Autobiography

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I reported recently that I was in the process of writing my autobiography.

Over the last several weeks, I managed to sketch out about 15 years' worth of memories, and I printed them out, and mailed them off to a couple of elder relatives.  (I also allowed one of my buddies to read them, just to show off!)

It was interesting to find that both my buddy and my relatives are amazed at how much I can remember!  Of course one is never certain just how well one's own memory compares with those of others.  For whatever reason, I can remember events from more than fifty years ago, as well as my reactions to them, and what I perceived as the reactions of people I was with.  What does this mean?  Perhaps I was sensitive to emotional subtleties of those around me from when I was a kid; perhaps I mulled over these matters so often that I was able to resolve any confusion I might have had about the events to my satisfaction.

Most of all, I think, that the process of writing fiction hones one's perspective on the past.  A good writer of fiction, I'm convinced, simply has to draw on experience, and the experiences of an observant individual are going to be that much more useful to draw on.

This encourages me to keep writing.  Even if my own thoughts are wrong-headed, someday my children can draw on my memoirs, and have something concrete from which to base their theories about what happened before they were born.

I'm beginning to believe that my generation was particularly bad about simply and accurately reporting what they saw.  So much of what were current events when we were growing up was interpreted by the media that it is now hard to separate fact from fiction for everything other than what you witnessed yourself.  I must make sure that I make that clear: this I experienced first-hand, or got from an first-hand account; this I read in the papers, or heard on the radio.  This emerged much later, reported by people who should know, but I'm just conveying it.

Once again, I urge everyone, whenever you have the time, jot down your memories!!!!  The benefits are numerous:

1. If you are new to writing, this is good practice.  It isn't easy to describe a scene if you've never done it before.  And what could be easier than to describe a scene that you've witnessed?
2. If you're a writer of fiction, these scenes will form the bricks and mortar of what you write.
3. Your offspring and younger relatives may not be interested in history, but they will be interested in their history, which is what you're writing.
4. If your life has been difficult, describing it could be a means of making peace with it.  It is particularly important to those who care about you to know that this process has taken place, if it has, or even where you are relative to it.  We often look at painful episodes in our lives with fury or bitterness, until we're wise enough to lay that fury or bitterness aside.  There's nothing sadder than a child, or a nephew, who does not realize that the bitterness has, indeed, been set aside.
5. If a period of your life was particularly wonderful, recalling it should generate gratitude.  Gratitude is a major engine for driving generosity and benevolence.  Those who have felt ill-used by the universe are seldom willing to make a generous gesture; those with generous instincts have a miraculous ability to recognize even minute experiences of happiness, and respond with gratitude.
6. Finally, young people today live in a world in which cause and effect are greatly removed from each other.  They see the highways, and seldom connect them with the Great Depression, or World War 2; they see Anti-Discrimination law, and seldom pause to think about what brought them about.  The problem is not that they weren't taught these things, but that they were.  They're so accustomed to tuning out their school teachers, that all this material becomes simply academic.  This is where family can make a difference: we can make history personal to our younger relatives.

In case you weren't listening, writing your memoirs (or an autobiography) is a lot of fun; don't let these points above make you think of it like eating oatmeal.  It is pure joy, really.  Just go for it!

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