There's a possible qualification I can make here about a non-pantheist god that is in some way tenable, and that is the idea of a god that has in some way discharged the universe from its own substance (I associate this with the word 'tzimtzum'), possibly even by a form of suicide - a suicide that might have been the Big Bang.

The cultural products of America from this period [ fifties and sixties] are like a vision of paradise or something. I find it utterly intoxicating.

Non-pantheist models for god seem almost completely untenable to me, though not without interest.

Some Buddhists, however, never seem to get past the void, and I suppose I view this as a kind of Buddhist 'Old Testament' that I don't especially like.

More or less the first thing that comes into my head is that some people are always looking for what they want to do in life and never finding it. I'm not one of those people. It has been very obvious to me from an early age who I am, and this has been tied up with creativity, and, specifically, with writing.

I seem to be less depressed but also less hopeful now in my thirties. My widow's peak bothers me. I think a lot about the end of the human race. And so on.

Perhaps I can also add something about the rural setting of Remember You're a One-Ball! The countryside is a place - in mythological and perhaps in very real terms - of mixed innocence and sin. It is seen by townsfolk as idyllic, lazy, free of urban crime and social problems. But those who grow up in the country can tell stories that often surprise those who grow up in the towns.