Skip to main content

Memoirs

I have always been a fan of memoir, although I am a bit fussy as to what I enjoy. My current favorites are Michael Palin's three volumes and those of Alec Guinness.

Humility, actual true humility---accepting with open eyes one's strengths and weaknesses---is a-if-not-the major factor of what I look for. Truly great and interesting people have depth to them, have learned from their mistakes, have accepted and fought against all the best of things. Memoirs by politicians are the opposite---the need to be right in retrospect at all times feels so desperate and petty to me.

I find articulation to be a form of meditation and therapy, clarifying for me who I am in terms of what I care about. With trusted friends good non-casual conversations bring that out in me, but as an introvert I often turn to journaling. Well-written memoirs serve as a template for me.

I have been journaling since I went away to university. I finished high school a year early and felt only secure about my academics in leaving home at such an early age. Journaling back then was necessary in ways that very few people in my life understand.

My life has taken me where I did not think I would go. While I hoped for a loving family of my own I feared that my near-terminal shyness would prevent my finding a life-partner, of being open and vulnerable to children were we so-blessed. Yet here I am with loving wife and children.

I NEVER expected to stand in front of folk and attempt to lead them and yet my career has frequently dipped into those waters. I never expected to use writing as a tool to advocate to others and yet that is almost a daily occurrence now. I never expected people to feel comfortable sharing their stories with me beyond the surface and now am entering my fifth year as faculty ombudsperson, a role I will say that I do well.

I have no intention of publishing my memoirs, beyond these (scarcely seen) blog posts, but I have grown more and more appreciative of them for helping me to chart my way through paths unknown to me.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Betrayal

I caught a student cheating on a final exam this morning. I had a line of sight on them and watched for ten minutes as they took their cellphone out of their pocket, kept it below their table, typed into it, read it, put it away, then wrote on the exam, repeating this cycle over and over again.  I was a bit surprised as the exam was open notes but this student had not attended many of our classes, just stopping by for exams, and I conjecture that they had no notes to open. I confronted the student who admitted that they had done wrong in an inarticulate non-confessional way. By the afternoon they had signed off on the honor code violation report to avoid further investigation and possible sanctions beyond failing the exam.  Is anger the right emotion to feel now? I had a working relationship with the student, although they had not contributed much to it. They had deceived me in order to gain unwarranted advantage over their peers in the class and that is not right. I don't wan...
1 comment
Read more

Standing Your Corner

I'm a long-term David Simon fan ever since I read his book "Homicide", detailing a year-long embedding with Baltimore homicide detectives. It was clear-eyed about all of the strengths and weaknesses, good reflexes and prejudices of everyone that he met.  I enjoyed the television show that followed that he wrote for, and then of course "The Wire" on HBO and a number of his other shows---only limited by my access to streaming services.  There was a histrionic moment in a later season of "Homicide" where he just let a character vent; a homicide detective who was part-owner of a bar frequented by cops watched a particularly violent drug criminal, responsible for many unsolved homicides, come into his bar with his associates, violating the detective's territory. The detective came around the bar holding a billy club in his hand and loudly discussed his first year as a patrol officer walking a beat. His supervising officer told him that he had a corner a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Car Accident

I was in a car accident a few days ago. There was a stopped car in the interstate and I didn't see it in advance; the car in front of me swerved into another lane and then there it was in front of me. I also swerved but damaged my commuter car, which is old and had many miles on it. The insurance company declared it a total loss.  The damage was where I scraped along the passenger side of my car (and the driver side of the stopped car). I had no deployment of airbags and no damage from my seat belt; no glass on either car broke, so it was a glancing blow if that makes sense. The front passenger wheel was damaged and I could not drive the car very far.  I pulled over to the shoulder and dialed 911. A state trooper made sure I was alright and proceeded to take care of the situation. I was moving slowly, aware that I had had a shock to my system and trying not to do anything to worsen the situation (stepping into traffic when I exited my vehicle, etc.) The trooper took my informa...
2 comments
Read more