When two of my friends lost their dad last year, the obituary left an impression on me. I was struck by how poorly obituaries capture a someone's essence. I never felt like I was reading about my friends' dad. What I read felt more like an official PR statement.
This isn't the fault of my friends. Their dad had always seemed the healthier than an ox type. So his death came out of nowhere. They had to just whip up a few paragraphs to contain their dad's "life" and translate that into Korean too. What can you expect especially when you're dealing with everything else that comes with a family death: emotional and legal.
But what if it didn't need to be that way? What if there was already a body of work. Words spanning years, relationships, seasons. Stories about late nights. Drunken nights. Stories about early mornings watching the sunrise. Stories about moving someplace foreign alone. Stories about lifelong friends coming together to make things whole.
One thing I realized from writing my memoir for the past five weeks is that I want to continue it. I want to leave behind something that anybody in my life can connect with after I'm gone and say 'Damn that's Abe! I never even knew some of this shit about him, but that's still him and it makes more sense now!"
I started Adagia with the aim of helping people write. My focus was helping them completing finished projects of multiple varieties. And I thought I was smart because I had scoped this website down to 'finished projects'. But from these past two weeks of reflections I couldn't escape the reality, that wasn't specific enough.
So what do I want to help people do? Write finished projects that they can publish, share, and maybe even sell? Nah.
The opposite
I want to help people write something that never really finishes, until the author passes away. The thing you don't sell. I want to help people write their life memoir.
I will be extending my current reflection phase for two additional weeks where I draft a strategy for this service's MVP.
Adagia will exist mostly-as-is* for as long as people come onto it --> even if it's just one person coming on to troll post! I imagine that not everyone wants to write memoirs. So this can be a general writing sandbox for the rest of us so long as you find it useful to you.
* I'll be converting collections -> to projects per brianball's feedback.
Interesting. I'm glad you have clarity about how you want the site to serve people. Lately, you have been triggering song memories that seem to coincide thematically with your topics. This is the one triggered by this post. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBETPHKL_pI
Glad you two are on board at this point in time. I'll have to come to you with something concrete to see if it's something you can jive with. I want to see if I can maange to put something 'daily-able' in both of your hands.
This is beautiful Sir Abe. I love how your thoughts and Adagia are evolving to something so moving and concrete. I think what COVID and the last year has done more than anything is make us realize just how mortal we are and in many ways in constant denial of that mortality. I have always loved the memoir genre over all else in my reading journey. And it doesn't have to be someone famous - an average person that can write honestly enough about the day to day - exactly how you described it - is a gift beyond the immediate family. Keep going Sir Abe. I shall return as well. Thank you for this.
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brianball
Keep going Sir Abe. I shall return as well. Thank you for this.