Distant lands

Reading, in a way, is like meeting people. It is one of my dearest personal philosophies that everyone has an interesting story to tell. Some people tell theirs better than others. I think people who are lucky find someone to tell their stories to as they live them. Other people are compelled to write them, because their ambition is to reach a greater audience or because it's the only way anyone is going to hear them. Writers feel like they have something to share.

I've never gotten through Walden, but I really like what Thoreau says at the beginning, where he is trying to justify his use of the first person:

I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me.

It's easy to feel ashamed of writing about ourselves. But I think if we do it well, people like to hear it. Art is not pure at all; it's a survival tactic, a means to recognition and immortality. If someone tells their story well, people enjoy it and people like them. It's an exchange. Writers want readers and readers want writers. Readers are interested in hearing a good story.