Author: Vero Rousseau

I am in a strange place, on the cusp of paralysis. I want to write, so very much. But I don’t feel competent enough. How can I write, philosophy no less, without having read the entire canon of human thought?

 

At first, I dismissed this question as absurd! Even with complete devotion to reading for the rest of my days, I will not have enough time to digest all the texts in existence today.  Even if I limit myself to the last few centuries, the goal is still not SMART at all!  Yet, I feel obliged to give it due consideration.  How can I stand on the shoulders of giants if I don’t know what my predecessors stood for?

 

I’ll premise this essay by saying that I am reading a lot – more than ever!   But I am not like Peter, who reads at break-neck speed.  I am a slow reader – I actually hear the sound of the words.  In just a couple of months, I’ll delve deeper in the study of Philosophy – starting another BA this summer.  It will take me at least 5 years to complete this endeavor. So good student that I am, I am reading ahead!  I find most of the texts I read fascinating – even those that I don’t quite understand. Still, I perceive within myself a tension.  When I don’t write, I feel the nagging impression that I am hiding in the voice of others.  I wonder: am I looking in books for the answers that I can only find within?

 

Previously, I’ve studied economics.  It was post-crisis and I wanted to know what had brought our society to the edge of the precipice.  My university wasn’t a particularly good one – we only derived equations!  We assumed cetis paribusand perfect information – which obviously made our discipline approximate at best, but most likely unrealistic.  We held firmly to the scientific method – thus we put more efforts on understanding the mathematics than in the evaluation of the assumptions and limitations of our theories.  But I’m still grateful for the drudgery, ‘cause it got me over the edge into the rest of my life!

 

Now, I’m aware that within philosophy, there is also an analytical tradition.  Its aims is to apply rigorous and argumentative methods to the study of the ‘objects of philosophy’ (ie: reality, knowledge, reason, morality, and experience or consciousness, even language).  However, the extent of analytical rigor actually created dead-ends. As it turns out, there is a very limited range of logical conclusions that can be reached without starting from arbitrary premises.  Therefore, analytical philosophers have now turned to arguing – amongst themselves – over the meaning embedded in the primary texts written by their predecessors.

 

Indeed, philosophical writing nowadays falls into two categories: original thoughts and derivative – though maybe highly insightful – analysis.  Most of the philosophical literature is of the second type – and might be very interesting – but the first category includes the works that I read as I initially explore this strange land of philosophy.

 

So I’ve been reading Nietzsche.  And I’ve wondered: What makes him a philosopher? Is it because Bertrand Russell included him in his book History of Philosophy?  As such, he has been accepted as an ‘initiate’ by other community-members. But to belong in a discipline, one must first write about the ‘objects of philosophy’.  In philosophy, do methods matter as much as in the sciences? Again, reading Nietzsche, one must clearly answer ‘No!’, he writes cryptically, allegorically, mostly without clear argumentation.  Most of his writing wouldn’t be accepted as an undergraduate final paper – and yet he has something to say !!!  Thus is philosophy more defined by the value of its insights?  Some say that philosophers impact the world by introducing new ‘Ways of Seeing’ it.

 

Indeed, in some deep way, philosophy studies ideas – in and of themselves – as well as their impact on man.  Ideas are not these ‘abstract’ things floating in the ether – like Plato suggested.  They live in us!  In fact, philosophy addresses how mankind regards the very concepts which he cannot separate from himself.

 

Philosophy starts by asking: What are we?  What is reality?  Where do we belong in the world?  As an answer, one might draw this:

 

But we’ll observe that philosophy is nowhere in that diagram.  Thus, is philosophy the mere asking of questions for which we know too well that the reason we propose answers is actually to see ‘_whatever is_’ differently than before? If so, than all we have to do is follow Socrates…

 

I believe that ideas deeply affect man’s understanding of himself, his duties, his purpose – both individually and collectively.  How we think of ourselves and our place in the world actually affects our behavior – even delimiting what we can perceive (through confirmation bias for example) and what we consider possible.  It would be too crude to say that ‘thoughts shape reality’ – for thinking does not ‘cause’ existence in the way that we usually understand causality.  But on some level, (my) philosophy aims to explain all the ways in which ‘ideas’ ripple into the fabric of our lives.  Is this the goal of all philosophers?  Maybe not.  Still, the practice of philosophy allows me to postulate this as my research orientation.

 

I can do that because philosophy is a conceptual study – using thought-experiments instead of a physical apparatus to ‘prove’ or falsify hypotheses.  As such, someone new like me – though deep in my own way – might offer a meaningful contribution.  Or, a rereading of philosophers like Plato or Aristotle can be as relevant today than 2’500 years ago.  There are gems hidden in both Epicureanism, Stoicism, Cynicism and Skepticism.  We can’t literally transpose these insights into our 21st century society, because man’s conception of himself has changed over time.  And voila! Why should one read the key texts of philosophy written over millennia?  Because it is not only history that changed.  It is not only our way of living into our environment that evolved over centuries.  Crucially, the way we think of ourselves – which is actually distinct from, but interwoven with, what we think about – has changed with intellectual discoveries. By that I mean, the ideas we host within ourselves to abstractly represent ‘how the world is’ AREactually changing over time.  Ideas are not these fixed ‘abstract things’ waiting to emerge in consciousness.

 

Somewhere else, I’ll argue that a sensitivity to the evolution of man’s understanding of himself is actually crucial to the ‘doing’ of philosophy.  ‘Crucial’ is maybe not ‘essential’ but particularly useful in order to gain a vantage point from which to observe this strange land of thoughts and ideas.  I have Peter who gifted me Charles Taylor’s The Secular Ageto thank for that particular insight.

 

So here I am, feeling like I am moving into this strange place – where reading and writing meets in a swirl of tension and unconscious thinking.

 

On the reading front, my ever-expanding reading list is daunting!  And I’m kinda looking for a way to cut corners… but that’s counter-productive!  I cannot deny that men’s discourses react to one another – and as such, primary texts are embedded in a rich web of socio-historical context.  Yes, I believe that ideas grow in the particular ‘climate’ of their time and place. As intellectuals, philosophers reflect on the historical challenges of their days.  Their texts embody thoughts and ideas that – in themselves – can be ‘grasped’ or understood by people of other eras.  Written language, while that too evolves, is still permanent enoughto carry one’s ideas forward into time and space.

 

I’ll compare Western philosophy to a tree, taking roots in Ancient Greece and ever since growing limbs.  Its branches are different schools of thoughts, ‘growing out of and becoming distinct from’ the trunk – and yet still made from that same love of wisdom.   Every new branch – every thought – may keep changing: grow, be added on, or become brittle and wither.  But until it is forgotten, it will always be part of that illustrious tree.  But one’s philosophical contribution can also be a seedling, whose seed has spawned independent of tradition – though it is still made from that same love of wisdom.

 

When I read, I honor the tree – the traditions. When I write, I grow into my own shape – which may graft itself onto the tree or be a distinct entity altogether. All I know is that I am less interested in writing about the tree than in ‘being’ a tree.

 

I have a calling to write – of that I am sure. But what?  That question can truly stymies me.  Until I am sitting before my blank page, I do not know what will emerge. However, I know that form matters. Randomly, I discovered that John T. Lysaker, in Philosophy, Writing and the Character of Thought, makes the simple claim that the way we choose to write – in aphorisms, in personal essays, in scholarly articles, in systematic treatises – not only shapes ‘how a thought is expressed’ (and eventually perceived by a reader) but also ‘what emerges as thought’ in the first place.

 

Thus, choosing a genre and a tone for a particular project becomes fundamental.  And challenging because I have no way to know how my literary choices will affect the thoughts that emerge.  Only practice will enlighten.  Only the actual act of philosophizing – argumentatively or not, in fiction or non-fiction, etc… – will allow V’s ‘way to see’ to emerge with time.

 

Everyday that I sit at my screen, I rely on the flow of writing.  First because letters, words and sentences need to line up, one after another.  But mostly because of that mystical thing called ‘the state of flow’ – the energized focus which allow creation to occur.   As writer, we are constrained by language – like Ursula LeGuin said: “Words are my Matter” – yet the flow is indispensable, because it is the unconscious and non-verbal that I shape into becoming a shareable thing.

 

It is with humility that I accept how much I cannot control the writing process.  I know that reading feeds my soul – that integrating ideas within my understanding may contribute, in unforeseeable ways, to my own growth as an intellectual. I’ve also made peace with the fact that philosophy dwells in the territory of unknown unknowns.  It includes – but is not delimited by – the bringing to consciousness and methodical evaluation of all that we take for granted.  A tall order already, and it is merely the first few steps toward unknown discoveries.

 

For this pursuit – to which I am committing – I know that I must ‘Be Brave. Show Up. And Speak Honestly’.  Only with ‘Praxis’ will I fight my paralysis.  I advance with my fears in check, for I know that I have things to say.  Still, I can’t silence that nagging voice that says: “Who are you?  You are not yet initiated!”

 

Thus dared to write Viktoria.

Pierre passed away on April 2^nd, 2019.  He died like he always lived – by his own will.  When he was first diagnosed with lung cancer, he expressed his intentions to forgo chemo-therapy, surgery and radiation.  He didn’t want to exchange one sickness for another.  But sickness came nonetheless and in the end, in constant respiratory distress, he refused supplementary oxygen.  Amid the warm hug of morphine, he peacefully suffocated.  As he took his last barely audible breath, we could almost hear him say:  

-I had One Life to live and I have no regrets.

My mother and I were present by his side for merely five minutes – even the nurses had been surprised at how fast he had declined.  Between sobs, I reassured him: “We understand and respect your choice.”  Holding his limp hand in mine, with my mother’s head over his chest, we both told him how much we loved him.  

I’ll always remember the moment his One Life left him.  It is the most tragic of magic to witness how something so ethereal as a Life – as a Soul – can be so noticeable when it goes…    

With his diagnostic, he knew that his end was near.  All he asked was to live a few more months in peace with my mother.  For Pierre didn’t fear death.  What he most feared was to be disabled, to lose his dignity, to be a burden on my mother, dependent on her for his basic needs.  Arguably, he had increasingly relied on her for the entirety of their relationship, ever since he lost an important share of his eyesight in January 1996.  Still, autonomy comes in various degrees and he warned us – quite forcefully – that he’d depart this world when his body would finally fail him.  

– What’s the point to live when there is no quality of life?, he’d ask rhetorically.  

For two years, he kept his mobility – now motorized – and peacefully co-existed with his cancer.  He did less and less, went to bed earlier, but still led life to the fullest of his capacity.  He spent both winters in his condo in Florida.  Pragmatic, I enquired about his health insurance.  Pierre pointed that: “One can’t get insurance when their house is already on fire!”  Touché.  Anyway, he could afford a trip to the emergency room or even a private plane to bring him home.  

Throughout his decline, he maintained a brave face and an unwavering strength – what mattered most was to live as with as much resolve as ever!  He settled his affairs.  I wrote this book.  He shared with me: “I never thought that I’d so successful, so fulfilled.”  By questioning him, I discovered how he became the man I met almost twenty-five ago.  In his answers, I could hear how much I tested him over the years.   Quickly, my writing revealed how profoundly my fate had always been interwoven with his.

Only in the last month of his life was his respiratory distress such that he couldn’t function normally.  Still, he lived with complete acceptance of his eventual demise.  He wanted us to be stoic him.  He wanted us to behave as if he wasn’t dying – not in denial of reality but total acceptance of it.  Pierre wanted us to celebrate his life instead of despairing!  For my mother, this request was the hardest to accept – she wanted to cry in her husband’s arms, to be comforted by his touch.  Even if she genuinely supported his decisions to die as pain-free as possible, she hated to see him disintegrate before her eyes.

When I could be alone with Pierre, I sometimes scolded him to be so stiff with my mom.  I reminded him:

– It’s not because we do not like to talk about feelings that we do not have them!  We talk about our emotions not because they can solve anything but simply to feel close.  

We experienced an intimacy we rarely shared before.  Even in his matter-of-factness, in all his rationality and meticulous planning of his estate, I obviously knew that my mother was the love of his life, his joy and jewel.  Everyone could plainly see their devotion to each other!  She had given her life to him and thus, waves of sadness were bound to wash over her.  But all he could muster to say was:  

– I had One Amazing Life!  

In his gaze, we discerned the unspoken: “It was amazing because you shared it with me!”  He really was a man of a few words.

Eventually, the day came when he felt himself becoming a burden.  My mother, now his nurse as well as his wife, called me to tell me how both of them could no longer sleep.  He had fallen and broken his nose, which further hampered his breathing.  He couldn’t walk to the washroom on his own.  He was losing his grip on reality and slurred his speech.  Because he always led the way, made decisions and demanded them to be respected, it was hard for my mother to convince him that he needed to be in a hospital.  He was always a stubborn man but now, his lung capacity was so low that he was asphyxiated.  He could no longer think.  

Since our last major conflict, my relationship with Pierre had evolved to the point where he trusted my judgement like his own.  Thus in his last day, I was to be his mirror, his pillar, the voice of his conscience.  

I arrived by his side on Monday night.  At first sight, I felt horrified – with my fresh eyes I could see him already in the process of dying.  I tried to relieve my mother from her nursing duties for a night but he preferred her.  Still at home the next morning, he finally sleep while I held his hand and read Aristotle’s Ethics.  

The home-care palliative nurse arrived at 11am.  I translated her concerns in clear terms: “Yes, he should go to the hospital”, though one could see in her hesitation that she was concerned with Pierre’s consent.  

He was reluctant.  I deciphered in his grunts and one word answers that he didn’t want any more tests, just to talk to his doctor.  I could hear him wonder: “Is it time already?”  My intuition was clear: he needed his doctor’ reassurance that indeed, it only went downhill from here.  We do not know if his doctor visited him that last night, precipitating his choice to refuse oxygen.  Either way, he died in peace.  

In the aftermath of someone’s demise, it is tempting to be revisionist of their lives.  As friends and family warmly hug my mother or me, they exclaim: “Pierre was such a good man!”  My sole reply is to embrace them tighter.  He certainly was a loving, generous, most of the time patient person.  But he was also rough and demanding.  He was often silent when he should have spoken from the heart.  Yet in his actions and choices, he was transparent.  If I had the strength to be honest, I’d answer: “Pierre was more great than good.”  He was as complex as a man can be.  

Pierre was an epic hero – a nobleman of a bygone era – and yet, the modern antihero of my own life.  Just like Odysseus, he ruled and vanquished.  He navigated the challenges of his time with his wit and sheer strength of will.  Since he spent everyday of his life self-actualizing – simultaneously being and becoming increasingly more himself – his life exemplifies the most complete paradoxes of humanity…

Emotions are pesty things.  As undercurrents within our souls, they sway our mood and shape our attitude to our daily lives.  Feelings affect how we perceive what is happening and how we react. They can tell us what feel right, and hence, what we ought to do.  In that sense, emotions are a key input to live the good, moral life.  Yet, like undercurrents, emotions can be so strong as to submerge us.  Many people resist strong emotions and try to repress them – especially if they dare to contradict our finely ordered lives.  But a burst of emotion – like in a panic attack – can still drown us.

Apparently, emotions live in the limbic system of our brains, somewhere more primitive than our acclaimed cerebral cortex.  Jonathan Haidt, in his book ‘The Happiness Hypothesis’, describes how our lymbic system is like an elephant that our cortex, its rider, is trying to ride. Sometimes, rider and elephant appear in communion.  But does it mean that the rider has control of the elephant?  Or simply that the elephant just wants to go in the same direction as the rider?  I like the ambivalence in the analogy.  Can we actually control our emotions?  Or are they just what they are?  And what should we do when emotions threaten our current reality?

I recently faced these questions vicariously, as my family was rocked by some strong emotional winds.  A death, a terminal illness, suicidal thoughts – “Heavy S***, if you ask me!”  I don’t think that my family is extraordinary in attempting ‘denial’ as their preferred approach to emotional unrest.  It is certainly a favorite first impulse!  What is particularly hard is that I cannot stomach the hypocrisy of it – so I often end up being ‘the canary in the coal mine’, the one who calls “Bullshit!”.   In the most respectful way, I express what others and I feel – but my ability to read the elephant’s mind is really tiring.

 

January ended with my uncle dying without even allowing us to say goodbye.  He did so because he didn’t want to face unresolved conflicts with a brother and sister.  I suspect that he simply  – selfishly – avoided his own shame for past mistakes.  “Fine!” I empathized, “it’s hard enough to have to face death.”  As the cancer overtook his breathing capacity, I felt compassion.  But then he died and forbade a celebration of his life, my heart switched to anger.  I vented: “His life might be his ownuntil his last breath!  But he cannot deny, beyond the grave, that his life affected us all!”  It’s harder to grieve when you fundamentally disagree with the deceased last wishes.

February started with my niece completely paralyzed by her emotions.  She had repressed so many traumas that she threatened her life. Again, I had spoken up.  Over Christmas, I shook her.  “All the tension you shove inside – trying to look like you are ok – it will explode one day if you do not deal with it!”  As her mental health progressed from bad to worst, I felt guilty.  Of course, once her emotions started to resurface, she didn’t know how to deal with them.  She couldn’t work, couldn’t think – it’s been a bumpy ride even if I’m convinced that I gave her a soft(er) landing instead of a full-frontal crash to the bottom.

And my step-dad’s illness progressed. He was already on the clock but now, it’s ticking louder.  He doesn’t fear his death – he is actually facing it with saintly stoicism.  But he doesn’t want us to be sad of his eventual passing, which is of course ludicrous.  So my mom has to hide to shed a tear and everyone must maintain the ‘life-as-usual’ facade.

 

But life is not as usual!  When I exclaimed: “Wake up!  It’s time to be honest!”, my mom dared to defend him: “You know that it’s not everyone who likes to express emotions.”

– Maybe so, I said, but we all HAVE emotions, so let’s stop pretending like we don’t!

There, I spoke out loud the ultimate taboo: we have these pesty things call feelings, that don’t agree to stand by idly while life unfolds.  Out of the blue, the elephant refuses to be tamed.  Emotions, previously manageable, can no longer be controlled.  A gloomy wave takes over our limbic system.  Even the most contained of rational mind can slip and fall into the abyss.  Maybe – in fact – the most rational of us are actually more vulnerable to systemic shifts in emotions – having denied them in their infancy.

Why do we fight so hard to keep emotions at bay?  In some ways, emotions are the signposts of our lives, telling us what feels right and what doesn’t.  We should welcome them, accept them with open heart, and act on their insights.  But sometimes, feelings contradict what we rationally wish. Then what is more real?  Our decisions or our feelings?

Peter’s writers block made me wonder why we write in the first place.  Why indeed? Many answers quickly came to my mind; 1) I write because I can – because I learned how to; 2) I write because I cannot notdo it – like Peter seemed to; 3) I write because I must outwardly share what lies within – like I am so compelled to do.  Still, do I write for my own sake or for you, the reader?  And in the end, does it matter why I write and to whom?

 

How can I even begin to answer such questions?  First, let’s marvel at what writing is: this most amazing invention – the apogee of human’s capacity for symbolic meanings.  With only these A to Z’sand a few grammar rules, we get to describe the reality that surrounds us and to give it a layer of meaning that doesn’t exist in the physical world. In writing, we may express what we -and others – get to perceive, think, and feel.  Ask any psychologists or anthropologists, historians or post-modern scholars, and they will confirm that writing is the super-power of homo sapiens sapiens.  The man who knows – and knows that he knows – became a civilized man the day that we committed to writing the ways we perceive the world.

 

In other words, writing is a powerful act!  Writing is not merely meaning-making and the labeling of the physical world; though that is powerful enough in and of itself! More importantly, writing is the very act of reshaping the world to our image – of changing a blank page to one exposing our inner selves, our concerns, our very ideals.  There is nothing in the page that constrains what is to be written…  Only the writer decides.  The blank page is pure freedom.  And yet it is agony too, because that page requires from us an unparalleled commitment to individuality.  What we choose to put on that page is the sum of who we are, filtered through what we choose to write about and how we address it.  The page is also fundamentally social as soon as it shared, because it becomes an extension of ourselves embodied in the physical (or virtual) reality – ready to be judged mercilessly by others.  Described like that, no wonder a writer gets blocks?!  So take it easy on yourself Peter!

 

Am I sometimes afraid of this power?  You bet’cha!  My life would be much easier if I didn’t write, if I wasn’t compelled to take a stand.  Yet writing is one of the most powerful means of action that we still possess in our post-modern world.  With each word I choose, each subject I explore, each logical argument I build or train-of-thought I follow, I empower my individuality.  Hence, through my writing, I keep at bay the countless forces, much greater than myself, that aim to force me into conformity.  Or at least, I tell myself so…

 

So if this is why I write – to be my own person, with control over the meaning I choose to assign to my surroundings and experiences – then what does it mean when I suddenly can’t write?  Does it mean that I am losing control?  Does it mean that my fears outweigh my desire to be known as the unique snowflake that I am?

 

When the fear to be misunderstood rises to such a level that I feel stymied in my writing, I take a long deep breath.  I go back to asking myself: why am I writing?

 

Again, the answers flow: I write to find myself, to discern my essence, my nature.  I write to capture my fleeting impressions, my (maybe precious?) observations. My words are my rebellion.  They are my emergence.  I write to build a bridge between my conscience and yours…

 

Recently, I’ve been quite silent on this blog.  I am writing my memoir and it is taking all my literary bandwidth – and then some.  It is the story of how an ordinary baby girl transformed into a social philosopher; told through her Quebecois upbringing and personal ordeals.  I write every morning: sometimes I feel elated, sometimes I sob.  Either way, I delve deep into how and why I became who I am.  And I wonder: when I’ll be done, will I be free from my past?  Is knowledge really power?

 

I am making peace with a difficult past.  Like the phoenix, I am rising.  Yet I realized last week that the man who inspired me to strive, the man who set me on my path, the one whom I tried so hard to please – he’d now never understand what I am trying to accomplish with my words.  That tribute I am writing for his influence on my life, he’d consider it a parting insult!  This realization merely silenced me again: it hurts so much to know that some minds are closed to anything butwhat they choose to believe.

 

Still, I march on.  I reveal.  I rejoice in the act of writing, in how it makes me feel.  Both powerful and vulnerable.  Alive to and yet slightly removed from the beauty and messiness of existence.

Over the last seven weeks, I’ve been writing my memoir.  As I tell my relatives and close friends about this new endeavor of mine, I get a few distinct reactions.  The majority says: “Wow, you’re brave!  I can’t wait to read it”.  To which I laugh nervously in response to their enthusiasm because, yes indeed, I am pouring my mind and heart on those pages.  And while I am not yet ready to share, I know that the day will necessarily come when I will release my ‘story’ into the world.  “Can’t wait !” V. ironically replies.  But a notable minority reacts differently, not quite daring to ask: “What is so important in your life that you think that people will be interested to read it?”  There is not a lot that I can answer to that.  I say: “Well, one day I’ll be a famous philosopher, and then people will read my memoir of how I got to become who I am…”  That satisfies them, yet it pinpoints how ‘ordinary lives’ are perceived as ‘unimportant’ as a subject of study or interest.  I mean: our memories are important, if only to ourselves and our family, but hopefully as a medium through which the ‘being human’ is captured in all its glorious details.

 

It’s with these observations in mind that I read Peter’s last blog ‘Orality and History’.  Throughout, I felt that memoir writing is – or clearly can be located – in between the written narrative art of history – focused on groups and trends – and the oral traditions of family lore.  Just last week, I spent several days interviewing my relatives – my book’s characters – to try to understand their lives, their motivations, the very impulses that caused them to live and act the way they did. I must confess that I wasn’t as objective and methodical as the oral historian Peter describes.  My questions and my notes were shaped by my own story; the narrative that is currently taking shape.  But I still just tried to make them talk, and it was surprisingly hard to get them talking (especially the men).  Yet we talked about many things that I didn’t know, and I felt – within those conversations – an intimacy that is so rarely present in our lives that when it does arise, we can feel a shift in the air.

 

Most people do not see how precious their life experiences actually are. We take our past for granted: our life lessons as just ‘natural events’ in our lives.  Who would dare to care about how one voted in the Quebec referendum (for sovereignty – 25 years ago)?  Having participated in these conversations just recently, I can understand how amazed Peter is to have met an oral historian – in Maine no less.  Because, a third reaction that I am also getting a lot is: “Oh, I would want to do that too!” but instead of rushing to the computer to work their story out in words, they proceed to tell me all about their lives.

 

I would argue that, for all the people I interviewed recently, none will make the effort to ‘literally’ put their lives into written narratives, yet they all could talk about their lives with a relatively high degree of introspection: even my Grandpa who, at 81, came alive in front of my eyes talking about the car he bought just a few days before wooing my grandmother.  If only we -society – could capture orally what they – everyone – have to say, everyone could then be included in History as we currently understand the discipline.  Because I agree that there are a few missing links between the macro-level – of nation-building for example – and the fact that it took my grandpa to drive the truck that brought the iron beams to the construction sites.  This link – this gem of both my personal and ‘national’ history – I just found out, but even this micro-level is too specific for me to see how ‘the past’ emerged from within the lived experiences of millions of men and women.  It would be a very interesting thing to do, and I wonder – Dear Oral Historian – if that is the goal of your discipline to do something like that?  Could we, by taking/tagging/grouping the oral account of millions of people, ‘hear’ the narrative of our society emerge?

 

Here I am, in the midst of searching my past, interviewing my relatives for their memories, for the moments in our lives when we ‘became’ who we are.  And yet, this formation of our identities cannot be taken in isolation from the History of our society.  And while I do think that I lived a pretty interesting life – at the micro-level -, the real fascinating bits are the ones in which I can see the bigger processes of History appear in my little individual choices.

 

In the end, my life might be only one unique expression of what it means to be alive.  Yet, I capture, abide by and react to norms, habits and the conditions of a much broader social environment.  My reflections, my inner world, is – at once – unique and part of this shared narrative of History, made especially vivid because it so recently unfolded…  I am not sure yet how to link all my ideas and experiences in a compelling – interesting to read – narrative, but the process of discovery itself is awe-inspiring.

 

So, can memoirs – and subsequently the macro-analysis of memoirs – be the missing link?  I believe so! What do you think?