PRETENDER

I never met the man Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computers and founder of NeXT computers, who made the phrase connecting the dots famous when he said, “You cannot connect the dots by looking forward. You can only connect them by looking backward.” It makes a lot of sense to me personally because life is never a simple straight line but it zigzags, meanders, threading the forbidden paths, like a curious snake beneath the thick forest floor, going to places with no clear markers, climbing many ups and downs, though always eyeing the destination with one or two eyes. Or blind-folded. Never stop learning from hindsight, foresight or insight. And along this winding journey, we have and continue to create many dots, seemingly, on the surface, different and isolated or unrelated to one another. And Steve Jobs was saying if you connect these dots, a mysterious picture might emerge to make sense of one’s strivings, endeavors and vicissitudes in life. … The reason why I am writing this book is trying to connect the dots by looking backward, following every iota of Steve Job’s advice. I cannot guarantee the result. What counts is the journey, not the destination, some wise guy might say. Something did happen in my life to cause me to do this, like peeling the onions to get to the core of the truth. And I will try my best to tell the story. I also believe fervently that everything happens for a reason or reasons and the truth, I anticipate, will emerge as you connect the dots. I admit the process is not as easy as taking a Polaroid photo or developing the negatives in a dark room. Connecting the dots is not instant photography but a clear image, I hope and pray, might emerge along the way or at the end of the difficult process. Assuming some truths are still intact, not destroyed or mutilated or buried deep beyond recovery or retrievable. Some reconstruction or embellishment of the truths is always possible, for the sake of entertainment. For me while planning to find and connect the dots, the inevitable question is: Is honesty the best policy in exposing your long-held secrets to total strangers who might be reading the book? Why should any author be worried about a fiction or a novel? My individual response calmed my nerves. It buoyed my confidence. Because in fiction, I have the liberty to utilize as many special effects and embellishments to make the story come alive, irresistible and palatable like a glass of cold beer in the middle of a hot Texas summer. The fancy buzz word: does it resonate with the readers? Ultimately the question is: does writing a book, fiction or non-fiction, endorses or justifies or exonerates one’s actions in matters as critical as one’s gender identity or sexual preferences in the context of human relationships? It depends who is talking. I once heard a radio interview with a famous fiction writer somewhere in America and it intrigued me and gave me plenty of food for thought because he said would his readers continue to believe him, a fiction writer, if what he wrote was not believable! I asked myself this question: why is that so important to him, a fiction writer. PRETENDER is a fiction.