http://memorywritersnetwork.com/blog/flawed-heroes-and-mechanical-body-parts-shaolin-memoir-part-2/ Hundreds of Essays and Interviews to Help You Read and Write Memoirs Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:04:58 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://memorywritersnetwork.com/blog/flawed-heroes-and-mechanical-body-parts-shaolin-memoir-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-2840 jerrywaxler Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:25:20 +0000 http://memorywritersnetwork.com/blog/?p=659#comment-2840 Thanks Gene. Yes, it's amazing that this art form creates connections among people. I love that. Thanks Gene. Yes, it’s amazing that this art form creates connections among people. I love that.

]]> http://memorywritersnetwork.com/blog/flawed-heroes-and-mechanical-body-parts-shaolin-memoir-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-2839 Gene Bodzin Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:53:39 +0000 http://memorywritersnetwork.com/blog/?p=659#comment-2839 On your flaws: Maybe I had more forgiving parents than you did, but I always felt that falling short of perfection was not the end of the world, only the beginning of a long crawl back toward fulfilling the ideals of my mentors, toward not disappointing the people I respected and loved. In other words, it was nothing less than being human in the best way I could. Since I began my own memoir, I have found that admitting and facing those imperfections in retrospect has given me much more patience with other people. I may be terrifically special in some ways, but I am damaged and flawed in others. And so were my parents, and so are we all. Writing memoir has for me become a totally unexpected way of feeling close to the rest of humanity. On your flaws: Maybe I had more forgiving parents than you did, but I always felt that falling short of perfection was not the end of the world, only the beginning of a long crawl back toward fulfilling the ideals of my mentors, toward not disappointing the people I respected and loved. In other words, it was nothing less than being human in the best way I could. Since I began my own memoir, I have found that admitting and facing those imperfections in retrospect has given me much more patience with other people. I may be terrifically special in some ways, but I am damaged and flawed in others. And so were my parents, and so are we all. Writing memoir has for me become a totally unexpected way of feeling close to the rest of humanity.

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