Freebie

By Roderic Anderson

Five short pieces expressing ideas on some key issues.
1. Writers: George Orwell's views.
2. Tolerance: Freedom of speech.
3. Science
4. Sex and the Church:What the Bible says about sex
5. Flying Doctor: Ideas about old age and death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roderic Anderson
• Release date: Feb 5, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466088719

Roderic Anderson

Roderic Anderson's writing career started in Nigeria in 1978, when with Joyce Dafe he wrote a children's story book which Joyce illustrated. It was later published by African Universities Press as Omaka to the Rescue in the same series as books by Chinua Achebe, Cyprian Ekwenzi and Michael Crowder. AUP also accepted for publishing a series of chemistry text-books he wrote, Understanding Chemistry : a student's book and a teachers' guide for each year, Nine to Eleven, but `due to the political situation and financial constraints' they have never been printed. He is currently working on the last of a series of books. The first, Trailblazer, a novel based on the lives of his great grandparents, has been published in 2008 by Zeus Publications. The second, another novel, Real Life Portrait , based on the lives of his parents was published as a hard-back in October 2010 by Big Sky Publishing, and the third, Well of Life, is a memoir up to age 18, The fourth, Free Radical, another memoir up to age 36, he self published in 2006. All of these works are now available as ebooks. Besides writing, reading and listening to chamber music, being a long-term Marxist and socialist, he is interested in TV documentaries and current affairs and regrets that he is too old to participate in the Australian extension of the Arab Spring, hastening the end of capitalism.

Book preview

Freebie: Five short items by Roderic Anderson

Copyright 2012 by Roderic Anderson

Smashwords edition

1. Writers: George Orwell’s views

2. Tolerance: freedom of speech

3. Science

4. Sex and the church: What the bible says about sex

5. Flying doctor: Thoughts on Old Age and Death

1 . Writers

George Orwell, the great English writer, famous as the author of 1984 and Animal Farm, wrote: 'All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives, there lies a mystery.’ Is this true? If so, isn't it true of everyone? Isn't everyone vain, selfish and lazy, and at the bottom, mysteriously multi  motivated? Writers are human, and every writer has all of these human failings to a greater or lesser degree.

Are writers vainer than others?

I suppose it is vain to expect others would be interested in what you have written or have expressed. But doesn't this also apply to artists, musicians, actors, and even more so, to speakers, especially preachers and politicians? Before writers put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, they should consider whether what they are about to write is of real interest to others. Have they something worthwhile to communicate, or is it just vain self  gratification, trying to show off how clever they are?

As a reader, I feel sure that l am not alone in rejecting vain writers. Or is that just vanity on my part? I return many library books after reading no more than a few pages because I find the writing vain. In the Weekend Australian the only columnists I can bear to read through to the end are Phillip Adams and Stephen Matchett. For the rest, all is vanity. I think all intelligent readers give short shrift to unduly vain writers.

Some of the greatest thinkers, for example Jesus and Socrates, never put their great thoughts in writing, so we have to rely on second  hand