an honest man cannot be the hero of his own memoir

I wrote that highly quotable line, a few years back, and it is transparently true to me. An honest man cannot be the hero of his own memoir.

Sometimes, at night, the demons come to play. The second guessings. In "The Lion in Winter" Henry Plantagenet says "My life, when it is written, will read better than it lived."

Get over yourself, Henry. It won't. Some will say you were a great king and a lousy person, some will say you were a lousy king and a great family man. (Whom? I don't know, but if the first true King of England lived today, I am sure Fox News' Rupert Murdoch would find a way to bilk to public consciousness of a little more money and a little more truth off of that illusion.)

So last night, until almost 4 in the morning, all the while knowing I would be rising at 7 am due to my schedule, I was trapped in a memory loop, replaying my lowest actions of the last decades (don't worry, they are all, in gory detail and proper self-flagellation, listed in my memoir, what sits virally, waiting for my silence, to launch itself upon the world). A brutal thing. To quote one of my better poetic lines, from "Virgin's Dawn", "Memory is the curse of those who care." I am afflicted, but not conflicted. People wonder why I keep "rescuing strays", helping people whom I know are disaster areas just waiting to add me to the carnage, and that is my main motive force. A guilty conscience drives a loaded wagon. Loaded with memory and regret.

Would I change the past, if the wish were offered. No. As that would tamper with the present and with truth. It would be remarkably selfish of me to try and transform the present to ease my own guilt.

Dwight Moody said that "Character is what you are in the dark" and I have allied myself with shadow a few times. Not as much as some, more than others, and with a photographic memory complete with the components of all the senses and emotion, that triggers every time I look in the mirror. I am a perverse doppelganger of Dorian Gray, seeing things in the mirror no one else will ever see, until I am gone and the mirror is unveiled.

The funny thing is, most of the things a few people hate me for are inaccuracies, and those will be revealed. We believe what is in our own best interest to believe, as we define self-interest. Most of the people I know who are the most virulent critics of the man I am, I find myself defending them to friends and family. I excuse ignorance and arrogance in others, when it is aimed at me. I guess that feeds a budding martyr complex.

And perhaps, that is even true for my dark conscience.