I’m looking at the bookshelves in a bookstore. Fiction and non-fiction juxtaposed. It dawns on me how differently my “choosing self” treats the two literary ontologies. I trace their evolution within me and realize: over the years, fiction has come to matter more. I dig deeper—an archaeology of the self—and uncover a broader shift.

I used to take photos of monumental buildings, mountains, rocks—the solid, the grounded, the enduring, the “facts” of the world, the non-fiction.
Now, I chase clouds and the light playing on them. Ephemeral flowers. Not the buildings, but the cracks between them, and the geometry the sun briefly reveals by being suspended for a second in just the right spot.
I understand now why Monet painted the Rouen Cathedral at different times of day. And I find it strange that people still take photos of castles instead of clouds.

This change shows up in my writing too. Back then, I tried to capture things and phenomena as faithfully as I could. Here is a tower, made of brick, six hundred years ago.
Now, most of what I write is clouds, and the light playing on them, and flowers blooming in their cracks. Which is to say: I write about people. And what they carry inside.