To Burn a Life

It’s often the case that I write to understand. “Think in ink” is one way I’ve heard it put. I scramble words around until they match the feeling, thought or idea that’s trying to voice itself. That’s the case here.

“Personal brand” is a term that usually has a slimy texture to it. But that association changed for me when I heard someone describe it, simply, as being your reputation.

Reputation is your TLDR personality. Sort of like a eulogy in real-time. Your little summary. The small set of things for which you can be carved out among others.

What happens when you set one on fire?

Recently, an individual known to many in my hometown did just that. It’s been quite the spree of gossip. When I say juicy, I mean sex-attempted murder-betrayal-Netflix special already being written-“I wish Pope Francis had died a little sooner to avoid such debauchery in a Catholic school”-level of juiciness.

And, as with all things in the modern age, there’s a video of it. A blow to the head, mid-shift, behind closed doors. This act, for which he is now in jail, upended… him.

“He was such a lovely guy”, “he didn’t seem like the type”, “you never really know people, do you!?” All the usual stuff you hear.

Any small town shaken by scandal re-evaluates itself. With so many interlocking relationships, you find many threads of your personal spiderweb being tugged at.

He set his life alight.

Even in our age of abundant extremes, it is still, I think, a rare enough thing to go somewhere from which you cannot come back - and still be here.

I can’t help but dwell on the freedom that would bring. To be defined so much by the worst thing you’d ever done, that there was little point trying at reputational redemption. That previous existence of yours that you crafted day on week on month on decade… yeah, that’s gone. Now it’s a twilight existence for you. A wandering flesh-ghost making your home in the rubble.

There’s a yawning ravine of “now-what”-ness.

I have to imagine it’s a separated-self existence, where who you used to be is more solid than who you are.

What terms should we keep with our former selves? Perhaps a wave, half-smile and nod when we bump into them, lest they barge their way in at night and sit with us while we try to sleep.