Palin's Life Story and Ours

Sarah Palin, former vice-presidential candidate, who is currently a best selling author of a book that has not been published yet, has set some kind of a record for writing an autobiography in the shortest amount of time ( of course, she did not actually write the book but she provided the material for it and that takes time, too). Judging by the number of prepub sales lots of books are going to be sold but how many will be read. I didn't think that many people still read any kind of books! I wish her well. I know she has legal fees to pay and her husband quit his job on the slope.

It's a curious fact in this facebook/twitter age how many people want others to read their autobiographical details. Put together many facebook comments about oneself or tweets and anyone could come up with an autobiography in record time. But, again, who would read it? I have been thinking about my life and how it would look in book form. I think I could finish it in about 3 days if I had one of those days off. Of course, like Palin, I would have to find a really good ghostwriter to make my life sound more exciting than it is. I know people like John McCain are waiting anxiously to see what she will have to say about their campaign infighting and others are genuinely interested in her political perspectives (although far fewer people than before the campaign and her subsequent retirement from the AK state job she held). I can't think of too many people who would hold their breath waiting to see how I turned a phrase or two about the relationships in my life. Maybe my Mom. We had some battles. She used to bait me about my favorite baseball player, Mickey Mantle, and I fell for it every time. I think she would still get a kick out of it, if she thought of it.

Still you have to wonder about the desire these days to get yourself out in front of other people. I mean, the real personal stuff like the days you have a headache or feel bad about your favorite team losing a game. This stuff does not make for riveting reading. Maybe that is why we do it. Our lives are most interesting to those who love us. It is wonderful to have a spouse or a child or a Mom or a friend who cares, really cares, about your aches and pains, and your successes. And we know that the closest thing we will ever get to someone reading our autobiography is a facebook comment that takes even less time to write than Palin's autobiography. While she has no idea who is reading her book among the thousands who are buying one, we know our friends who are waiting with bated breath to read our next facebook comment. That's no small consolation in this life.