Muse: 

In Greek mythology, any of the 9 Goddesses who presided over literature and the arts and sciences: CALLIOPE, CLIO, EUTERPE, MELPOMENE, TERPSICHORDE, ERATO, POLYHYMNIA, URANIA, THALIA.
The spirit regarded as inspiring a poet or other artist.
The source of genius or inspiration.

Fake:
To make something seem real or satisfactory by any sort of deception.
To practice deception by simulation or tampering with.
Counterfeit, fraudulent, not genuine, sham, false
In this case: A replica substituting for something real.

 I needed a Muse. I needed a woman for inspiration, for motivation, for creativation.

 A Muse comes at a cost. First she must be found. You must search for her. She must be impressed by your effort, your diligence, by the intelligence of your search. Then once found she must be won. It won’t be easy. She values herself. She wants you to prove her worth to you. You must demonstrate your worth to her. She wants her efforts to inspire you to creations of such beauty and wonder that will in turn impress her. Such is the essence of a Muse.
 Find her.
 Win her.
 How will you know you have found her? You will know deep down but you don’t really know how you know.
 I found her. Her name was Elsie. She wasn’t exactly my Muse. She was my Muse to be.
When you meet someone for the first time a lot happens in the first few seconds. In the blink of an eye you form your first impression, your assessment of that person.
If it is a member of the opposite sex you classify them on a scale of attractiveness and what your next move will be:

 Incredibly attracted in love                                Let’s fuck

 Attracted but not in love                                     Your body is a wonderland

 Neutral feeling                                                      Let’s be friends

 Negative feeling                                                   Get a life,  dickhead

 Repulsive                                                              Fuck off, asshole

 Men make up their mind very quickly. Their assessment process is one dimensional, completely unconscious and focuses on physical attractiveness (tits, ass, etc.). Information from the senses (visual, auditory and olfactory) is integrated quickly forming a first impression that may well be a lasting impression.

 This assessment is heightened in importance in young adults searching for long term relationships, who are constantly asking themselves “Is he or she the one?” Adolescence and early adulthood involves a combination of heightened  emotions and inexperience. Fantasy is the guidance for desire, intent and behavior until experience replaces the childhood notion and misinformation shared by others in the same inexperienced situation. The search for the Father Prince, handsome, rich, powerful and confident experienced protector and  perfect lover is the females initial fantasy husband. The male has fantasies of the awesomely beautiful, sexually alluring  and satisfying mother whore who will cause all other men to envy him for his trophy wife. Some will outgrow these notions and find partners that  are compatible, willing and able to make the required compromises, sacrifices and work to create and sustain a long term relationship.

 Elsie and I met for the first time.

 I formed a first impression. In the blink of an eye I found her attractive. Not unusual, I find most women attractive, though I have never fallen in love at first sight. But what I found most attractive about her were her flaws. Being physically flawed myself I found an empathetic connection: a medical experience that we both went through when younger: I had cancer, she had strabismus.
 I thought flaws were beautiful. Like the missed stitch in Persian rugs. The imperfection that made them perfect. It wasn’t always so. When I was younger I desperately wanted to be normal. And I wanted my girlfriend to be perfectly normal, unblemished, without flaws. But over time I changed. I realized I would never be normal and I’d better accept that. And somewhere along the line I came to understand the kind of intimate relationship I wanted. I realized that I needed someone who could fathom what I had experienced in my life. And I realized that a typical normal unblemished girl wouldn’t have a clue and I would never be able to completely relax with her and if I couldn’t relax, I couldn’t be myself and if I couldn’t be myself I couldn’t achieve the intimacy I wanted in a relationship. And so when I met someone for the first time I paid attention to women with flaws. Flaws that they had accepted and learned from in their life. Flaws that made them beautiful. And I believed Elsie had such a flaw which made me want to get to know her all that much more.
 My assessment of Elsie was not nearly as important as Elsie’s assessment of me.
 Women take a longer time to form a first impression of a man, mainly because their assessment affects the propagation of the species. They use the same senses (sight, sound and smell) for information to evaluate the physical but they also evaluate intelligence, confidence, capability and dependability. Then they look for outlier characteristics like charisma, excitement, sense of humor and creativity. Obviously this takes longer than a man’s one dimensional physical assessment- ass, tits, legs, face, body, menstrual cycle hormones and desirability. Slam bam thank you ma’am. Women are also able to suspend finalizing a first impression for as long as it takes to resolve contradictory information. The future of the race depends on it. Women carry the heavy load of selecting the best semen to create the best offspring.
 With my assessment done, I  relaxed and focused on Elsie.

 After looking me over she recited the standard “I’m glad to meet you.” while most of her  energy was devoted to processing. A couple more glances at me as I moved towards my office. I stopped at the door to my office to let her by. She looked at me, smiled and nodded her head. She had made up her mind. It seemed too quick. I had been through this innumerable times, meeting someone for the first time. You can tell when they were involved internally and didn’t quite know what to do, how to react or how to act until they completed their assessment. I did what I could to relax them. I see them give me the nod and the look when their assessment is done, they relax then focus on other issues at hand. Elsie had taken less  than 30 seconds to decide about me,

 I am an outlier. No one can evaluate me that quickly without short cuts or compromises. I could tell her assessment was neutral. Nothing unusual with that. She would have to be extraordinary to  be interested in me. It would have been better if my assessment of her was neutral also, but it wasn’t. I was attracted to her. Like most women she could sense it. Women being the social creatures they are share experiences in dealing with men. Men are slightly more complicated than dogs and most are easily trained to bark, roll over and play dead.

 Her quick, neutral assessment bothered me a little but I assumed I lacked critical information. I contemplated explanations. She wasn’t married (at least no wedding ring). Possibly a boyfriend (usually not an issue unless they were madly in love (but no engagement ring). 

 Boyfriends are a necessary learning experience. All  the women I got to know well said if  they met their true love, their boyfriends were quickly disposed of in as nice and firm way as possible. 

 Also she could be gay. I didn’t think so but I had gone through a period where I was attracted to lesbians not realizing their sexual orientation. On the whole I find them smart, creative, and involved because they are wrestling with an issue that society at large hasn’t thought through and whose attitude is based on 2000 year old Old Testament emotional rule making and population control by the powers that be. One time I was having lunch with this incredibly smart and interesting woman I was attracted to and I asked her out for a date. My meaning was very clear. I wanted to get to know her in the original definition of the word know. Her response: “I am a lesbian.” I repeated my request. She said “I am gay”. Her response hadn’t really registered with me. I tend to get very self conscious when asking a woman for anything. I started to repeat. She interrupted and forcefully stated her sexual orientation. I stopped, perplexed. Thinking to myself what difference does that make. I looked at her. She looked at me. It lowly dawned on me that it made a big difference to her. I smiled and said: “OK. Sorry”.  I still think it would have been a very interesting relationship to explore.

 Maybe Elsie was gay. Maybe. I couldn’t tell any more.

 Also her assessment didn’t bode well for her being my Muse. A Muse needs to love. Love gives the Muse inspiration. Which the Muse gives to whom she inspires.

 A Muse has to be found.
 A Muse has to be won.
 A Muse has to be won. I rolled it over in my mind. It got me thinking. Even if Elsie wasn’t my Muse she could provide me with inspiration. The idea of the situation seemed promising. I was attracted to Elsie but I wasn’t in love with her. Love would complicate things, especially since she wasn’t even attracted to me much less in love. But I could be inspired to impress her, to try to get her to change her mind about me, so she would be attracted to me and in time love me. Then she could be my real Muse but until then she would inspire me and be my Fake Muse. A muse without knowing she was a Muse.
 And so it began. I was inspired. She inspired me.
 My creative efforts blossomed.
 Writing as a creative activity for me is a way to communicate with my unconscious The unconscious is normally inaccessible to the conscious mind. I call it the unconscious or subconscious, but those are just words to identify processes in the brain we don’t understand yet. When it comes to creative efforts the brain (or the mind) works in different ways. Creative writing, whether poetry or fiction or any for me works roughly like this:  I start by clearing my mind and then thinking about a topic or sousing on an idea, sometimes a word or a phrase, I especially like to start with a title or a cadence, or a rhyming scheme. I try to bring to mind  as many ideas for whatever I’m writing and then I clear my mind and search for the words that will get the passage started. And then the words will start coming.They appear in my mind and I write them down in longhand. Later  I will eventually transfer to a computer file.

 It is an amazing process. I am really a spectator. I don’t know where the words come from. I say it is from the unconscious but that isn’t very revealing. Where does the unconscious get the words from. I used to think that the brain was a receiver and the words were broadcast into  mental space to be picked up by brains  It makes more sense than how the brain really works..  The brain is a conundrum. Every time I’ve tried to introspect concerning facets of the brain and mind ( like the me in me, the will, consciousness, the flow of time. memories, seeing, hearing. emotions, reason, ideas, thoughts) I can’t find them. I can’t find me, the I in me, it’s an assumption, a fabrication that improves the survivability of the body. By thinking there is a you in you presumably will take better care of yourself. Free will. How can you have free will when you can’t be certain what you will do next. Where do the words you speak come from? Do you mull them over in your consciousness? Where do thoughts come from? Who knows? When you’re involved in writing sometimes astounding things can happen. A poem can flow out whole, complete in one take. You can be writing a story and not know what comes next yet the words appear and the story is told and the writer is as surprised as the reader at the outcome. I’ve experienced this and more. Smoke and mirrors. And this is just my experience with creative writing. Music creating music, is another creative endeavor that is explained by common sense. Common. Yes most people can enjoy music. Common. I doubt it. Music and the human being is even more mysterious a process than writing.
 I spent a lot of time and energy writing. A lot of amazing things happened. The writing would answer questions and problems I faced. Sometimes it would take years before I realized what the story or poem meant to me.
 I started to gain confidence in my writing. It wasn’t because I considered it to be great or worthy of attention. It was because I liked it. I started to like most of what I wrote and it wouldn’t have mattered if everyone in the world thought it was shit. All that mattered was I liked it. I thought some of my poems, essays and stories were quite good. The words expressed exactly what I intended. Some lines I thought were perfect. They were perfect to me. And that was all that mattered. I felt my work was good enough to impress Elsie.
 I was sure I could change her mind. I personally had experienced instances where women changed their minds about me, so I knew it could be done.
 The last instance of a woman in my life whose feeling changed from neutral to attraction occurred one night in San Francisco. I lived in an old Victorian apartment. For reasons I won’t get into we didn’t have a phone. This is years before iPhones and there were coin operated public phones everywhere. There was a knock on the door. I asked who it was.

 She was a close friend I had known since college. I had tried to be intimate long ago but was placed in the “let’s be friends” category. We went out to movies a lot and I maintained the friend relationship. When I opened the door, she found me drunk, wearing sweat pants but no top, drinking a gin and tonic, with my hairy chest exposed. She had come over to my apartment to deliver a message from my housemate that he was alive and well and would be home soon.  I was very relieved to get the message. Being drunk I asked her to stay and keep me company. She politely refused and left. The next day she called to see how I was doing and she made it clear she was available. I had somehow turned her on. How weird was that. 

 Women expect men to respond to such requests immediately and rightly so. However the invitation was unexpected and I was stunned. I didn’t know what to make of it. Hesitation at this point is very unmanlike. We had had a platonic relationship for a long time. I couldn’t believe that all it took was a hairy chest to change her mind from “let’s be friends” to “let’s fuck”. While I was stunned, and didn’t make a move, she changed her mind back. Opportunity not taken is opportunity lost. So this was the first time a woman changed her mind about important stuff like sex. I’d heard stories but this was the first time I had experienced it myself.

 Why a woman does anything is a matter of conjecture. That’s why I find women much more interesting than most men.
 I put aside doubts I had about whether impressing Elsie was the best approach. My experience with a hairy chest proved unreasonable approaches might work just as well and with less effort.
 Nonetheless I began my long term plan to change her mind by impressing her with my creative efforts.
 After months of inspired writing I decided to write a poem and send it to Elsie. It didn’t take long. I sat down and relaxed, pen in hand, blank paper in front of me. I sat back in my chair and thought of her. Elsie… Elsie … until a thought came to me: ” Valentine Flower”. I pondered the two words repeating them over and over until things started to flow. The cadence then the words. I wrote them down. I tweaked it. Then I typed it into my computer. 
 I finished the poem that night. I decided to send it snail mail so I typed it on one page with a title as if I were submitting it to a poetry contest. I addressed an envelope put a stamp on it and mailed it to her the next day. A month went by and no response, no reaction. Then I emailed her with a couple more poems I liked. I know she got them but that was it. My plan to impress her apparently was lacking in something.
 In addition to writing I was fascinated by music. I wish I had learned to play an instrument when I was growing up. But it wasn’t to be. I would have loved to play the saxophone. I love the sound but without muscles in my lips it couldn’t play a note. I can’t even blow up a balloon. Once out of college I decided to learn how to play the piano. I bought an old upright to play. It was stolen by my landlord in a money dispute. Then I bought a Rhodes electric piano. Then I got an Alpha Syntauri, a synthesizer that used an Apple 2e for a brain. You could do anything with it, from creating instruments and sounds to playing multiple tracks and recording multi instrument songs. The Alpha Syntauri was one of the first synthesizers. It cost multiple thousands of dollars. I can’t remember exactly how much. Money was not a concern for my hobbies.. Within 5 or 7 years Casio and Yamaha produced instruments of equal capability but much easier to use and costing a thousand dollars and eventually dropping to several hundred dollars. My Casio is in my living room waiting for me to get the urge to play. I don’t play so much any more. No inspiration.
 Music is even more amazing than writing. It’s so amazing it’s difficult to explain, impossible to analyze. Much of its magic occurs in the unconscious regions of the mind. All the music made by people around the world, all the music ever made from the distant past to the present is made for and by human beings. Only human beings with human ears and human auditory senses and human brains to process the compressed variations in air pressure that becomes music through the ears to the mind. Just as you learned how to see, how to make sense of that jumble of light and color exploding in your mind when you open your eyes you also learned how to hear, how to make sense of that jumble of noise coming at you from two directions you also learned to appreciate music. Only humans can truly appreciate human music. I laugh when I think of that golden record sent on Voyager to sail through space and maybe to be found by an alien civilization. It has songs from all over the world and from various times. Louis Armstrong, Kronos Quartet, Brandenburg Concerto, music of a Gavalon, a Navajo Night Chant. Even if the aliens play the record at 16 2/3 rpm their alien ears and auditory sensors will convert the pressure variation of the sounds differently than humans. Then their brains which process the sounds will process the auditory signals differently. What of the constituents of the alien atmosphere? How about alien atmospheric pressur?  All affect how music sounds. The sounds of the music will all be noise, gibberish. We would need to send a human clone or  dna to make a human and the alien would have merge with the human in order understand and experience sound and music in the way humans experience music.. Maybe In the far distant future when humans and aliens interact on a daily basis, some truly great composers will create music that resonates with both human and alien beings.The gold records sent into space do have spoken words which can be correlated with equivalent meanings in the alien language. So the gold record isn”t a total waste.
 I had been composing songs on my synthesizer. Some of them I thought were pretty good. I made a cassette containing a number of songs. This time I physically handed the cassette to Elsie and asked her to tell me what she thought of them. A month went by. We crossed paths regularly but she never said anything. Finally I asked her point blank about the cassette. Did she like it? She responded with an “Oh. (like didn’t I tell you) It was stolen when someone broke into my car.” “That’s too bad.” I said. Hmm.
 My creative results inspired by trying to impress Elsie were surprising, rewarding and very satisfying to me. I had written over 100 poems, many stories, essays, aphorisms and more. I had composed and played a number of songs on my synthesizer. I was pleased with the results.
 The lack of an acceptable response from Elsie bothered me. Cracks started to appear in my confidence. My plan to impress her with my artistic creations in order to change her mind about how she felt about me had little to show for it. I even began to think it was having the opposite effect. I was no long neutral but making her uncomfortable. Trying to get someone to do something you want them to do never works. Women react unpredictably to being coerced into doing something that may or may not benefit them. More often than not they’ll do anything but what was desired. So it goes.
 And doubts were creeping about my perception of Elsie as well as what kind of relationship we would have if her attitude towards me became positive.
 Though she was only 5 years younger than me she seemed of another generation. While she had the kind of energy I had she channeled it into running and wine. She had no equivalent to my Kamikazi (see ABOUT page KAMIKAZI) experience with drugs.And the flaw that had so attracted me and through which we might share a bond that only someone who had been there could appreciate my experience, seemed superficial. I felt no empathy from her like the empathy I felt for her, what she must have gone through growing up. There was a lot I didn’t know about Elsie. I don’t know why this hadn’t occurred to me earlier. Things I would have learned if we had gotten to know each other better. The role of a “Fake Muse” doesn’t involve the kind of constant contact a normal relationship would have.
 And I was far from certain that a relationship with Elsie would provide s rewarding and pain free results. After all I had a lot of experience in my creative explorations and I had practically none in intimate relations of the kind I desired and needed. That old saying “It is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.” My experience belied that statement. There’s a lot of pain in love lost, immediate, raw, blistering pain and frustration. To have never loved is an ache, a hole in the heart, of something missing. To have not loved is a dream. To have loved and lost is a nightmare.
 And so doubt began to grow. It began as hesitation then morphed into confusion that attacked certainty. The winds of confusion exposed doubt in all its glory, doubt unchained, uncovered, leaping free to claim ascendancy over all thought, over all emotion, over all options to truth. I began to doubt what kind of relationship we could have. I began to doubt the reward of changing her mind would be worth anything. I began to doubt that the image I had of her was who she really was. Emotions easily distort thinking and doubt does the same to emotions. Who was she really?
 And clearly all my efforts had had no effect. The songs I wrote and recorded for her, she said someone had stolen the cassettes. The poems I sent, I don’t think she ever read them. It was as if she had some kind of automatic sensing system to ignore or avoid anything from me. It seemed to be working pretty well. I was doomed. Doomed to failure.
 And doubt ate away at me. I began to doubt that I really wanted to change her mind about me. So what if she changed her mind. There would be no reward. In less than a Blink of an eye we would both realize the folly and it would be win lose.
 Doubt and uncertainty are death to inspiration. My motivation was evaporating. My desire and energy waning. Soon I would be unable to fake it with my fake muse. Not that it made any difference to her. She didn’t know anything about her part in the play. She would learn about all this fake muse stuff when she read this article. If she ever read this article.
 Why would she read this article? If I told her to. Why would she want to read this article? Now that I think about it: ‘Why should she?’ What would she get out of it. Not much. I think it would only bother her. I think this kind of introspection is alien to her and  she would’t have the background to appreciate it. This one of the benefits of writing. In talking to yourself or to your unconscious through writing you can learn a lot about yourself and what you should do or not do. Writing really helps you even if you have only a journal or a diary.
And my unconscious took it all in, processed everything in its unconscious, mysterious way and just before all was lost, just before I let go of my Fake Muse, just before my inspiration evaporated, deep in the regions of perpetual obscurity, my unconsciousness, aware of the immanence of loss of inspiration, dealt with the Elsie situation as best it could. And there was really only one thing for me to do to at this point in time. Only one option
 To fall in love with Elsie.
 Love is like that. You don’t consciously choose who to fall in love with. It just happens. Just as my unconscious happened to make the choice for me.
 I call love the cocaine of emotions. I’m not talking about Sunday school love, tepid love, socially acceptable love, like brotherly love, or love of pets or even tough love. I’m talking about Love with a capital L. Love in all caps. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE
 LOVE: THE COCAINE OF EMOTIONS (link to She Lover)
 Because of the initial high, because of the feeling you share, because nothing is better than this, because you know that it’s right, because you’ll do anything to keep feeling this way, because of the power of love. (running all round my brain)
I remember the moment. The moment my unconscious hit me with a ton of bricks. Elsie was in front of me, walking down a hall. She was in a nice fitting red dress, with medium high heels. There are women who know how to walk, whose walk can render a man helpless, mindless, overwhelmed. There aren’t many of them, thank god. Most girls learn the basics of walking, relying of clothing and revealed skin to work the trick. Elsie was attractive but she had not attended any classes in advanced female appeal. And as I watched her wobble in those heels, I smiled thinking of girls (rather women) I knew who had attended those classes and had practiced walking in high heels perfectly balanced like a tight-rope walker on the high wire. I watched Elsie from behind teeter tottering on those high heels in that red dress which matched the curves of her body. I amused myself appreciating Elsie’s wobble and her role as my fake Muse when something erupted in my heart and mind. My unconsciousness had dealt with the looming problem of the immanent deterioration of my inspiration in a most unexpected way.
The cocaine of emotions flooded my being. Feelings: Love, lust, desire. Elation, rapture, bliss. I wanted her. My attraction had morphed into something else. Something new, something different, something unwanted. After all I had a girlfriend. She was walking next to me. My thoughts were muddled by the emotion of love. I took a deep breath. I looked at Cei, my girlfriend and smiled, then gritted my teeth. I was about to spiral out of control. What a pain. Love is like that.
 I tried to get ahold of myself.
 I heard myself say “uh oh, what’s happening here.” I held on.
 I don’t know why love is held in such high esteem. It is an ancient emotion buried deep in the unconscious processes of the brain. It takes control of the person, overwhelming all reason and self control. It evolved to serve the purpose of ensuring the propagation of the species.
 I knew being in love with Elsie wouldn’t impress her. Rather I figured it would freak her out. Falling in love. You don’t skip or walk or float into love. You fall. In a fall you have no control. Anything can happen. I realized I had done this to myself, not to impress Elsie but to inspire me. My thoughts and my doubts about Elsie and any future relationship were a direct threat to my continued creative efforts. And I reacted unconsciously, immediately to solve the problem. That was true, trouble perceived, a solution conceived, a problem relieved. So it goes
 While my unconscious processes had solved a problem, consciously I knew it had created another problem, a problem whose solution was a losing proposition. Love unreciprocated was love lost. There were other people involved. What a mess.
 Knowing how love can overwhelm all reason and control, I would see Elsie only occasionally when my feelings overwhelmed me. I would send a poem or story or some idiotic attempt to impress her. Once a year I would have lunch or dinner. An awkward interaction that provided no satisfaction for either party. Like cocaine, love needs to be replenished or the lovers crash. Eventually my love for Elsie faded. Now I suppose we’re both just friends. But Elsie, My Fake Muse, still occasionally inspires me as it has with this article and “Leaving Shangri-La” for my website.

 And deep inside I wonder what it would have been like if she had changed her mind about me.

This is the first poem I sent to Elsie:

……………………….Appendix……………………………

              Valentine Flower

I was out in the garden and what did I find
A flower so pretty, I couldn't get it out of my mind
Its scent so fragrant, its blossom so fine
Each day I imagined making it mine

But flowers are precious and need to be free
To decide what it means for a flower to be

Now nature's not easy to live in and grow
You do or you die as you well know
That flower amazed me with all of its fight
In being alive with heavenly delight

I watched that flower and what did I see
A flower that wanted more than a flower to be

With petals so soft, full of color and light
A flower it was with all of its might
Its roots and its bulb in the soil did grow
Its leaves and its blossoms in sunlight did glow

The bees came a buzzin’, pulled in by the smell
To partake of the nectar, a feast, oh so swell
Then they would fly off, another flower to meet
To the bees my lovely blossom was just another treat

But I worried that someday, someone would take
And pick that one flower in order to make
A bouquet to give on St. Valentine's Day
Simply cutting that blossom without its OK

Because every flower should decide when to go
And if you listen, it will call soft and low
Saying come now and pick me, for I want to be
Your flower forever to smell, hold and see
A part of your heart forever, fragrant and free