An Analysis of Charles Bukowski

In the 1950's, art was censored just like it is today. Today, however, Bukowski would have no problem getting published. He'd be a hero. He'd be a social media warrior. The world as it is today punishes artists like myself. Ones who hone craft, develop theme, achieve excellence and wisdom, punctuate form. Ones who study the craft, find deep intrinsic meaning. Because the world doesn't want meaning. It wants to look at its own affluence, and say, "I despise this."

Bukowski needed to be a writer. Like I, he could do no other thing but write. Writing was a salvation... a way to mend brokenness. Yet, for me it was the sublime childhood I had, the loving mother and father, contrasted with hedonistic peers, scathing and unforgiving fictive family, teachers who didn't give a damn about me. I had not been abused by my mother or father. I had been abused by peers, by teachers who gave me handicaps and made me a target for everyone else.

I have much in common with Bukowski. A childhood riddled with abuse. Yet, I developed trust. Where he didn't. I don't want to be with broken people---I've known enough of them. I want to be with wise people, who have the straight neck tie, who have the nine to five job. I just want my writing to be my nine to five. I want it to be what gives me sustenance, as that is my American Dream. He had his, being the most flagrant supporter of everything wrong. Yet, today we reward that skepticism. And I am skeptical of him. I've met enough men who claimed there were no morals. And those same men scathed me, stabbed me in the heart, and fought scorched earth warfare against my soul. I do not want those people in my life.

I like people who don't have fire in them. People who don't want to take from me. I've had few friends---a few very good friends. And in my poverty, most all have abandoned me, having taught me all I need to know of the human condition. That it is success which conforms a man to this world. I could write Shakespearean quality works, if not for my outlawed craft, that being the observation of a simple fact. There is right and wrong. And I've seen it my whole life. My favorite shows were the ones which taught and showed healthy people. All of my characters are healthy people, sometimes driven insane by an unhealthy world.

For, in the end, I am healthy. I am a healthy man driven insane by the stress of a world which rejected the things I took for granted. Love, Mercy, Forgiveness, Justice, Peace, Unconditional Friendship. Those I took for granted. And I had found that all else, men do not hold the same values I hold. They, rather, revel in the dysfunction and the laziness of scathing well lived lives. I speak not of Warehouse workers, who truly don't earn enough to live. No, I speak of the postmaster, who having everything in life, still feels unsatisfied. I, with nothing but a few people who love me, the people who truly matter, am already satisfied. I am satisfied with little coupled with love. And, I hope to one day be blessed with a small fortune from my golden wisdom. For, I wish to enrich people to see the thing I have. Be satisfied with the thing you choose. Charles, if wise, is wise for having chosen.