Author Monty Joynes
By some genetic design, I was made a creative artist—a writer—and it was incumbent on me to document my psychological generation and to look back at my parents’ generation and to look forward to those of my children and grandchildren. My role, as I matured into it, was to try to make some sense of the American journey from about 1917 onward. At some point along the way, in my early forties, I realized that I was investigating the journey of humanity, not just the American experience, and that the historic drama that I was relating in my novels, plays, and poems was also a metaphysical search for the soul, the common essence that binds us together as living beings.
I do not know if my dedication to a meaningful literature will change social evolution or if the works will even be recognized or read. I do know, however, that I am an agent for such change and that I am not alone in this mission. In fact, I see evidence of my antecedents throughout literary history, both in fiction and non-fiction; and I recognize today others, like myself, who have been genetically charged to contribute to the psychological maturity of a human race—a race now run so fast and hard that it is in danger of spiritual heart failure.
To love the truth about life is a spiritual experience that supersedes intellect. The deep felt awareness of the nature of being is available to everyone without benefit of books or clergy. It is as available to individuals in the most remote primitive places as it is to philosophy graduate students at the most prestigious universities.
Photo by Pat Joynes
Peace occurs in life, not to life. Inner peace is the highest state of consciousness. There is no intellect above it. No higher achievement. First, there is inner peace, and then follows right action. Accept inner peace, and then see what questions arise. Is it profound enough? Will it make me happy? First, experience. Will it end misery, and crime, and war? First, experience. How can I keep a job if I’m at peace all the time? First, experience. Will I find my perfect mate? Will my children respect me? First, experience.
NAKED INTO THE NIGHT
In my literature, I have attempted to illuminate the nature of the experience of inner peace in a contemporary culture. In the Booker Series especially, I have attempted to show how an individual can live from the place of conscious awareness that yields inner peace and still function productively in a society that is at the effect of circumstances and egocentric fears. If it is impossible for the individual to live from the reality of inner peace, then the evolution of the mind and all its concepts about God or anything else has been a failed experiment, and we, too, as a species will pass like dinosaurs from the Earth. What then is now truly important to human endeavor?
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