Our Dirty Little Secret - Janus Kane

People have asked me about my inspiration for 'The Little Insanity'. What was it that caused me to breathe life into six such confused characters? The simple answer is that I am a voyeur - a voyeur of life. I believe that the average reader will find the characters in 'The Little Insanity' to be all too recognizable. You may see yourself or your loved ones or perhaps just the out-of-luck guy on the corner, but you should see someone you know within these pages. There is a reason for that. Addictions are an inescapable aspect of the human condition, or maybe they are just a symptom.


Most of us, if we are being honest with ourselves, will have to plead guilty to some addiction or other. Not everyone suffers from the hardcore addictions that the characters in 'The Little Insanity' battle with and hopefully our addictions will not shorten our lifespan, but it bears mentioning that we all have them. Surely the girl with the heroin monkey on her back is at a much greater risk than the stay-at-home Mom who is addicted to buying things on the Home Shopping Network. The 300 pound food addict is much easier to pick out of a crowd than the rageaholic and the promiscuous sexual addict is more easily shunned than the parents who are addicted to living vicariously through their children's lives.


At the end of the day though, it really just comes down to a matter of degrees. That young mother may be no more able to resist the call of chocolate in her pantry than the crack addict is able to resist the dealer on the corner. The businessman who is addicted to his work may be no more able to stay out of the office than the alcoholic is able to stay out of the local bar. Once you scratch the surface, how many of us can truly deny any and all driving forces in our lives, destructive or otherwise?


Is that because we are all weak? Perhaps - we are human beings who face all manner of temptations every day. The fact that one person finds it easier to resist a chocolate bar than a baccarat table or a bottle of Jim Beam does not make them better or worse. It is just another bit of evidence supporting the fact that we are all more alike than we would care to admit.
What binds us together most closely is that we are all caught up in the eternal search for meaning in our lives. None of us are sure of where to find that meaning. Some look for it in religion, others in work and still others in the bed of numerous sexual partners. Some of us find temporary relief in carbohydrates, drugs or alcohol. Unless we have given up and fallen into depression or worse, we are probably still searching for the elusive secret - the thing that will make us feel, the thing that will get us up in the morning with the conviction that 'yes, our lives actually do have meaning', something that will carry on even after we are gone.


Some might think that I have stretched the term addiction to the point of breaking...I'll address that in a future post.