Luke Ford

Here’s what I remember from childhood:

* He’s a fine Christian gentleman but he doesn’t read enough.
* Be sure your sins will find you out.
* You might only learn through pain.
* I don’t give a cracker for this world.
* This will hurt me more than it will hurt you.

What’s the dramatic conflict for my play? Will I realize that emotional addictions are ruining my life?

What’s the problem the narrator is dealing with at the beginning of the story? Helpless rage and disconnection from others. What does he grapple with? Lack of ease with himself, with others and with God. What’s the arc? I start out angry and miserable. Through my teens into my early 20s, I fool myself that I’m becoming more normal. After 22, I see the chasm steadily widening between myself and my peers. Every year, I fall further behind the good life (marriage, family, honored place in the community). I sense a way to connect and to escape from my misery — sex. Eventually my gropings lead me to some painful realizations of emptiness and need, that my sex addiction is a mark for an underlying intimacy disorder. I set about doing the 12 Step work to feel more comfort with myself, with others and with God.

How does my problem get worse through the play? I see the gap between myself and my peers widening.

What is the narrator trying to figure out at the start of the story? A way out of his misery. He wants to build something big, angry and powerful. He lights fires. He builds woodies. He feels he’s riding a wave, overcome by pleasure, forgetting his pain, taking control of his life and ridding him of moral responsibility. Then he lands at shore and looks back and sees a tsunami building of all the people he’s used and abused in the pursuit of his addictive needs. He realizes why he feels so much fear and shame — karma is coming!

* I find it easier to be honest on Facebook than in real life because I can just say what’s on my mind on FB without worrying about how a particular person will interpret what I’m saying. In real life, I instinctively find myself tailoring and censoring and adjusting everything I say to my audience. On my blog and on FB, however, I just say what’s in my heart and if people take offense, I don’t care. In real life in interpersonal relationships, I do care if people take offense and hence I’m frequently more honest in this space than in the wider world.

* I keep a lot of doors locked, afraid if I ever go into them, I’ll never emerge.

* Most of the most impressive people I know are in Orthodox Judaism. That’s always been a powerful draw for me — the quality of the personal, family and professional lives of Orthodox Jews I know well.

* I am befuddled but strangely moved by the hoopla Rand Paul received this week for his filibuster. I have many fears but none of them include the US Government using drones to kill innocent Americans in America. As for Americans or anybody working as terrorists? Kill them all.

* I was with this girl who was a ten but I had to keep explaining to her when I was being sarcastic and so I decided to go back to the seven to whom I never had to explain.

* If people are on their phones while you talk to them, if they’re moving around and checking out, it’s not so much that they’re being rude as you are being boring. Social connection depends upon bids. We’re constantly bidding for people’s attention, and when they don’t respond, we usually stop bidding. Even a dummy quickly gets the message that he’s not wanted.