B.F. Harvey and Ben Harvey; by one of the two

I

I was thirteen when I first put pen to paper in the attempt of creating something, anything, of literary significance. Like most of the writers in my generation, it was JK Rowling who pushed me in that direction with John Green and his novel Looking for Alaska pushing me even further. It was the summer of 2015, and by its end I wrote thirty pages, terrible ones at that, for what I was hoping to be a book. I thought it would be easy, making me famous within the instant that this novel came out. But I was soon to conclude that I was no prodigy, no Sylvia Plath or S.E. Hinton. I had to discover my own self as a writer and as a whole other person.

It was around a year after I started writing that I took an interest in the American classics. My memory is not complete as to why I began to try and read books of the likes of Salinger and Fitzgerald, but I am certain that it had everything to do with Wikipedia and Crash Course. I watched these videos and read the words that explained the ins and outs of several stories, all unique in their own tastes and values, and, for whatever reason, it made me feel something. It made me feel a sense of awe. I could imagine that reading The Great Gatsby as a young, amateur writer for the first time is like being a young, amateur painter setting your eyes upon one of Van Gogh’s pieces for the first time. You are amazed by something, but you cannot comprehend the full magnitude of the piece itself nor what you are perplexed by. One is bound to find some reason for the rejoicing in the piece, when you are older maybe, or if you study the piece quite a bit, but even then there are some parts to the art, the body of work, that baffle you purely by what you see in your mind and eyes. Although what I have discovered is that sometimes it is not the art that adds a quality of interest to your soul, but rather the story behind the author who wrote those distinguished words.

For hours some days I would watch documentaries on my predecessors, listening to the soothing voices of the narrator as I did my homework, listening and seeing where or how they were able to produce such a monumental piece of literature. I would listen to biographies on Hemingway and Fitzgerald, learning of their alcoholism, their slow descents into insanity, the wars that corrupted their hearts yet magnified their minds. And Hemingway is arguably the most famous American author besides Twain, for he embodied all that was deemed correct in the American male. He had muscle and loved beer, fought in a war, enjoyed fishing as well as hunting, and was educated yet daring all the while. Yet like many in his time, his extraordinary ability to write did not transfer over to making him an extraordinary person, it did quite the opposite. He was mad and often drunk, his words a living part of him, never focused on family and friends and always on the typewriter, crafting his words to embellish himself and expand his ego. But Hemingway was not the anomaly. In fact, it is often that one's own art becomes heavily attached to them as a person, feeling as if it defines them to be treated a certain way, acting as if it is their personality, when in actuality it is anything but. Your personality and life is what should define the art you create, not the other way around.

It has been four years since that time has passed when I would stay up late studying Harper Lee’s style or Twain’s satire or listening to interviews with relatives and associates of Salinger. I still admire those who came before me to the extreme, understanding that without them many of the writers who have influenced me would not have existed or even been as remotely profound in their craft, our craft. But I came to realize all those years ago that me as a writer and me as a person are two very distinct entities, each clenching to their own standards and prevailing in their own ways, a complete dichotomy. Artists can turn into obsessive, dangerous, narcissistic, defiant human beings who sometimes lose a part of themselves and thus lose what can be important: normality, the average day values that a human being should hold. You see, they become so intertwined with the art, and sometimes the fame, that they almost become it, held to it, and it is in doing so that they are not so much a person but a deformity of which. Therefore, it is from this fear of the loss of character, of who I am, of slowly separating from those I love that I was brought into reality.

I|I

B. F. Harvey is an intellectual property in all of his essence. He is like a chameleon, mixing into the terrain to whichever is around him, to whichever formulates from the mind's incantations. He is whatever thing comes about as the result of the keys and letters that appear in front of him, shifting left to right, a part of a world’s creation. He is the story, he is the characters, he is everything that is embodied in the art of his writing.

B. F. Harvey is all that has been stored inside his opposite, Ben, from the minor observations to the major. All the conversations, all of the people, the places, the theories, and, what seems to be most important, the emotions. The feelings received when he is classified as “weird” just for the quirks that he embellishes from himself and the doubt that comes from this, the sadness that arises at the coarse hand of mental struggles, and the seething righteousness that stems from his concern of the society around him. B. F. is the interpreter and Ben is the language. One is the wood and the other is the flame but sentiment has been and always will be the lighter.

B. F. Harvey is a compilation of thoughts that derive from the emotions Ben goes through. This is their only connection. They may be the same person with the same blood, but their personalities, their interests, their concerns from the moment to moment basis could never be more different. Does that mean whenever Ben takes an assessment that includes writing that he is B. F. Harvey? In the intellectual sense, sure, but not in the personal sense. He is still himself with the same humor and same senses, and that is what differs between the two. Ben as a student or as someone in the real world is just another person, a human being that acts to his own definition of normal, and who walks the dogs with his family everyday while goofing around with whoever is concerning his attention. There are a million parts to which Ben is who he is, each representative at their own time, yet when he sits down to write- they all come together to become a powerful whole. That is when B. F. Harvey lives and that is where he lives. B. F. Harvey is the world as Ben sees and feels it. The only thing that Ben is required to act upon is life, being unburdened with the task of analysis or the need to be impactful and smart. Ben is majoritively existent and B. F. Harvey only comes into the world when there is something to be said, thoughts to be relieved off his conscience, and a need to clear his aura through the means of creative language.

They both are made up of the same fabric but where they stand and what they are will always be different. The settings the two of them live in, the ideas that fill their minds, the issues that pertain to their realities, are all distinct and dissimilar. Ben bears the full weight of the world and operates according to it as B. F. Harvey merely becomes it. And one may whisper in the others ear as they each occupy their own time, but they are never completely one in the same. Sometimes one might feel like they are the other, but at the end of the day, as the result of the method of each of their operations and the universes they live in, they shall always remain separate. Because it is only for the benefit of both that this is the case, for the sake of balance and sanctity of mind- they are necessary so that one can be a person and the other an identity.