It was a painful time for me and my family. That's why I'm proud to say I'm a strong person. I'm a survivor and I can handle anything. I'm very confident about that. I come from a very strong family and they are always there to protect me. If I need any help I'll just call on my mummy or daddy or my brother to whom I'm very close.
The mind does not regulate its own condition. Mental depression, for example, is a state of mind caused by the body. In a cell in the hole it only seems that there is a separation of mind and body - in fact, the body's condition (of deprivation of sensations; experiences, functions, and so on) controls the moods of the mind more than in any other situation I can think of.
But a kind of genius can come of this deprivation of sensation, of experience. It has been mistaken as naïve intelligence, when in fact it is empty intelligence, pure intelligence. The composition of the mind is altered. Its previous cultivation is disintegrated and it has greater access to the brain, the body: it is Supersanity. Learning is turned inside out. You have to start from the top and
work your way down. You must study mathematical theory before simple arithmetic; theoretical physics before applied physics; anatomy, you might say, before you can walk.
I love the stuff and material of writing: words. The games you can play with them. The rhythm and lyricism in a good passage of writing. The power of a simple sentence. I also love the paradoxical bind of writing as both freedom and constraint. You start creating characters and scenes out of thin air. But if you do it well enough, that freedom constricts, because your characters are no longer
inside you. They become their own people, agents on the page who need to act and think and feel in ways true to who they are…
The relationship between reader and writer in fiction is steeped in vulnerabilities. It really does require trust and faith because some books have the power to transform people. You feel like you can never go back, look at the world in the same way again. And that grand ambition is what I hope to do with my books because at the heart of my writing is a passion for telling stories of the
oppressed, the marginalized, and the misunderstood.
Some don’t believe that homosexuals can be pious. But we can be just as good at our faith as anyone else. We are simply different from other folks, not less committed to our faith.
With support from institutions like the United Nations as well as the donor community, governments can strengthen their national technological and scientific capacities by devising policies to link up to research networks, encourage technology transfer, and build indigenous capabilities through education and collaborative projects.