When you’re young you exude an unenviable exuberance; a life at its infancy, unencumbered by the complex occurrences that befall us all. Youthful, excited, and with our eyes wide open to endless possibilities, our young selves are yet to feel the impacts of the inevitability that lies before us, both good and bad: the pain of anguish, the depth of true, lasting friendships, and the banal tediousness of everyday life. We are yet to find a purpose, yet to find ourselves, and above all, yet to find wisdom.
And it is wisdom, the wisdom borne of maturity, that makes a half decent writer. As with most things in life, a talent for writing is made up of a history of repetition and life experience; things that can only come with time. So it stands to reason then that, on the whole, the greatest writers should be enlightened, ageing in years and carrying both the physical and metaphorical scars of life. It is the cumulative years of experience that should serve as the source of a good writer’s material. And therein lies the paradox.
As I’ve aged, I have certainly built up experiences, a whole smorgasbord of interesting occurrences that formulate the bedrock of a rich narrative tapestry that is just waiting to be unearthed at will. Although all of those gloriously interesting anecdotes are just waiting to pour out onto the page, the cruel fact is that the benefit of all of this wonderful wisdom is massively diminished by a dulling of the brain through the ageing process. So, however much I’d like to be able to write like an Olympic medal-winning wordsmith, the simple truth is that, of all those wonderful experiences, I really can remember fuck all.
