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Write your biography before someone else does
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Naturally, my hope is for each of you to catch the subtle nuance in that title, because the vast majority of us will never write biographies at all. More potently, the crucial construct that must be bridged is this: the very substance of biographies, whether they are ever written or not, is derived from a much more important substance: that substance is composed of twenty-five thousand days and nights of sweat and tears and hugs; smiles and laughter and deep somber tones from our cries; long walks and worries and triumphs. It is a long march punctuated by both our moments of terror and despair, and our epiphany-filled evenings where we each summon our courage, pack our things and get back up and go again.
It is the substance we each call our lives. But, and this is the biggest but, the one that pigments everything we are and what we do, we are also human animals set down in a world where our ability to clearly analyze our individual circumstances is completely frustrated by the nature of things. Analysis, and I mean the personal kind, is generally, and quite simply, prohibited. Looking at ourselves and our lives that way goes against the grain. It’s unnatural. What is natural though, is the myriad of things that require our attention so that we can all live basic lives. This simply must be understood. We must eat, have shelter and care for our families and loved ones. However, the cognition we all enjoy as human beings, is almost never needed for the basic fruits of life.
And because we suddenly have this dual thinking-animal friction acting as the rubber that meets our road, we almost always let the animal win so we can enjoy our food and shelter. But, and this is the second biggest but, this is the action that lets time sweep us away to the extent that when we’re all through with our time here, we missed some of the things we meant to stop and smell. Damn. That’s the moment when the pen will cease writing down what we’ve done, but by someone else’s hand. Those biographies are stamped in the nature of things.
By now my intent should be somewhat clear. We must each stop and think and peel that rubber off the road. We must sit out in the rain or the heat or the cold, on sometimes empty stomachs and pull out our own pens. We can take that time and let our cognition be the master of our moments, when so ever we choose to take them and make them ours. Truly ours. We can start answering that question that we never want answered for us: “What was the substance of my life?” Those will be our greater moments, our triumphant, epiphany-filled ones. Those are the moments when we take a glance around, then a deep breath, when we pack our things and get back up and go again. Those are when we get to choose what it is we would want to say…
Dereck :: Jun.10.2008 :: Motivation :: 3 Comments »
3 Responses to “Write your biography before someone else does”
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[...] being stumbled at the moment. “Want to be rich? Then shut up and listen” and “Write your biography before someone else does” which is strange because the articles are so different. To illustrate the “Stumble [...]
I have a lot to say to you, and a lot of time to converse with you. You (and I), and Pavlina and Olson and Kim (maybe not Kim) and a few other thousand people scattered around the globe share something that couldn’t/wouldn’t have been shared in the previous history of humankind, when the internet didn’t exist to make these links, these connections with others of the same intellect.
In any case, the writing style in this article is very difficult for me to comprehend. I read through it twice. I can’t see between the allusions and metaphors and the literals. Are you talking about writing or living?
Well then. I have lots to say to you too then.
Writing is the metaphor. Metaphorically suggesting that biographies, which are written, are written about lives–and what that fact demands of us. If we live our lives with the constant suggestion of our biographies close in mind, the biographies written about the lives we lead will be the biographies we would have wanted written; and we would have lived the lives we wanted.