The power to read another's mind is granted on several rare occasions. One. Talks with strangers at one o'clock in the morning. Two. MRIs. Three. Memoirs.
Both talks and MRIs, however, lack the longevity and emotional depth and honesty that allow for the line-by-line analysis of a person's life. On paper, the retelling of any existence is concrete and conclusive. There's suddenly time to mull over moments and reframe them. Ostensibly, authors are allowed to reconstruct their past experiences and thoughts to create false realities, but in truth, the memoir, or more so its comparison to others of the like, permits the deconstruction of mental processes by examining the values individuals inject into their own retellings of stories.
My own fascination with memoirs and biographies began a couple years back, first with Isaac Newton and then progressing through Steve Jobs, Caitlin Moran, Mindy Kaling, and Carrie Brownstein among others. Some of them were big household names, others not so much. There were feminists, revolutionaries, scientists, game-changers, rebels, average-joes... you name it, There's a memoir that exists about it.
Several universal truths have been noticeable regardless of cover art or titles.
First, nearly everybody is interesting.
If there's anything that a good autobiography or biography has taught, it's that human existence is rooted in human experience. Memoirs, in particular, record multi-dimensional accounts of memories. What often goes unnoticed in the banal every day (emotions, mental processing, perspective) becomes apparent and makes reminiscences insightful and enjoyable.
Second, it's wrong to assume that any one person is of greater value than another.
The autobiography and biography are some of the most peculiar inventions to have graced the Earth with their presences. In a matter of a mere hundred pages, single lives are condensed into a few hours of "a good read." The insignificance of human existence becomes glaringly apparent. Shelves upon shelves of stories. What's one more?
The existence of memoirs against the scheme of thousands and thousands of stories is metaphorically indicative of the fact that the significance of an individual and the impact he or she can afford in a community is limited to the context of humanity and the assumption that mankind itself is significant against the backdrop of time and space. But from the perspectives of the mountains and the stars in the sky, a single person is an unnoticed nick in weathered basalt. Timelessness, like the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, stares at the fleetingness of life.
Steve Jobs or Isaac Newton or Caitlin Moran or Mindy Kaling or Carrie Brownstein is not significant. Steve Jobs and Isaac Newton and Caitlin Moran and Mindy Kaling and Carrie Brownstein are significant. The collective human experience is what's ultimately significant.
Third, people are complex.
Despite it all, biographies and even autobiographies are largely misrepresentative of the individuals they seek to capture. Authors are often unconsciously at fault of altering identities (yes, even of themselves), for what one person finds to be a self-evident truth, another finds to be a destroying force misrepresentative of every last detail.
Yes, paper and ink can both reconstruct and deconstruct a person, and yes, character assassination can result from creation.
In the meantime, it's back at it for me with Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein. Best of luck with all your existential crises.
