memory

if we start thinking about it, my dear alice, everything is useless for the simple reason that eventually we'll die. and there's nothing we can take down with us but the gold coin to pay the boatman. in life, we may be rich, wealthy, powerful; or poor, miserable, covering our body with rags and begging for a piece of cold food. we can be creative, and give birth to many worlds; or we can merely be an empty shell randomly walking by. we may be deeply in love, or full of hatred. it makes no difference, in the end. once dead, all differences are gone, and we stand naked and powerless as we face death's cold stare.

i remembering feeling that way too, once. you know i'm a writer wannabe, mostly in science fiction and fantasy. for years i've been creating and reshaping worlds, making them come alive with characters and wars and tales of heroism and despair. i was sure i wanted to keep writing fantasy when i saw the lord of the rings movies - which, as you know, i loved. then i read the books, and found them astonishing. i thought for myself, i wanna be like him (tolkien). and then i read the silmarillion, tolkien never finished masterpiece. and i thought, what the fuck? it was hard to bear. i had just read the greatest fantasy story ever told, and i remember thinking no matter what i do, i will never achieve one tenth of what he did. nothing compares, nothing can ever compare to this. and i thought of giving it all up. it would be futile, i thought back then, to keep up.

yet i kept up? why? hard to say, really. well, if one day someone would come and tell me i was one tenth of what tolkien was, i'd feel damn proud of myself, really (even though they would be obviously giving me too much credit). but i am what i am, and i intend to be like no one else but me. it's not that i have someone who really likes what my tales - well, there are some people, two or three, no more than four or five for sure. i don't have much people who cheer me, who push me to continue, to keep up. and yet i do it. i need to do it.

truth be told, we all die. and the only way to cheat death is to stay on someone else's memory. my goal, as a writer wannabe, is not to be a worldwide known best seller (i seldom dream that high). i would just like to have someone who liked my tales. and who would show them to someone else younger who would like them too. and so on. one person for each generation would be enough - one, only one soul, who would know me, john, the guy who wrote about the underworld and narayan and evaila and raïne merèdhril. my body would be long gone, and my soul would have vanished years ago; and yet, i would have cheated death.

that's worth a lifetime, if you ask me.

(and my dear, forgive me for replying, again, on the blog; but i felt like this would be too big for me to leave in your comment box. at the same time, this confession is too personal to be kept in a mail box; but i will reply to you there nonetheless. have had a busy week.)