Think Again in Think

I will not remember myself today, though in every action I am present for purposes of memory. Whether I remember myself in what I do today is another story.

Age represents a "failing memory," which may be a fiction. I think I have become less reliant on memory, less impressed by it for my own sake, whereupon I became aware of the imperfections of my own memory. Loss of memory is hardly a cause of personal grief, though, I am sure to be impressed by others' good memory for their own sakes. But, again, I do not feel I lose anything in losing my memory. I trust I lose elasticity and capacity at the same rate as I lose memory, so all is being lost at an equal rate, and there are no regrets.

One point of caution: loss of memory is loss of hurt, and loss of hurt may influence one's writing, or whether one writes at all. All writing is the fact of having attained demonstration. Letters demonstrate a relationship; theses demonstrate an authority. Stories and poems can demonstrate almost anything, I suppose, but they cannot be called upon in the absence of motivating factors. Writing, even in pain, is a kind of victory, a thriving. One cannot thrive in the absence of one's memory of oneself.

In place of myself, I have the world as it is, or I should say the slim portions thereof that greet my eyes and ears. And I have books, which I rely on less and less as I grow older. A book is, to me, so easy and transparent a vessel of the author's own capacities to make themselves felt, that nothing can interest me that is well written. A book must be of a thing, and the thing must be of this world, thereby expanding what I see and hear, or might see and hear. Show me a qualified author and you show me only myself, to a greater or lesser degree. Such a representation does not interest someone at peace with forgetting such persons as themselves.

So, perhaps I know enough of myself and those who write to be able to afford to forget some portions thereof. I must admit, whatever portion of myself that is responsible for writing is much cleverer than that portion that wishes to write. And why shouldn't it be? Haven't I see enough of writers and their books not to be fooled into thinking that my desire to write is qualified in any way other than a personal desire to do so, however grand, however humble? While writing may work wonders, it is no wonder to me that one writes.

And so I outwit myself, and I sometimes wonder if I don't laugh at myself for a writing fool. And yet I have the last laugh as I write to spite my worldliness. I may not remember myself, or think the way I would like to, but here are the words to prove that I can constitute myself even in a present loss, which is no small thing, I think.