A Memorable Story

I knew a writer who was afraid there wasn’t enough time to tell all the stories he wanted to tell before he died. He wrote books about baseball, specifically the stories of interesting but largely forgotten players. There were so many men who were not enshrined in the Hall of Fame, whose baseball cards no one would collect, but whose lives and careers, for reasons beyond records and championships, were worthy of a book. He had collected their stories, had been moved and inspired by their stories. But he was not a young man, and books take a long time to write, and he worried the stories of the men whose books he didn’t write would die with him.

It seemed odd to me at first when he described his fear. I couldn’t imagine a bunch of disappointed dead ballplayers welcoming my friend grumpily into the hereafter, each of them wanting an explanation for why they were left out and others included in his pantheon of stories. Until, that is, I remembered my own long and uneasy relationship with time. The moment I truly understood an end would one day come, I believed I could feel the sand in my personal hourglass running out. I couldn’t quite shake the notion that my death would render every single thing I did while alive meaningless, that I was born a puff of smoke waiting to be blown away by the wind.

There’s a temptation as a writer to try and do for my own life what my friend was doing for the ballplayers’ lives: to write a story so great my name would be stamped once and for all in history. I would never speak this desire as it was so plainly and grotesquely egotistical, but there it was anyway. It wasn’t just the threat of being forgotten but of being forgettable. If I’m forgettable, it’s like I’m already gone, like I was never here in the first place.

The odd thing about publishing your work is learning what people remember about it. It’s never what I expect. In fact, sometimes when people talk about what I’ve written, it’s like they’re talking about someone else’s story. It’s the same as when people talk about their memories of me. Whether those memories are flattering or unflattering, they are always different than my memories of myself, refracted as they are through that other person’s life.

In fact, whether they’re talking about me or my stories, I sense that they’re really talking about themselves. It’s their life they’re trying to live and understand, after all; it’s their life that really matters to them. It better. I have forgotten all kinds of things from my own life—people and victories and losses and days and years—but the moment I forget I matter simply because I’m here I have forgotten the one thing that everyone’s story has in common.

If you like the ideas and perspectives expressed here, feel free to contact me about individual coaching and group workshops.

Fearless Writing: How to Create Boldly and Write With Confidence.
You can find William at: williamkenower.com