My Outlook

My Outlook

Psychologists often tell us that the personalities of “normal people” are generally formed by one’s early 20s.  Of course, certain unstable personality types, such as those suffering from a borderline personality disorder, do not fit under this generalization and have unstable personalities.  In going over the pages of my science fiction novel from the early sixties, I find that my views and outlook have changed little.  After extricating myself from a crisis of religious belief in my late teens, I had settled pretty much a view of what Stephen King termed. “a dark Christianity,” one based upon the views of Ecclesiastes and the sturdy old Medieval belief that this world is a vale of tears and humankind’s true home lies beyond the grave. Of course I am not an utter pessimist. Certainly this world offers joys and pleasures. Some people are winners, some loser, often because of events beyond their control.