many years ago I was trying to write a memoir about my life

(I had already had something of the sort published years earlier, moderately successful in my local neurodivergent community, but was trying to write a followup; ultimately didn’t finish it because I realized my life and worldview was changing too fast. maybe someday lol)

and I asked for feedback from an older guy I knew, someone who was involved in the autism meetup group that I went to occasionally

he was also autistic and very literate; he’d been working on some academic writings that seemed to be about psychology and sociology through the lens of analyzing the public and private writings of classic fantasy authors (including JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis and Lewis Carroll)

so that probably explains something about his perspective

in his critique he made several comments that suggested that he thought I had a megalomaniacally high opinion of myself

which I really sorta do… but I don’t try to broadcast it in my writing because I do also have some awareness of social expectations and I know that’s considered rude, so… valid criticism I guess

but I did not always agree with his reasoning on this

for example. I had included a chapter about a preservation project– my attempt to collect a whole lot of things I’d written, and save them in the most long-lasting formats I could find, in hopes they’d be read centuries from now, as a sort of coping mechanism against my fear of being forgotten.

…or more specifically, my fear of death. Which I cope with by imagining that I won’t be forgotten. Or at least, imagining that my experience of dying someday will be more bearable if I have sufficient reason to believe, in that moment, that maybe I won’t be forgotten.

…anyway, in the critique, he said something along the lines of, “Why would you expect people to be interested in those writings? you said elsewhere you aren’t planning to have children. So who’s this for? this sounds like you are assuming you’ll be famous enough to be relevant centuries from now.”

and I was like. wow. we are coming at this from EXTREMELY different perspectives.

because yeah, I’d love to be famous enough to be relevant centuries from now! But if I ever am, that would make my preservation project redundant. I was definitely not assuming I’ll ever be that famous. the preservation project itself was for insurance in case I’m not.

and I realized he was coming at it from an angle of, “why would people centuries from now care about the writings of a long-dead stranger who has no connection to them?”

and I was coming at it from the angle of, “what’s the best way to make people centuries from now care about the writings of a long-dead stranger who has no connection to them?”

and to me, clearly the answer was, “show them that this long-dead stranger is the source of some of the most extensive and well-preserved writings of any kind from that entire period of history”

but hey. takes all sorts of viewpoints to make a world