CarrollBlog

The British writer David Hare said "write about what bites you." One of the things that has bitten me with the new book I am writing is this question. Think about it in the tub this evening: However old you are, you have memories that belong in your personal hall of fame. Memories of times where you were happier than ever before. When you'd made that extraordinary one of a kind business deal, kissed that person for the first time that you had been dying to kiss forever, saw your new baby born. You know-- those memories. You also know that for most of us, life is generally ho hum/same old/been there-done that. The vast majority of our days are nothing special. Chances are they will continue to be like that till we die, with the rare exception now and then. So the gods come down and offer you a choice-Go back and live (somehow) eternally in one of those golden memory moments. Or you can go on living as usual with the possibility of more and maybe even better golden moments in the future. Realistically speaking, the chances of those amazing experiences exist, but they are slim. We all want to be happy. You remember damn well when you were the happiest you have ever been. The gods give you a chance to go back and inhabit that time forever, or take your chances on more but in the murky undependable future. Which will it be?
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"He had not turned out well. There is a sort who does well in high school and of whom much is heard and expected and who thereafter does less and less well and of whom finally is heard nothing at all. The high tide of life comes maybe in the last year of high school or the first year of college. Then life seems as elegant as algebra. Afterwards people ask what happened to so and so? And the answer is a shrug. He was the sort who goes away."

Walker Percy, THE LAST GENTLEMAN