Besides, if truth be told, I'm starting to run out of things to post. I've been working on a few new pieces, but they're nowhere near finished yet: until then, I'm left with the old stuff, and most of the decent pieces are already on here. Which sucks, but again, you just have to deal with it.
Of course, because I'm writing this at all, I've indeed managed to find something worth posting. It's my very first assignment for Life Writing, nearly a year ago now (and Christ, what a quick year it's been). Fittingly for something so "back in the day", the brief was to write about an incident from our childhood. A few things immediately sprang to mind, but with me decidedly not a member of the "writing = therapy" school, there was only one I was prepared to use. However, this left me with a problem: how do you write about something when you can't remember what actually happened?
This quasi-story is, for lack of a better phrase, my solution...
What A Wonderful World
Memory. A funny thing, memory is. The usual cliché thing is to compare it to an ever-filling cup: the more water/wine/other drink of choice you pour in, the more water/wine/other drink of choice gets forced out. There’s only so many memories you can store, and the new ones invariably force out the old ones. So I’d say that a hose is actually a better analogy, if you see what I mean. If you don’t, then tough shit. I’m here to tell a story, not to be a gentleman. And let’s face it, not knowing the words doesn’t stop you from liking the song.
Either way, I reckon that a hose is still a shit analogy. I’d rather compare it to, say…a filing cabinet. One where all the information is written in pencil. Because you’ve written them down in this way, your records won’t be hanging around forever. The record card itself will always be there, but the pencil markings will fade in time. Usually not much time. As the record gets older, it becomes harder and harder to read, and eventually it’ll be as if nothing was ever written down at all.
And this means what for your memories, exactly? Simple: the older a memory becomes, the harder it becomes to recall. Details will become transformed, obscured, even lost altogether. But even when no details are left remaining at all, the shape of the memory will still be there. You’ll know what happened, but that’s it. The “what” will be there, but with no “who”, “where”, “when”, “how” or even “why” to keep it company. Though as long as you remember the shape, maybe the rest doesn’t matter.
It might seem like I’ve been talking bollocks for the last 250-odd words. And, in a way, you’d be right…but you’d also be wrong. What I was indeed spouting was indeed bollocks, but it was relevant bollocks. It might not be an integral part of the story – or even a part of the story at all – but it’s not going to make much sense without it.
You see, my memory of what really happened is a little fuzzy. I remember the basic incident, but I couldn’t quote any specific lines or events with any degree of accuracy at all. After all, it’s been nearly eleven years since it happened, so you can’t really expect much in the way of recollections. But the basics of the incident have always stayed with me, so I might as well recount those if nothing else. And in terms of the basics, there’s not much to tell, which is perhaps why I’m putting in all this bollocks first. To keep the wordcount up or something.
This is more of a funny story than a tragic one, though the message behind it is still fairly serious. Of course, whether you find it funny or not is down to you, but there’s no great reason for me to care either way. As I said before, all I’m doing is telling a story.
“What A Wonderful World”. You know, the Louis Armstrong track. The really famous one of his that everyone remembers, and perhaps the only reason why we remember the great Satchmo at all (or at least, the “we” in the world of white Britain, which is a very different “we” from those who would remember Armstrong differently). Anyway, that’s beside the point. What is the point is what Wonderful World is about: looking at what’s positive in the world around us.
This, funnily enough, was a point that my primary school teacher seemed to miss. In one particular lesson, I don’t remember which, she used Wonderful World as an example of what life could be like. Then, in the way that teachers of all types and schools are wont, she used this example as what’s best called a “springboard”: to describe our own vision of a wonderful world, using the song as a foundation.
Though she didn’t say that last part. We were supposed to figure the catch out on our own.
Of course, we all did…but only in a subconscious way. In the end, our class delivered pretty much a blanket spread of world peace, eternal happiness, free love for all: the kinda shit voiced by hippy parents and Disney movies. You know what I’m trying to get at.
I, naturally, broke the mould. What I handed in was, shall we say, a more…personal vision. In my own little wonderful world, I had a big house, flash car, gadgets up to the fucking eyeballs: that kinda shit. A more selfish and materialistic vision, sure, but it was what I wanted. And it’s a list of wants that I ascribe to even now, maybe with a few other things thrown in that I would much rather not discuss.
Three times I handed this work in, and three times I got it handed straight back.
Let’s just pause for a second. Think about it: you get told to describe your perfect world, and you then get told that you’ve done it wrong. And then imagine that this happens when you’re only nine years old. Your more impressionable period.
It would be tempting to say that I put up a stand, nobly defending all that is selfish and materialistic, defeating the teachers in a state of wrongeous fury that got me immersed in primary school legend forever. It would be tempting, but it would also be a downright, bare-faced, inexcusable lie. I didn’t make a stand: after the third rejection, I just shut up and gave the teachers the hackneyed, Disneyfied bullshit that they seemed to want. Cased closed, problem solved, no harm done to any party.
It was a good six-seven years before I lent any more thought to the incident. Of course, that was when I figured out what inevitably strikes us all as the obvious – and, I daresay, slightly dull – truth. At best, it was simply a thinly-veiled way to get us all spouting the values of peace and goodwill, the ones that people seem to think it’s necessary for kids to have (though having this take place during the reign of Major, aka Thatcher 0.5, does strike me as something of an irony…). It was just a cheap propaganda exercise, a way to make learning “correct moral values” fun.
But I’ve got no great hang-ups about this. It’s what schools are designed for, in a way. And my bloody-minded, self-obsessed little shell seemed to survive it intact – though whether this is a good or bad thing is entirely up to you – so there’s no harm done either way. Besides, if it took me so long to get the point, maybe the point doesn’t really matter.
Which, I suppose, is where memory comes back into play. Though my 500-odd word recollection might not seem like it, my memories of the whole thing are decidedly vague. That’s the point I wanted you to understand at the start: I’m not sure if I’ve remembered it accurately, completely or even honestly. What really happened might have been something utterly different, but I’m just telling you what little I’ve managed to drag out from the dark corners of my own head.
It’s just a little anecdote I thought you might find amusing. There’s no great point I’m trying to make here, the ironies of teachers misinterpreting Louis Armstrong notwithstanding. If she’d figured that Armstrong was saying that our world was Wonderful, maybe she wouldn’t have given us such a dumb exercise. Now, I don’t ascribe to the view that we’ve already got world-wide peace, love and happiness, but it seems to me that considering such virtues to be non-existent is excessively negative. The existence of violence, disease and poverty doesn’t necessarily make us bad people…maybe not good people, sure, but not being one doesn’t automatically make you the other.
That might seem like a big point, but it really isn’t. For all I know, it could be utter bollocks. And that, funnily enough, is the point: if you don’t know for sure, don’t claim that something is true. I’ll leave you to figure out the full consequences of that one on your own.
Yes, I know I’ve taken so long to say something so simple. But that’s what stories are for, if you think about it. Which I suppose means that I’m making a point about making a point. Or maybe I’m just talking bullshit. Neither would surprise me.
Sorry for wasting your time.
