Although the pivotal moment theory might work for some, it might be overblown. As time drags on, other events step up to the plate, and one begins to wonder why any fork in the road presented the less traveled option. Chen knew his own confused path that, upon review, could not have been changed then and certainly not now. Chen was a man who lived in several exiles. As for Paul, he was still too young to know. Thinking about Paul and Chen, maybe you couldn’t exactly compare pivotal moments, but rather a single desire that united the two men: the desire to write.

The desire to write is linked to the desire to think and the desire to record. You could say it’s all the same thing, but you probably favor something or another. You who think you’re thinking are recording your thinking, but you who think you’re writing are recording your writing. You who think you’re recording are writing your record. It’s all stupidly obvious except for the desire. You could say it’s an obsessive trait, and once it kicks in, you’re stuck with it. The desire is selfish and personal. It has nothing to do with talent or giftedness. That becomes apparent or unapparent in the act, but the desire is an enigma. You say, I want to be famous; I want to be remembered; I want to speak; I want to communicate; I want to imagine; I want to remember. But writing itself is a strange way to accomplish any of that stuff, sitting alone for hours with a pen and paper or typewriter. It’s a complicated desire that becomes mixed up with the self, and Chen and Paul, if forced, would admit that it was a desire stronger than any human relationship, including the one between them.