6.26.13
How does one even begin to make an autobiography? Is there a
sufficient trigger? Is there a feeling that at that point in your life you’re
supposed to commit everything that you have gone through to memory in a medium
other than your own diminishing faculties? If so then is the urge prodded by a
moment of utter despair? Yet if that is the case then there still exists some
hope that a reader might benefit from your accounts, and therefore ultimately
validate the necessity of your hardship or errors. Therefore, is your despair
truly utter or just another phase?
Does the inspiration come from a moment of seemingly
boundless joy; if so, then I imagine that everything that comes in between your
birth and that moment of epiphany or bliss would be accordingly magnified or
downplayed should it not figure into the thought that destiny moved you and the
world – as if it were nothing but a mixture of props – so that you can be at
that certain spot, at that certain time, with that certain smile on your face.
Why does one even think of making an autobiography? For
those in the limelight or those whose names pollute the polls, despite all
their pretentions the question is not at the very least complex. The account
becomes a means to an end, and can’t be farther from the motive of recounting
how a life had been lived thus far. But in any case, is that the plain and
simple reason for writing the same? For those other than the latter, is it a
means for validation? A method of examination? An accounting? And in any case,
wouldn’t it verge on hubris to believe that it is necessary; to believe that
other than your progenies or your actual deeds as others have either witnessed
or experienced them, you should be known and understood precisely as you see
fit through your account?
Would it be more important to write an autobiography so that
at the end of the dayyou would get to read it? Read it; examine it; digest
it; expel it; correct it; reconstruct it? Or simply assess if it is a worthy read.
Or would it be more important to write it so that some other person would get
to read it?
So I guess here are the important questions, as always: why,
when, how, why not, when not to, how not to… like a Living Life for
Dummies or a DiY manual. Then again there is the “who are you?” and the
more important “So?” and “So what?” At the end of the day, therefore, you
should likewise ask: a biography or autobiography?
