I have come to the conclusion recently that I don't think I could or would ever atempt an auto biography. I found this surprising becuase I had often thought that one day I would. Not that I think my life is terribly interesting but becuase a number of my life experience has been out side of the main stream. (Being a pastors daughter, being home schooled K-12, going to a christian college, getting married strait out of college.) I also firmly believe that every day things such as waiting tables, being a camp counselor, and raising an extroverted 9 month old, can make for rather entertaing stories assuming the are communicated in the right manner. The more I obeserve life however the more I realize that I don't trust myself to convey the story of my life.
For starters our memories are never as acurate as we assume them to be. The further away we get from an event the more scewed our memories become. Either we look back at nestolgia remembering only the wonderful warm fuzzies of the moment We remember only the we recived the baby doll we wanted for Christmas when we were 6 and forget that it broke the next day. Or we do the oposite and mainting the our exboy friend is a horrible jerk and forgetting the qualities in the person that first drove us to be with them. That being the case how could we ever present a truthfully acount of our memories if we only present one half of them.
Which brings me to the second reason I would hesitate to put my life story down on paper. Since I was not raised by monkeys in the middle of a tropical forest, my life is full of other people. And any attempt to write my story would demand an effort to include at least part of theirs. If I can not even accurately remember my story, how presumptious of me to think I could pressent some one elses story. I could never begin to imagaine the unknown thoughts and motives of even my own family. How could I present the truth, If I don't know what that is.
Not that I believe that truth is relative. I believe there is one truth. However, I think as a humane it is hard to fully understand the truth of ourselves and others. Perhaps it is reality that is realtive.
For starters our memories are never as acurate as we assume them to be. The further away we get from an event the more scewed our memories become. Either we look back at nestolgia remembering only the wonderful warm fuzzies of the moment We remember only the we recived the baby doll we wanted for Christmas when we were 6 and forget that it broke the next day. Or we do the oposite and mainting the our exboy friend is a horrible jerk and forgetting the qualities in the person that first drove us to be with them. That being the case how could we ever present a truthfully acount of our memories if we only present one half of them.
Which brings me to the second reason I would hesitate to put my life story down on paper. Since I was not raised by monkeys in the middle of a tropical forest, my life is full of other people. And any attempt to write my story would demand an effort to include at least part of theirs. If I can not even accurately remember my story, how presumptious of me to think I could pressent some one elses story. I could never begin to imagaine the unknown thoughts and motives of even my own family. How could I present the truth, If I don't know what that is.
Not that I believe that truth is relative. I believe there is one truth. However, I think as a humane it is hard to fully understand the truth of ourselves and others. Perhaps it is reality that is realtive.
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