First, I’d like to express how overjoyed I am by the developments in American politics. As an Ohioan, having Amy Acton, a woman from Youngstown with a traumatic past who is driven by empathy and the best kind of quiet courage, is relieving and heartwarming.
As an American, I feel renewed hope on many levels with so many wins in unlikely places (I lived in Texas for ten years and could have never imagined, creative as I am). Moving forward, our country will have so much more representation of the true America, the diverse America, the America whose heart beats and energy flows.
“The river is everywhere.”
― Herman Hesse
But we have a lot of work to do to restore holistic health and uplift human stories.
Who controls stories now?
It is my belief that the way we cultivate true empathy and connection is by listening to each other’s stories. Meanwhile, there have been multiple National Archives locations closed by the U.S. government over the last year. The knowledge kept in these locations, notably individual histories, is under threat of being erased. Online works are being muddied by copies that are misattributed or plagiarized via chatbots feeding them to subscribers.
So many are not remembered or misremembered. And this is happening intentionally.
We know this, so I won’t dwell too long here, but the fact is ideas are co-opted and shared by others as their own. And this didn’t arise from tech. It has long been baked into the academic formula when a tenured professor takes credit for the work of a graduate assistant or when a famous actor hires a ghostwriter to tackle a novel or when a trust fund baby buys a hip literary press, just because she wants to be an author or publisher.
When a wealthy/powerful person wants to take credit for work they admire, they simply put a polish or a brand on an idea and market it accordingly. Boudica was an Icenian queen who fought the Romans. Later, the Romans erected a statue of her as though she was one of their own.
Sometimes we sell our own stories, sometimes they are stolen.
Many words have been claimed by those in positions of power. And many creators have been diminished or dismissed.
This is why my inspiration and subsequent protagonist in Radicals, Victoria Woodhull, who was the first woman to run for the US presidency, strategically chose to control her own press in the late 19th century. To operate the curation of what is shared is to decide what is important.
In her time, Victoria knew that if she relied on others, her words would be erased as quickly as she said them. This is a common story.
We all want to be heard, but do we ever erase our own stories?
As much as so many of us share the human desire to be heard, what about the other side? We want to be heard in the right way at the right time.
What’s less common to discuss is also represented by Vicky’s story … Many years after her presidential run on “free love” and equality for the poor and disenfranchised, she was trying to be accepted by her third husband’s high-rolling and sophisticated English family, it was she who adopted a persona that denied many of her past experiences and beliefs. She wanted to erase her own past, or at least the less savory bits.
I think about this a lot. I have had publications that I wanted to take back years later, even months later. Likewise, I’ve said things I wish I hadn’t. But on whole, I struggle with wanting to be heard.
I know quite well the feeling of having someone take credit for my work and words.
So, the driving question is, how do we decide what and with whom to share? And what are the risks in our time?
After meditating on this for a long time while I was supposed to be working on my new writing project, I realized the question beneath it all is one of legacy versus impact.
How much emphasis do we place on what the world will carry forward without us versus what the world will carry forward with our name attached? The idealistic answer is to say we don’t care if our name is attached, so long as our work is contributing well in the world. We create the sand castle knowing it will be blown down by the wind.
Meanwhile, I see many of the top spiritual leaders with name in bold and copyright beneath most any insight or text. I see fits over missing letters after names. And so many of my clients feel an innate drive to preserve the history of their family lines through the lens of their specific lives and ideologies.
Legacy is a tricky thing, a thing most definitely rooted in ego that can turn quite unattractive if not balanced by something more—a return to the value and offering of the work itself.
BUT, if founded in a sense of outreach, a desire to connect across time, to connect to another’s humanity and recognize our own, perhaps it’s worth trying to save from online scraping or even preserving underground or tucked away with no guarantee anyone will ever find it, or care.
Our stories, human stories, always risk being ignored or erased or revealed in embarrassing ways. But that is the beauty of the creation. Our stories are our own teachers. That is, when they are authentic.
Prompt: Create a time capsule of your favorite piece. You don’t have to bury it, of course, but place it somewhere it might survive just a little longer than it otherwise would; it might find the person it is meant to find. Trust that it will one day be compost, and that is okay. Do it as ritual, as homage to where and who you were when you made this one thing that means something.
Speaking of preservation and release, here is an old meditative story I wrote.
Notes: Check out Radicals. It’s a wild and provides endless fodder for dinner conversation. Order to your library. Buy for friends. Buy for family.
Paid subscribers or anyone who buys a copy, reach out for a link to our next CR circle.
Thanks for this post, Jen. Great thoughts on impact vs. legacy. And I love the Hesse quote. The river is indeed everywhere.