Author Interview: Carlos Aleman: God Is Love

Please share some of the best memories of your childhood

I prefer to practice present moment awareness.  The past holds no significance for me.

About your education

I am not educated

What career did you plan during your education days

None

What is your biggest source of inspiration in life

I'm inspired by beauty, whether is spiritual or physical.  It may be superficial of me to obsess over something frivolous, but perhaps there a deeper significance to all the things that reach their fullest flowering.  

What hurts you most in this world

Knowing that women and children are abused.

What is the biggest challenge you have faced? Were you able to overcome it? How?

I have a thyroid condition that triggered major depression for several years.  I was slowly able to come out of by making dietary changes, weight training and meditation.  

If you had to live a day of your life as one of the living or dead

personality, who would it be and why?

Philip Glass.  I would love to hear his music flow through me.  I've also always wanted to be able to play the piano.

What is your favorite genre and why?

Literary fiction.  I prefer indirect ways of influencing people.  By immersing a person into a drama, an opportunity exists for softening rigid, stubborn hearts, and altering perception.  When a writer inspires me, he has usually taken me to a place in my soul that logic and reason can never arrive.  

What is the purpose of your writing?

I search for parables and symbols that come from deep in my subconscious.  These ideas, when developed, heal both the author and reader.

Which of your work published so far?

I self published As Happy As Ling as an ebook in 2010.  It was edited and published as a soft cover book in July of 2013 by Aignos Publishing with a new title, Happy That It's Not True. 

What are your forthcoming writings?

My second novel is a fictional story about a political prisoner in Cuba.  The story centers on the subject of men's love for women.  

What are your future plans?

I once wrote a screenplay I would like to see made as a movie one day.  Also, I have some short story projects I need to develop further.  I'm also a painter working on a series called Shiro-Nuri, which means 'painted white' in Japanese.  

What four top most things you take care of while writing a book?

1.  That there is a nice flow between the narrative and the expository.

2.  That it is simple and unpretentious.

3.  That it have a poetic quality.

4.  That the book itself be a guidepost to the timeless and eternal.

Your dream destination on Earth?

I would like to return to China and see Yellow Mountain.

Your origin of birth and other countries you have visited/ stayed.

What best things you liked in these countries around the globe?

I was born in New York City, USA.  I've been to Italy, Japan and China. I think it is the art that most attracts me to a country.  But I always seem to leave loving its people more than the culture itself. 

What is your zodiac?

Aries

What is the one thing in your life you wish had not happened?

Dropping out of college.

What is your definition of fear and how to overcome it?

Fear is ignorance or lack of light.  If we are fortunate, life will provide many lessons and opportunities for wisdom and maturity.  Perhaps overcoming is an act of grace.

How would you define God in your words?

God is love.

What is your definition of love?

I can not define it, but perhaps if I tell a long story, we will arrive at some understanding.