credit appears on the inside). Short Circuits: a Life in Blogs, is a compilation of 172 individual blogs published over the past five years, dealing primarily with the people and experiences which have, like the ingredients in a cake, come together to produce the person whose words you are reading at this moment.

A second e-book of blogs will be released in the not-too-distant future, dealing with outlooks, opinions, and prejudices.

Now, I realize that this entire blog can be considered to be what is known on writers' sites on the internet as "BSP"--Blatant Self-Promotion. But unfortunately the old adage "Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door" simply does not apply. Unless people know about the mousetrap, they can't be expected to have any interest in buying it. Thus those writers like myself, not resident on the slopes of Mt. Olympus, with publicists and the power of the large, powerful publishing firms at our beckon call, must do the best we can to reach out to prospective readers and hope we have made ourselves sufficiently interesting to entice them...to entice you...to take a chance with us.

I do hope I have a slight advantage in that I have your ear right now, and I do hope you'll excuse the BSP elements herein. My Yin and Yang thank you.

Dorien's blogs are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back. And please take a moment to check out http://bit.ly/m8CSO1 for information on Dorien's "Short Circuits: a Life in Blogs."