I first tried my hand at writing whilst serving in the Marines, out on deployment in Northern Ireland in 2004. I wrote poems of a predominantly dark nature, though their inherent sombreness wasn’t immediately apparent to me. The feelings embodied in my words were a part of me that wanted to be expressed, and I fantasied about writing a book of poems; and as I did, the name of the book seemed to come straight to me – A Few Words From An Absolute Nobody. As time passed, I managed to successfully convince myself that I actually was an absolute nobody who had no business writing a book – not that I would ever be able to achieve it, even if I did try … and, after all, who would care, or even want to read what I had to say anyway?!

Twenty-two years later, I found myself writing a book and, as I sat there pondering, asking myself what its title should be, I was struck by déjà vu … a memory of having asked myself this very same question many years earlier. It all made so much sense – as if everything had come full circle; I had been given this name for my book by an unknown force within me, which knew that I was capable of writing it, without being ready at the time. I had yet to accumulate enough life experience to be able to share on a deep level what it was within that was asking to be expressed. I felt the universe telling me that now was the time … that now I was finally ready. 

When the title, A Few Words From An Absolute Nobody, was first given to me, it was wholly appropriate – I was a nobody in every sense of the word. I thought of myself in that light, and had done for many years. Now, however, it means something completely different to me – it means that I am not my name, for how could I be? I was born and existed before the name Ricardo Chin was given to me. The intention I wrote this book with is: I believe somebody could pick it up anywhere in the world, begin to read it, and pose the question: who wrote this? Why has he called himself a nobody? And, as they read on and reach the moment where my name is finally revealed – a moment that was a very impactful experience for me – the reader hopefully then arrives at the conclusion that they finally know this guy’s name, and that it means nothing. This is because they don’t know me, and to all intents and purposes, I am an absolute nobody to them. The hope is that readers might even recognise themselves, and their own vulnerabilities, in some of my experiences.  

It’s not a book about my name – it’s a book about my story, and once that story has been read and understood, hopefully the reader acknowledges that it’s not even about that. It’s about what’s in between the lines in my sentences, paragraphs and chapters; it’s about the story within the story; it’s about beginning to ask yourself the questions that really want to be asked. It’s about allowing what wants to be expressed, from deep within, the space and freedom to do so – none of which calls for any sort of name or title; or for you to be a specific type of ‘somebody’ in order to be able to value and love yourself, and appreciate the true richness of the experiences that are thrust upon us, as humans, in this world.