ernest 'papa' hemingway

i was curious about his suicide. and his father's before him.

so i read.

his suicide made ernest question his father’s courage, (the one value his father had adamantly held so true), and in the end made him feel as though he had failed him.

hemingway became known as “papa” till the end of his days it is said, in an attempt to become the perfect father his own had failed to be.

in an interview hem was asked about his creativity:

“why a representation of fact, rather than fact itself?”

and he said, “why be puzzled by that? from things that have happened and from things as they exist and from things that you know and all those you cannot know, you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than anything true and alive, and you make it alive, and if you make it well enough, you give it immortality. that is why you write and for no other reason that you know of.”

creativity and family.

choosing not to become the person your parents expected is painful.

you leave them.

you leave them and their lives in order to make sense of your own.

and then in time you return. to them, offering you the chance to measure the distance between their world and your own.

to see if the distance is as far as you'd remembered.

choosing not to become the person your parents expected is painful.

no more however, than eventually becoming them.