Hi! My name is Art Bram

Who knew I would ever write a bio? I hope you enjoy reading it!

I am 68 years old. Well, technically not until 2 days from now, July 15th. Two years away from officially being old, according to my definition.

With that thought in mind, if this isn’t the time to turn my dreams into reality, I don’t know when it will be!

One of my dreams is to help as many people as possible through my writing. I only began writing in the past 4 or 5 years. Growing up, all throughout my school years, I was not a good writer at all. In fact, my lowest grades were on composition writing. Reasons being …

I had no interest in writing.

I had no interest in writing because I had nothing to write about.

I had nothing to write about because I did not know myself.

Mostly as a result of 20 or so years of psychotherapy, I gradually learned more and more about myself. In addition, attending Buddhism classes for a few years was very enlightening (pun intended). I also read a lot of self improvement type books. You name the author, and I will undoubtedly find one of his/her books in my extensive Kindle library collection.

What I learned from each specific source, I can’t tell you. I suppose it doesn’t much matter.

What I can tell you is from the cumulative sources, I found my spiritual path. Believe me … I started from scratch. Not only was I lost, I wasn’t even looking for a path. I was just hoping to cope with life day by day, devoid of internal guideposts.

Each day, I give my best effort to have my words and actions be in accord with my value system. Some days, I am far more successful that others. I treasure those more successful days. I do my best to learn from those days when I take two steps back, rather than beat myself up.

Here is my spiritual path, in a nutshell (well, more precisely, in a bulleted list of 6 goals.)

• I strive to be an endless source of unconditional love and self-love.
• I strive to be non-judgmental.
• I strive to put my authentic self out there each and every day. I cannot go wrong doing this, because my authentic self, although far from perfect, is loving and wise.
• I strive to be more patient with others and with myself.
• I strive to be more accepting of others and of challenging life circumstances.

My writing journey started about 5 years ago, when I began using the Insight Timer meditation app. The app includes a group feature, with a variety of diverse groups, covering a variety of spiritual and personal growth related topics.

As the years passed, I posted more and more on Insight Timer. I only posted about topics that resonated with my heart. The more I posted, the more I learned about myself. The more I learned about myself, the more I experienced my words effortlessly flowing into my consciousness.

This was because my words emanated from my heart! (apparently there is a direct line between my heart and brain.)

To this day, I frequently cannot key in the words fast enough to keep up with the speed of the thoughts and words arising to my consciousness. I am in that writing zone that you fellow writers are undoubtedly quite familiar with.

I frequently get feedback from readers that my words resonate with them. Sometimes, I get feedback that my words are powerful, and inspiring. No doubt, there are also those whom I don’t hear from, as they are thinking something akin to … when is he going to get to the point? What the heck is he talking about anyhow?”

I believe the positive feedback I get is because my words consistently stem from my authentic self, from my heart, and are sincere, honest and relatable. The positive feedback is definitely not due to my extraordinary writing ability (as you can see from the somewhat awkward wording of the prior sentence with all those commas, lol.)

Well, that sums up who I am. I think learning who I am is far more interesting and important than my sharing with you what I have done in my soon to be 68 years on this planet. But, in case you are one of those who would like to know what I have done, here goes …

I guess this means I’m supposed to talk about the career stuff.

After graduating college, I was an accountant for 2 years. I didn’t like that very much and I wasn’t very good at it to boot. So, I went back to school, and enrolled in a Master’s degree special education program, followed by working in a private school with kids with autism for about 7 years. I found that working with children was far more up my alley than balancing ledgers. However, I wasn’t making enough money to help support raising a family, which was on the horizon.

So, I enrolled in a one year Computer Science Career Retraining Program. Upon completion, I worked as a computer programmer for 20 years or so. I never particularly enjoyed that type of work either, but it helped pay the bills.

In 2003, I got laid off from my programming job, and decided to go back to working in special education, as a private consultant. I provided home-based early intervention therapy with kids with autism. I did that for about 15 years. The job had its headaches, as all jobs do, but I left it knowing that I had helped make a major positive impact in the lives of multiple children and families.

I find it most interesting that my final job in the decades of various careers was far and away the most personally rewarding. Reason being … I was able to be most helpful to others, as the product of putting my heart into it.

It felt amazing to make a difference!

In September of 2018, I retired. My wife and I bought a condo in a 55 and over community (to be honest, I’ve yet to meet a person under the age of 65, and many are well up into their 80s and 90s.) Prior to COVID-19, my wife and I immensely enjoyed an incredibly active social life, engaging in community activities such as bowling, singing in nursing homes (I love to sing), going to concerts and dances, and monthly Saturday night karaoke, just to name a few.

Once the virus came around, all of the above activities came to an abrupt halt. Over the past few mostly homebound months, I spend the bulk of my time playing Words With Friends, watching reruns of 40 year old quiz shows, and writing. When I need a writing break, playing a few games of Words With Friends definitely serves the function of refreshing my weary brain!

I almost left out that once a week, I mentor a millennial. Amazingly, he finds what I have to say helpful, even though I am biologically old enough to be his grandfather, and I continue to have a bevy of personal issues that despite decades of working on, I continue to struggle with.

I’m done with my biography. I’ve never written a biography before. Hopefully, it wasn’t too long winded!

Or perhaps I should add a 7th item to my above list of goals …

• I strive to write more concisely!

Thank you for the patience and perseverance you demonstrated to get to …

The End! (Or as Porky Pig says just before the closing credits of Looney Tunes Cartoons … “Th-Th-The, Th-Th-The, Th-Th … That’s all, folks!)

Hey, I just met Illumination’s publication rule to give credit to the original source!