“Every moment in my life is sacred,” he said.
I didn’t ask further. I already knew his history of trauma, depression, self-harm. Suicide attempts too.
But there are opposing motivations, or perhaps characteristics, within this person. The ability to be moved by emotionally authentic fiction, movies, art, music. A willingness to be outspoken for the causes he believes are important. Anger toward self-serving corporations, politicians, and pressure groups.
A fierce loyalty to family members. A fierce rejection of family members he felt had let down his family.
His own considered decisions, along with decisions made under the pressure from other people, had made his life harder than it should have been. Much harder than mine.
I don’t consider every moment in my life as sacred. I wish I did. I’m not even sure I consider my life as a whole to be sacred. A strange childhood in London, Oxford University, moving to America, a marriage than ended with an awful death, my two children, a career in corporate America. Love found again, much later and much more unexpected.
Maybe, in time, and with more retrospection, I can tell myself it was all sacred. Maybe.
As a writer, you have the opportunity to change the world with your work. Or maybe it’s enough just to change the way one single person thinks about the world. That’s something to hold sacred.
And the characters that populate the pages you write? I believe you should consider their lives as sacred – even if they’re just the inventions of your mind. And should they not consider their own lives to be sacred?
Someday I hope this friend will write his story, with his every sacred moment in it. I’m not sure why, but I don’t think he will. But I do know he will consider to hold his life as sacred. Every moment.
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