A story no one cares about
And the story goes… and the story goes…
I once said to my daughter “Every chess game tells a story”. She replied “Yeah, a story no one cares about”
I never forgot that exchange. It was a lesson to me. Not so much the part about her inability to appreciate the incredible amount of creativity and brilliance required to outfox someone on the chessboard, but more the part about my inability to realize that a story, however intriguing it might seem to me, might be completely irrelevant and boring to…. everyone else in the world? I mean, she was kind enough to acknowledge that yes, a story was told. But she reminded me that not every story has value to everyone.
So then, what about my story?
One of the peculiarities about frequent moves (I mean household moves, not chess moves) is that every few years you are basically forced to sort out and audit all your personal items - even the stuff you’ve been keeping for years and years as keepsakes. But it takes energy to move all that stuff, and it takes space to store all that stuff, so if you do it often enough, you find yourself asking questions like “Seriously, do I even remember where this little ceramic castle-with-a-clock-in-it came from?” Many times when I was young, I used to be fascinated at how older folks had no items from their youth. It made me wonder - wasn’t their life important enough to them to keep any mementoes?
But now I’m starting to understand. I’m starting to realize how truly unimportant the past is. It is so sad sometimes to read about my life, and how things used to be. I was happy in a way that I can never be happy again, because I know things now that I can never un-know, I have seen things that I can’t un-see, and I understand things that I cannot evade. Love will never again mean to me what it meant in 1988. The world will never hold the possibilities it seemed to hold in 1992. And things from back them serve no purpose other than to remind me of that reality.
I’ve found myself spending significant amounts of time throwing out things I’ve held onto for years - things that have travelled with me from house to house, city to city, even country to country. And it didn’t seem like I was throwing away stuff I cared about. Instead, it seemed like I was throwing away stuff I felt I was supposed to care about, but that I could no longer find a justification to hold onto.
So now I know why. I know why my grandfather didn’t have much with him when he died. It’s not because he didn’t have a life, and it’s not because that life wasn’t important while it was happening.
(I think we all dream of being relevant to future generations, but seriously... ask yourself… when’s the last time you wondered what your grandfather did when he was 13. Do you even know your great-grandfathers name? What he looked like? What was his favorite pastime? Do you even give a shit?)
It’s because once it’s happened, it’s over. When it’s happening, it’s life, but after that, it becomes nothing more than a story. A story no one cares about.
I once said to my daughter “Every chess game tells a story”. She replied “Yeah, a story no one cares about”
I never forgot that exchange. It was a lesson to me. Not so much the part about her inability to appreciate the incredible amount of creativity and brilliance required to outfox someone on the chessboard, but more the part about my inability to realize that a story, however intriguing it might seem to me, might be completely irrelevant and boring to…. everyone else in the world? I mean, she was kind enough to acknowledge that yes, a story was told. But she reminded me that not every story has value to everyone.
So then, what about my story?
One of the peculiarities about frequent moves (I mean household moves, not chess moves) is that every few years you are basically forced to sort out and audit all your personal items - even the stuff you’ve been keeping for years and years as keepsakes. But it takes energy to move all that stuff, and it takes space to store all that stuff, so if you do it often enough, you find yourself asking questions like “Seriously, do I even remember where this little ceramic castle-with-a-clock-in-it came from?” Many times when I was young, I used to be fascinated at how older folks had no items from their youth. It made me wonder - wasn’t their life important enough to them to keep any mementoes?
But now I’m starting to understand. I’m starting to realize how truly unimportant the past is. It is so sad sometimes to read about my life, and how things used to be. I was happy in a way that I can never be happy again, because I know things now that I can never un-know, I have seen things that I can’t un-see, and I understand things that I cannot evade. Love will never again mean to me what it meant in 1988. The world will never hold the possibilities it seemed to hold in 1992. And things from back them serve no purpose other than to remind me of that reality.
I’ve found myself spending significant amounts of time throwing out things I’ve held onto for years - things that have travelled with me from house to house, city to city, even country to country. And it didn’t seem like I was throwing away stuff I cared about. Instead, it seemed like I was throwing away stuff I felt I was supposed to care about, but that I could no longer find a justification to hold onto.
So now I know why. I know why my grandfather didn’t have much with him when he died. It’s not because he didn’t have a life, and it’s not because that life wasn’t important while it was happening.
(I think we all dream of being relevant to future generations, but seriously... ask yourself… when’s the last time you wondered what your grandfather did when he was 13. Do you even know your great-grandfathers name? What he looked like? What was his favorite pastime? Do you even give a shit?)
It’s because once it’s happened, it’s over. When it’s happening, it’s life, but after that, it becomes nothing more than a story. A story no one cares about.