Memoir Experiment: Introduction
When is it appropriate to start writing one’s memoirs? If you are a figure of prominence, power, or popularity, you might have to wait until the moment is right, when the career has peaked in some way. But if you are a nobody, any time is the right time. And I think everyone should try to write this down. I greatly enjoyed reading A Man with no Talents: Memoirs of a Tokyo Day Laborer* and Memoirs of a Breton Peasant.* The simple details of an ordinary life can prove fascinating.
I think I’ve reached the age at which one grows more reflective, turning inward. How did I get here? This whole journey seems improbable and frankly pointless. Why am I who I am? I think the way I reflect on the common details of my remembered background is probably a better approximation of an answer to that question than the details, the facts themselves. So here’s an experiment, kind of like a journal or diary. I’ve always meant to keep one of those but never have. It just seems like it would create another odious obligation. Instead I’ll periodically jot something down, when some memory assaults me. And one memory leads to another with no apparent pattern. I’ll follow these associative chains and see where, if anywhere, they lead. Lucky you.
See also:
- Memoir Experiment Part One
- Memoir Experiment: Part Two
- Memoir Experiment Part Three
- Memoir Experiment: Part Four
- Memoir Experiment: Part Five
- Memoir Experiment: Part Six
- Memoir Experiment Part Seven—Baseball
- Memoir Experiment Part Eight—The Unplugged Shakespearian
- Memoir Experiment Part Nine—Libraries
- Memoir Experiment Part Ten—Progress
