JANUARY 3, 2022 – We’ve all seen an old war movie in which the hero—a pilot or soldier anticipating battle—caresses a small, black-and-white snapshot of a loved one. It’s always a single photo; never a three-inch-thick photo album, let alone a modern flash drive with 10,000 images. Likewise with writing: stuffed into the pilot’s/soldier’s uniform pocket isn’t a library of handwritten journals but a single, short and sweet letter. Such scenes show how the value of a photo or letter lies in its rarity.
Today, you’ll never find below the giant flatscreen TV in the “entertainment room” of a modern, suburban dwelling—great-great-gramaw’s 487 diaries written in ancient, cursive script intelligible only to a specialist in the sub-basement of the National Archives. Nor will you find such a stash among the collections of a classic literature professor—a trust baby whose inheritance included a Georgian mansion with an enormous library . . . of classics, not voluminous scribblings of an ancestor.
These thoughts arise in my continuing review of passages buried in my own hand-written record. I find reminders of life’s events and encounters—and my reactions to them—but little of the writing rivets my attention. The absence of inspiration is impressive despite use of a treasured fountain pen upon acid-free paper bound in leather—a vanity journal marketed with me in mind.
When our dear friends Ann and Dr. Ravi—masked and boostered—appeared New Year’s weekend for cards (called, “52 Pick-up . . . our Spirits”), I described an analogy to my journal writing. Ann and Ravi listened politely to my jabber.
In its totality, my extensive journal writing is the equivalent of a serious basketball player’s 10,000 practice free-throws. Without such practice, the player wouldn’t make it onto the court. With 10,000 shots behind her, however, she gets to play, supporting the price of admission—paid by a modest crowd.
For self-instruction, the player (I pretend) has a video running the length of every practice session. Some videos are reviewed; most aren’t. When the player retires, all those videos—VHS tapes, DVDs, and flash drives—will be “free-throws” aimed at a dumpster. Given that the videos’ purpose has passed, their future becomes pointless.
My journals represent 10,000 free-throws. They’ve supported two writing pursuits—one whimsical, the other, practical.
The whimsical: this blog, a self-published novel, and two unpublished memoirs “based on true stories.”
The practical application occurred yesterday afternoon. Our family’s business lawyer sent me a digitized stack of documents for review. My 10,000 free-throws gave me the “practice” to see that the lawyer’s templates were unnecessarily muddled; likely to produce numerous legal-drafting volleys, with added cost and delay. Moreover, the convoluted documents omitted critical structural elements of the deal. All my “free-throws” allowed me to say confidently: “1. Structure things this way: [boomity-boom-boom-bam]; 2. Dispense with swamp-and-weeds legalese devised for contexts wholly inapplicable to ours, and 3. Once all essential bases are covered, go with “KISS” (“Keep it Simple, Stupid”).”
And for the record . . . my 100,000 practice pages can stay off the record.
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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
