Member-only story
‘Doing You’ While Doing No Harm
A writer’s conundrum
“First, do no harm,” rasped my father from his hospital bed as we flailed about searching for solutions to save him. He’d quoted this part of the Hippocratic Oath as if to say, don’t let the cure be worse than the condition. Leave the patient better than you found him. It’s my credo as a writer as well.
For better or worse, I feel driven to share stories. Writing is my cure to processing strong emotions and memories. It’s how I make sense of the world and share insights, joys, humor and tidbits about the human condition. I wish I were a fiction writer, so I could hide behind invented characters and scenarios. Alas, personal nonfiction feels like the most authentic outlet for me.
I enjoy reading memoirs too. It’s voyeuristic, in a sense. I love diving into people’s lives and brains and learning something new, or discovering that maybe we’re not so different after all. When I’m not writing my own stories, I’m reading other people’s stories, scanning for remnants of relatability to confirm that I’m part of a collective, not a lonely outlier floating in space.
Warning: Danger Ahead
Writing personal essay and memoir comes with a hazard, though: you will be judged. That’s been an abstract thought for me up until recently when someone reacted…
