johncflavin@gmail.com
My website is mostly devoted to Flavin Stories; however, you can click on Biography & Contact to find links to a wide variety of my work. Or, above, you’ll see menu options, such as Real News, Social Commentary, Academic, etc.
Flavin Stories is a misordered memoir.
There’s an ancient Indian parable about a group of blind men who had never come across an elephant and who are imagining what the elephant is like by touching it. Then they describe different parts of the elephant to each other based on their limited experience, and of course, their descriptions are vastly different.
I’m writing Flavin Stories as they come to me, without one necessarily relating to another. The idea is to “feel” the tales individually, one at a time, in order to “see” the whole story.
It wasn’t until I started writing Flavin Stories that it occurred to me how much a memory changes over time. Memories, even if misperceived, are only static in the first few moments after the remembered event, and then they change with each passing day, week, month, year, and decade. Our new experiences, our physical and emotional maturity (or not), and accumulated knowledge reshapes the memories according to an evolving understanding of them.
This is especially true of childhood memories, which are actually more like empty vessels that wait for knowledge, experience, and wisdom to better understand them.
I am writing Flavin Stories to tell of the various transformational failures and successes of my life–one at a time. I hope you enjoy them.
(L to R) Front: John (6) & Peter (7) – Back: Steve (10), Dad (44), Mom (42), Liz (14), Paul (13)
“My story isn’t sweet and harmonious, like invented stories. It tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves.”
> Herman Hesse <