Imagine If Everyone Had A Book Written About Them. I Bet You They’d Want It To Be A Good Book

December 26, 2009

As it is Christmas let me tell you a story: once upon a time there was an opera singer. He performed in some of the best opera houses in the world and counted members of royalty and some world leaders as his fans. But as every other famous classical singer, he was often tempted by musical producers to record an album of pop songs, as there is more money in pop than in classical music. Gradually he gave in to their pressure and recorded an album of pop ballads, and earned a lot of money. And that was enough to tilt the balance and now he performs pop songs a lot, devoting less and less time to opera.

Now, you are probably guessing where this is all leading. Well, imagine for a moment that there would come a point when somebody would write a biography of the man in question and it would look rather odd that a talented opera singer became a pop star. And it would not be complimentary to him at all, because it is one thing making all that money by singing pop songs and thinking that it is no big deal really, and it is another thing to go down in history as someone who had betrayed real art for the sake of a quick buck.

People would be reading this book and thinking to themselves: how sad that a man has sold his talent and opted for easy money. And his children would read the book and learn that their father turned his back on classical music for the sake of some stupid pop tunes.

I expect the singer would not be happy to read a book like that about himself when he retires. But it would be too late then, because he would not be able to change anything. And I bet you that he would probably regret what he has done and wish that he had never left the opera stage. Because anyone, who has a book written about his life, would obviously want to come across in it as a good person, and the book to be exciting and interesting, in a good proper way.

Every life can be turned into a book, every single one. And if all people realise that, then they might start avoiding doing many of the stupid things that they otherwise do and think nothing of it.

No one would want a book about them to come out and tell a story of a pathetic human being, who got on the wrong track from early age and never achieved anything. Who would want to be described as a grey non-entity who had spent most of the time doing pretty much nothing, apart from drinking, smoking and shagging or sitting in front of the box for hours, like a zombie, watching trash? Now that would not be a good book at all, would it? In fact it would be a very boring book that no one would even want to read.

In a sense our lives ARE books and we ourselves write our stories on its pages. And it is up to us to decide whether these books turn out to be an exciting read, with lessons for others to learn from it, or whether they would just be trashy biographies about people who had no time for anything apart from the most primitive of pleasures. And once we decide that the book about us has to be a good read, we might just as well make sure that at least the final chapters would be exciting for the future readers. And that in itself is an encouraging thought, even if the first several chapters do not really turn out as we would have wanted them to be.

Happy Christmas everyone!

– End –

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