Unwarranted Magic

"People disappear when they die. Their voice, their laughter, the warmth of their breath. Their flesh.Eventually their bones. All living memory of them ceases. This is both dreadful and natural. Yet for some there is an exception to this annihilation. For in the books they write they continue to exist. We can rediscover them. Their humor, their tone of voice, their moods. Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy.They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you. All this, even though they are dead. Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a kind of magic."

-Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale

Last week, a friend asked me who I would date from the Bible*. A silly question, but not one I can honestly say I haven't thought about before. It's probably the good Christian thing to do, after all--picking a spouse from a list of dead guys so you know the right living one when you see him. But, of course, we're really picking from a small body of knowledge when you consider an entire person's life, and when I can across the quote by Diane Setterfield, I couldn't help tying the conversation to the risks of being a writer.

We're either the cockiest or most insecure type of people--demanding that the world listen to us and feeling entirely useless when it doesn't. And yet, given to these screwed-up people is the gift of immortal thought. 

With just a few words, we can forever destroy the reputation of another. Whether a good life was lived outside their offense toward us, or he was thoroughly evil, there's a chance our words will be the only lasting testament of him. That historians will look back at Jim Misterson and remember him as ignorant and rude based only on one writer's relationship with him. 

In the same way, we can build others up to be romanticized in the future. Or we can ignore the good because it's too boring, letting our descendants believe our time was simply awful.

The scariest thing about it all is that the people around us don't have a say in the matter. While we immortalize our thoughts, we immortalize actual people as good or bad, role models or repulsive figures, dateable or undateable. 

If used correctly, that immortality is a beautiful thing, setting the record straight and recognizing people for what they are. But if we let our all-too-human nature get in the way, then the magic becomes a fearsome thing. For the truth is, after we die, we don't live on in this world. And the words we've said are then unchangeable, standing in time as the thoughts of who we were, but perhaps not the thoughts of who we became--when we'd lived a longer life, and started the next. 

So I'm considering the risks of writing my thoughts, of publishing them online, of asking others to print them. In my cocky, insecure state, I don't consider the risks great enough to stop writing, but they are great enough to make me double check research, refuse writing a popular lie in the face of potential accolades, and remember that I can easily be taken down by another writer--or even myself.

It's an awesome responsibility, preserving the world. I pray that I will use it well.

*That would be Barnabas, the brother of encouragement.