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An Interview with Richard Bach by Michael Peter Langevin
I don't think any of my books tell the reader anything new. But
they do remind, in a time that is strident and screeching about the
limitations of this world and all the trouble we can get ourselves
into. The books remind us that way down deep in our hearts, part of us
knows that we are creatures of light and we cannot be touched or
destroyed by anything made out of atoms or destroyed at all-that
light is indestructible. And we may reflect that and express that in
multiple trillions of discrete ways, but nevertheless, that
indestructible sense of joyful capacity to express life and express
love is always there. And boy, that's easy to forget sometimes.
There's lots of other books that do the same thing, but that's, I
think, what some of my books have in common with them. I know I love
to pick up a book and finish it with a sense of lifted spirit: "Oh
yes, that's what it's about." I'm not sure about that. I don't really know. All I know is that
individuals somehow are led to find these books at times that are
important to them. The mail that I get very, very often will say, "I
was at a difficult time in my life, and someone gave me a copy." One
of the extreme examples was someone who said, "I was an alcoholic,
and it was a cold night in New York City, and I was sleeping on the
sidewalk in an alley, and there was a wrecked copy of a book that
had the cover turned up. I opened it and my eye fell on something."
And it was exactly what he needed to know at that time, and now he
was writing years after that to say that his life just suddenly came
back together, and he always remembered that difficult time. Because we're all in his state. The difference between Donald
Shimoda and the rest of the people around him is that he remembered.
He knew who he was, and he knew that he was here, like we all are,
to express love and to do it in a playful, joyful manner. All of us
are called by something in this world that attracts us. And it
doesn't matter what it is-you can be an engine mechanic or an
aviator, as in his case, or you can be someone who loves their
flower garden or the world of commerce or sailboats or. Whatever it
is that calls us, that's our path. And as we walk that path, we have
a chance to shine forth who we are. It affects other people around
us. A passion may suggest something that's more visible on the
surface. I would stress the depth of it, the intimacy that one has
with what they love. And I would just suggest that you might have
the same feeling when you watch yourself put together a good
magazine. I remember when I was on the staff of Flying magazine in
New York, and every once in a while we would put together an issue
caused us to stop and say, "Hey, that is really lovely." No one else
may ever see it or they may never get it or whatever-- Right. That's a strange thing, and I don't understand why. Well, I can amplify a little bit. Ritual has never appealed to me.
It does not to this day. For me, not for anyone else, but for me, I
feel strongly that ritual is not the way to go. There is a sense of
oneness that from time to time I'm aware of in my life. Certainly
not all the time, and there are times when I get frightened and when
I get upset. But at the best of times, it's a personal oneness with
that beautiful It, that divinely indifferent Is that really doesn't
care if you'd chosen to be an upright biped on the surface of a
small planet of a minor sun on the edge of a minor galaxy of one of
the multiple trillions of universes. That's OK. It doesn't matter
what form you take. The Is knows us only as a perfect reflection of
Itself, period. And we are free to have our fears and beliefs of
separation from it, but the Is doesn't care any more than a parent
cares when their child goes out and plays and one day is the bad guy
at cops and robbers and the next day is the good guy. The parent
says, "Those are games. I know who you are, and I love you for who
you are. And that's all that matters." That's a very rough analogy. Some religions believe that there's a hierarchy, that you don't have
a connection, but you must go through the shaman or the priest or
whoever the religious leader is. And that's what surprises me, that
some people who find a huge value in these kinds of systems also
seem to enjoy ILLUSIONS. I can't figure it out. I would say that if
the depth of your belief is that there's a hierarchy, why are you
remotely interested in something that says there isn't a hierarchy,
that there's a direct connection? [laughter] Well, thank you for that comment! The only enlightened
masters I know are the people that I see every day and the people
that I've seen through my life who have had the understanding, at
some level, that we're here to express love. How that is for me is
exactly what I've said. What I love doing is basically two things: I
love flying airplanes and I love communication. And when I'm in the
center of those, when I'm writing-and I don't think this is unusual
for writers and I'm sure you know the feeling very well-it's as if
I'm the observer. It's as if that computer screen there-it used to
be the typewriter-just kind of dissolves and there's this whirling
tunnel of mist and there's a kind of proscenium arch, and then there
are my characters, and they say what they say, and I laugh sometimes
in surprise at what they say. Exactly what that subtitle [Reminders for the Advanced Soul] says. I
want to be able to put it in my coat pocket - it doesn't quite fit in
the shirt pocket - and from time to time, for the absolute fun of it
(and I've done it with the galleys, and it works very well), ask any
question that matters, in fun or a very, very deep crisis-type
question, and just allow that book to open anywhere - it has no page
numbers, no references - let it fall open anywhere, close my eyes and
put my finger down on the left page or right and see what the book
has to say. And all the time during the publishing of this book,
there have been times when each of us has gone to the manuscript of
the book and done exactly that. In fact, in the introduction I did
it. That's exactly right. And it is just so much fun, if you do this in
a lighthearted way. And yet sometimes you get something that is
profoundly touching, and it really helps one in whatever the
decision or choice one needs to make. And I would hope that a reader
would have that kind of playful association with the book and, just
for the fun of it, open it from time to time and smile. And as soon
as that smile happens, my job is done. That's all I do. I'm approachable from certain directions. I'm not approachable by
someone who says, "Hey, how 'bout let's try some drugs," or
something like that. I'm absolutely close-minded about that kind of
thing. But I'm wide open to anyone who says, "You know, I've been
wondering why we're here and where we're going, and I've got a few
answers, but I wondered if anything ever happened to you that
suggests...." Then they have me, and I become, as you see right now,
a chatterbox and can just talk away literally for days. That sense of family is enormously important to me. In the
larger sense, we're all of us family; we're all of us soulmates. But
in the easiest sense to see, there is a kind of silver spiderweb
that's spun around the world, and the strands of that web are
certain loves and certain understandings. And if we follow those,
and if we walk those strands, we're going to meet others at the
intersections who have been walking the same way across this web.
And when we meet, there's a kind of "I know who you are." I think
we've all had that feeling. You ask me what you believe about
anything, and I can tell you just by referencing myself. That is
great fun for me. I deeply enjoy that. And in that highest sense, we
are all creatures of light. And I have a very difficult time talking
with people who are cynical about the world. "The world is no damn
good, and we're all animals," and that kind of thing. Well, I'm an
animal. This is going to be number 16 or 17, I think. Well, maybe I was saved because they haven't all sold well. The
series of books called THE FERRET CHRONICLES, I dearly loved. I
loved those little characters, and I loved what they had to say, but
somehow, at least in the United States, nobody got them at all. The
books are going to be remaindered pretty soon; I want to have the
rights back and try them again at some other time - I don't know. But
in Italy, they're a bestseller. In Korea, they're a bestseller. Do
my words have to be translated into Italian or into Korean before
they do well? I don't get it. I have no understanding of it. But I guess my second love saves me a
lot, and that's flying. When you're flying, an airplane doesn't care
who you are; it doesn't care how much money you make or don't make.
All it cares about is: How well do you fly? How well do you know the
airplane? How well do you know the sky? When you're in the
instrument flying system in this country, the controller doesn't ask
who are you. All it wants to know is an airplane number, and they
will give you a heading and an altitude. They say, "Turn left at
2933, maintain 3500 feet, and call this the reporting point." That's
a wonderful reminder that who we are within - that is something
special. But who we are on the outside isn't. You've recently gone through a divorce with your wife, who appeared in many of your books. That was a difficult time for both of us. Yes, I think that's true. I think all the major events of our lives
are events that we call to ourselves. We forget. There's this
wonderful and very important event when we're born, and we forget
everything that's gone before, or else we'd be such a mass of
rememberings that we couldn't operate successfully on this planet.
One thing I really want to do this time-and I have an indefinite
number of choices and lifetimes that don't have to be in sequence at
all, because they're all going on simultaneously, I believe-is I
want to experience this kind of relationship. I want a chance to
attack this kind of challenge. I do that not knowing if I'm going to
do it right or if I'm going to screw it up. And sometimes when you
screw it up, you do it right. Sometimes when you say goodbye, that's
the right thing to do in a relationship. Oh sure, an indefinite number of them. And not just earths, there
can be other levels completely. There's this wonderful book called
THE MANY WORLDS INTERPRETATION OF QUANTUM MECHANICS that posits that
with every decision that anyone makes, the world changes. The
decision that we give our consent to is the one that remains in our
consciousness, but the one that we didn't make-that alternate world
goes on in its own direction. So there's uncountable numbers of
alternate "us-es." Well, in a way it is and in a way it isn't. To me, one of the most
profound questions we can ask is: "So what?" And so what if there's
an indefinite number of worlds with alternate "us-es" in them? The
"so what," to me, comes alive when I ask myself: "What if I could
find a way to get in touch with those alternate mes who made those
choices?" That is, persons who, if I saw them now, I wouldn't even
recognize because their choices, once small, have multiplied to make
them such different people. Perhaps they have something to tell me. Never. I was in a fighter squadron in the Air Force; I was flying F-84s and
F-86s. And during our Friday night parties, everyone would just go
absolutely blind drunk; it was apparently the thing to do. I was in
the midst of my ginger ale, I absolutely had to be there, and they
would rag me and I would rag them: "You guys, tomorrow morning is
Saturday morning, we're going to have some flights coming up. You
aren't even going to be able to fall out of bed, guys, and I'm going
to be flying the airplane." Yeah, that's a little pressure. They took my ginger ale away, and
they gave me this glass of clear stuff with an olive at the bottom,
and they starter singing this song. As happens, in critical times in
our life, time slows down. And I thought, what is it that they
really want to know? I thought, what they really want to know is,
Where are my loyalties? Are my loyalties to them, to the squadron,
to the men I'm going to be flying a few feet away from, who are
going to be leaning their lives on me? Or is it my silly
teetotalism. And I decided then, as the song went on, that I would
demonstrate that my loyalties were to them, and I was going to drink
this thing. And sure enough, it reached that point where the chant
went on, and I drank this thing. I was about halfway through it when
I realized that they had given me a glass of water. I couldn't
believe these guys, most of whom were drunk themselves, had the
presence of mind to say, we can find out what we want to know
without having to give the kid alcohol. And I had gone through this saying, "I don't care what the substance
is. I can drink it in perfect safety to myself. Because here's the
motive for it." And from then on, we had this thing where they would kid me about my
ginger ale, and I'd kid them about their liquor. And we just got
along well. Later we were called, and we went to France and had
quite some adventures together. I don't think it's mine to maintain. It automatically comes, I
think, when we declare that "I am an expression of life, and life
will express itself through me in the most playful and wonderful of
ways, if I let it. "So the big thing about writing is, as I have on
my computer, three commands: Have fun. Don't think. Don't care. What
is fun for you? What kind of adventure can you imagine? The great
thing about writing is, as you know, if you don't like the world,
we'll create a different one. That's what I very much enjoy doing. What if everyone lived to their
highest sense of right? Where would all that energy go that we now
put into destruction? I think that that "creative well," if you
will, is there for all of us in whatever we choose to do. In our
daily lives, what it leads to, mostly, is a lack of fear. Sure, fear is all the fear of some loss: "I'm going to lose
something." If we declare, and if we know in our hearts, "I already
have everything that I need: I have life, I have creativity, I have
joy, I have nourishment. I have everything I need," and if we just
say, "It doesn't depend on my having a physical body to do it," then
everything opens up. A writer, or a beginning writer, as you know,
is faced by these huge walls of self-consciousness. Most people
think, "What if I say the wrong thing? What if I don't sound erudite
and sophisticated? I'll be considered a fool." In time, with a lot
of practice, you realize that's your gift-your foolishness is your
gift. Wow, what a good question! I think the source of our sorrow and the
source of our joy are intimately entwined. Our sorrow is that we
have forgotten who we are, we have forgotten we are one with that
source of all life--absolutely indestructible, perfect, joyful. The
source of our joy is when we remember that. So if I could say one
word, in the deepest sense, without any explanation, to myself, I
would say "remember." Thank you. Well, there's just so much to say. I think we are all
guided. And I know there were times in my life when I said, "Oh God,
I'm making a terrible, terrible mistake here." And on another level
it looked as if that's exactly what I had done. And then later
on--all of us can look back across our lives and see what we thought
was a disaster was actually a blessing--from a long-term
perspective, it was a blessing. With practice, we can shorten the
length of time between "what a dumb mistake I've made" and "what a
brilliant choice that was. "Up until right in the midst of what
seems to be a disaster, we can say, "I know this is going to work
out beautifully."
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