Today, a friend and I had a funny conversation. It's short, but it went like this.... I was talking to him about something that's been on my mind for a while already, and it wasn't the first time I brought it up.
The topic? Thin crust pizza.
(Take it metaphorically, this is the simplest way I could explain it.)
I hated thin crust pizza. I avoided it.
My dislike for it was so much that, if it was served at a party, I would always be a 48-inch radius away from where the pizza was on the table.
The pizza literally shaped the paths I take in life! If it was at the edge of the table, and I'm from that end of the table going to the other end of the table, I take a detour, usually behind a sofa, then approach the table again once I'm at the other end.
And I usually get stares for this! It's so bad that sometimes, I wait for someone to get the last slice just so I could walk directly to the other end of the table.
Thin crust pizza affects my social life to the point that I don't get to eat properly!
I told my friend, "[Friend,] I really can't stand thin crust pizza."
My good friend rolled his eyes. "You used to avoid burgers with sesame seeds, too."
(As to how many inches I place between me and sesame seeds, let's not talk about it.)
"But Friend, I just..."
"Just what?"
"I just can't."
My friend took me aside and said, "You overcame your fear of sesame seeds that time Shiela walked between you and the table, right?"
"Yeah, that helped. I changed after that. I should write about that."
"What? No, don't. I mean, you already wrote about that time you overcame your fear of black socks, or that time you overcame your obsession with saving every little stray kitten you find in the street."
"Yeah, Carlo had very nice black socks and Shiela pointed out how all chairs in my house were always occupied."
"You miss the point. Shiela and Carlo helped you. Time and time again, you overcome things. But you forget who begged Shiela to shield you from those burgers. You forget who complimented Carlo's black cat socks, because of which he showed you his black socks collection. You forget who resists the urge, every day, to adopt yet another cat so you could take care of the ones already in your home better."
"You mean I should write a sort of sequel?"
"What good is writing a sequel showing that you've changed, if you, the author, are so dense as to not realize how?"
"I decided to?"
"Yes!"
It was at that point that I realized what I had been doing. I started writing about the black socks and the sesame seeds because I wanted to understand myself. I wrote what happened to me, sometimes how I changed, and often who helped me.
I saw change and growth, but I saw them as things that happened, not things I decided on. I came to understand my situation. The events and people that influenced me. But that was not enough to understand myself.
I forgot I wasn't a passive receiver of the things life threw at me--fear, black socks and sesame seeds, obsession, cats... even change.
My friend told me I revolved my narrative around influence too much. That was the reason why I didn't think I could stop avoiding thin crust pizza. I was waiting for something to happen again, like what happened with the black socks, sesame seeds, and cats.
I always thought myself detail-oriented, having good episodic memory perfect for writing non-fiction. But I suppose I wasn't able to see the forest for the trees.
I guess it's time for a spin-off. I won't be limited by influence anymore. I'll start including in my memoirs the things I do.
Now, I know anyone else could be going through the same thing.
We think understanding our past is the only way to shaping our future. The past undeniably shaped us, and understanding where we came from is part of self-awareness. But knowing ourselves also entails knowing what more we could do.
I've written about how my friend helped me realize this. Now I'm going to write what I'm going to do: write this conversational piece called, "Writing Non-Fiction" and challenge other writers to remember their agency.
You may have heard of the saying, "no one is hurt without their own permission." In the same way, no one grows without their own permission.
Don't write a diary entry. Tell a story.