January 22, 2014

January 22, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

Today’s letter type is “Californian.” It was chosen to end this author’s exploration of how his writing is affected by a different letter types. This author lives in California. By choosing this letter type, he brings his writing under  discriminative control of the place where he  now resides, Chico. Where one lives is one’s environment. As a child, this author used to sum up the expanded version of where he was. While lying in bed at night, he would think of his room, in a house, in a street, in a town, in a province, in a country, on a continent, on the planet earth, in our part of the universe called the Milky Way.  As he grew older, he extended his way of locating himself with what he came to know or came to believe about himself. His view of himself was shaped by his family: his religious,  forceful father, who beat and humiliated him; his emotional, caring mother, who was often overwhelmed; his younger brother, who was hostile and wanted to beat him;  his youngest brother, who was rude towards him; his oldest sister, who betrayed him; his older sister, who abandoned him; his uncle, who was an actor, who made him feel special; his other uncle who was a salesman, who was nice, but childish; his uncle, who was a manager at a cigarette factory, who was angry; his aunt, who talked loudly and gave wet kisses; his aunt, who was arrogant and phony; his aunt, who was deaf and could read lips; his aunt, who smoked like a chimney and couched really badly; his aunt, who was sickly and demanding;  his grandmother from his mother’s side, whom he loved so very much; his grandmother from his father’s side, who taught him that stealing was wrong; his one-eyed grandfather from his father’s side, who died when he was young; his grandfather from his mother’s side, with whom he played soccer and the fed birds in the park. The author's behavior was shaped by his neighborhood, his adventure, his church, his school, his boy scout club, his soccer team, his fishing spots, his beach, his raft, his canal, his asthmatic bronchitis, his allergies, his winters, his summers, his autumns, his springs, his troubled teenage years, his early adolescent years during which he felt so rejected and lost, his dancing, his girlfriends, his flute, his friends with whom he tried to make sense of who he was, his jobs, his arguments, his travels, his return home, his dissatisfaction with his achievements, his search for truth, his disappointment in others and his loneliness.