{"id":18924,"date":"2014-07-26T16:58:30","date_gmt":"2014-07-26T23:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=18924"},"modified":"2014-07-28T19:20:29","modified_gmt":"2014-07-29T02:20:29","slug":"i-cant-think-of-a-better-reason-to-write","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=18924","title":{"rendered":"I Can’t Think of a Better Reason to Write"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"You never know how people are going to find your work, and you never know how it\u2019s going to touch them or why. Earlier this month, a man contacted me<\/a> asking for a copy of the uncorrected proof of my Selections from Saadi\u2019s Gulistan,<\/em> which I make available through my website<\/a> to anyone who asks for it. All I ask in return is that they tell me a little bit about why they want it and how they intend to use it. I\u2019ve gotten these requests from a wide range of people, including graduate students in Iran who are working on their MA in translation studies to people, a scholar in Russia who was preparing a multilingual anthology of selected works of classical Iranian literature, and several people from India who were studying Sa\u2019di for their own purposes and preferred my translation to the ones that were available in their country.<\/p>\n

The most touching request for a copy of this PDF, however, came this month from a man who, as he wrote, \u201chappened upon [My Companion\u2019s Scent Seeped Into Me<\/a>] while reading The Male Privilege Checklist<\/a> on Alas! A Blog.<\/a>\u201d I featured that poem on my blog on June 27th. Here it is again:<\/p>\n

I held in my bath a perfumed piece of clay
\nthat came to me from a beloved\u2019s hand.
\nI asked it, \u201cAre you musk or ambergris?
\nLike fine wine, your smell intoxicates me.\u201d
\n\u201cI was,\u201d it said, \u201ca loathsome lump of clay
\ntill someone set me down beside a rose.
\nThen my companion\u2019s scent seeped into me.
\nOtherwise, I am only the earth that I am.<\/em><\/p>\n

That poem, he went on, “is a reflection of what happened to me.<\/p>\n

I am a 46 year old male. I have recently been reunited with my ex-wife who I hadn\u2019t\u00a0spoken with for over twenty years. It has been a wonderful experience of learning and enlightenment thus far. She gave me a book to read by Don Miguel Ruiz called <\/em>The Four Agreements which has had a profound impact on my life and the way I live it.\u00a0 It is a book of wisdom. I would like to reciprocate by sharing this with her.<\/em><\/p>\n

To know that my book has been a part of the experience this man describes\u2013well, I can\u2019t think of a better reason to write.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019d like to read this week\u2019s \u201cSa\u2019di Says,\u201d it\u2019s called \u201cCreation Kills What It Was Made to Love<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

As usual, I\u2019d love to know what you think.<\/p>\n

Cross-posted<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You never know how people are going to find your work, and you never know how it\u2019s going to touch them or why. Earlier this month, a man contacted me asking for a copy of the uncorrected proof of my … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-iran-international-issues","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18924"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18928,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18924\/revisions\/18928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}