Brief Corrective

By Paul Ford

Responding to responses.

I would like to issue some corrective statements regarding my last post, I must not think bad thoughts, after receiving quite a few emails.

I don't really think human beings are evil. Just some days. I have no consistent system. I follow my own half-baked socialist sociobiological materialism influenced by linguistics and my early Christian training. This set of concepts could be called "Ftrain Social Theory v0.00001." Notice that there will be 99,998 more updates before we reach version 1.0. I will return to it at some point in the future, or not.

There is a drive to altruism as well as to selfishness, as a friend pointed out in an email. We are not purely selfish creatures, and I was wrong to call us such. Social activism and questions of moral responsibility are one of the many things about which I enjoy writing; they are not the pure focus of my life, but rather layers over the rest of my day-to-day meanderings.

I don't advocate violence, especially not stupid violence.

Some other things I'd like to clarify: I never owned a pony, or served in a war. I am not distantly related to the Astors. I apologize for implying that I was. My father is not really Don Delillo, nor my mother a Carmelite nun. It was my neighbor who had the size 26 feet, not myself. I never stabbed my wife with a pen-knife.

I am not actually Mandy Patinkin's pianist. Despite what the photo says, I am not on a mission of love to Tel Aviv.

But I am flying to Tel Aviv, to stay for a few months and do a little work, and will not be writing any more for Ftrain this week. If you live in Europe, look up in the sky early Friday morning and wave as I go by. I will be the giant gleaming silver ghost, jet exhaust sketching a wiggly curve over the horizon, a far-off dot in your clear, sharp eyes. I will (of course!) wave back.