A brief glimpse of phenomenolgy - roughly, the study of the Self

Max Scheler (a phenomenologist) used a term "unity of fate" to (partially- I'm amazingly paraphrasing here) describe a juxoposition of free will and fate as not completely seperate ideas. He used this phrase to explain how human beings are as creatures of habit, continually falling back on past decision making processes whenever presented with a new choice.
What are most likely to do? He proposed that we usually opt for the familiar.

So think about that....you can look back at parts of your life and see how you made the same types of decisions over and over, until suddenly - something changed, you decided differently than you had in the past and it changed your life in a small, or big way.
My close friends know I'm crazy about this idea because it places two seemingly at odds philosophies : Free Will and Fate right next to each other....in the free choices we are faced with in life we can be fated to respond in the familiar way...or we can change our fate and head in new directions....I just dig it.
My gratitude to Edward Vacek, S.J., for writng the article that introduced this idea to me and all the other things I learned in his class at WJST.

What's up with the name?

Sidhe is the Gaelic word for faerie (Old French spelling) and cafe is self explanatory. The original Sidhe Cafe appears in a story called The Cafe, which I am continually submitting for publication.

It's the story of a woman who wakes up to find herself with amnesia in a Limbo world working as a hostess/waitress in a magical cafe. She's trapped there and consequently struggles with herself and most of the characters with whom she interacts. As I am submitting it for publication I will not be putting it on my website. However, I do have a few other things in mind.

Technology mania

It seems to be catching, or at least following me around....I spent a good hour trying to get my website up and running and of course the hosting site froze and I lost all the work I did tonight. So the website is still a work in progress. And I think a whole day looking at a computer screen is no good for me anyway.

I'll make a big announcement once it's half way decent...has at least some lounge clothes on.

Thanks to Corey Tevan

Corey is responsible for the effective photos on my page here. Corey Tevan is a SUPER imaginative artist and if you are interested in art that comes from the heart of an artist who keeps a light but unbreakable grasp on his sense of hope and wonder - check out his work at www.coreytevan.com.

What do I mean by the self in fiction anyway?

Short hand, I'm interested in how characters evolve their sense of self; regardless if they are lost in (or on) another world, searching for a twin sibling, happier in the void of space or manipulated by parental figures.

Change in direction for this Blog

It's high time I started to push this blog in another direction beyond random theological musings that this was an old and short lived dumping ground for....
So stay tuned as I post notes on the writing life, why I write the fiction I do and updates on a coming website that will be home to samples of my work.