Entry 46. Happily ever after

One positive about writing your memoir is that you get to tell the story, which means you survived all of the trials and tribulations you’ve been through – at least so far. One negative is that you still don’t know the ending – that’s the advantage of simply finishing your life and letting someone else write the story. Of course, the disadvantage to that is only I know what I was thinking and feeling when all this happened.

I’m not ready to tie all of my experiences in a bow and say, “This is what my life meant. This is how the story ends.” I can choose the moment when my memoir stops, but something significant will have happened the next day – or in the interim between when I finished writing and the editors proclaimed it fit to be published. That’s just life.

(One of the many advantages of this blog process is that you can see the memoir evolve and grow. One of the many disadvantages is that I’m not writing in linear fashion. Yesterday I was a boy emerging into young adulthood; today I am approaching late middle age and the end of the book; tomorrow, I will write of another point in my life or return to one of these moments.)

Will the people of Sirius 4 live happily “ever after”? Well, we are exploring a way of life that has not been attempted for millennia – a world without rulers. We have been given a blank pad of ruled paper, and we are writing the other way. In fact, we have deliberately chosen a path where I cannot speak for “us.” I am free; I love being free; I cannot say whether my neighbor is as pleased as I am about this way of life. That is the point, really – I think I’m onto something, but never take one guy’s word for anything. Check it out yourself. I do know it has been an interesting adventure that could fill another book.

What I think most of us agree is that people have a greater understanding of how to live in peace with one another, how to police ourselves, how to cooperate toward common goals, than we and our supposed masters ever realized.

If we can keep this commonwealth – for lack of a better word – then when the time comes for me to close my eyes one last time, I will feel that my life contributed something positive to the universe. And if people decide they are more comfortable choosing someone to make collective decisions for them, at the least we offered an example of a different way – I would say a better way – for future generations to contemplate.

I am able to sit on a porch overlooking the water and watch the sun set with the most beautiful woman I have ever known at my side. Across the water and around this world, no one is forcing other people to give or take their lives or property for a cause they don’t care about, believe in or understand. I am at peace with my neighbors, I have forgiven those who consider themselves my enemies, and I have no cause to bear ill will toward anyone. Utopia does not exist, but this will do nicely.

Entry 47