I'm reading John Daniel's very thoughtful Rogue River Journal right now, a book about the six months he spent in an isolated cabin in Oregon with the intention to work on a book about his father. He kept a pretty decent journal while he was there so the book is also about his new found affinity for nature and the natural world, something that is bound to happen in this sort of of environment (he was in the woods after all). What's interesting though is that the more he considers his father's life, the more he begins to gently question his own. Daniel's father was a labor organizer, a union man in the 1930s and 40s - back when that was certainly a hard and important life. In comparison to that, he wonders a bit just how much writing matters. In one passage, Daniel writes:

"We do different work, of course. I like to think that in the long haul writing helps make a better world, or at least that it's essential to any good world, but that's a pretty hard claim to defend. It sounds suspiciously like a rationalization for doing what I want to do anyway, make satisfying wholeness out of language and get some attention for it. God knows I'm not in it for the money, but still, serving Beauty or Imagination may just be a dressed-up way of serving myself."

As he wonders about where he stands when compared to a man who literally did battle to change the world, I sympathize a great deal with what Daniel writes. I feel the same way - I think most writers feel the same way. You convince yourself that writing matters, that the pen is mightier than the sword, that words can change the world, but really - how many words do move mountains? Are my words going to make the world a better place or just amuse a few people looking for book reviews on a rainy day. And when people read my story about Alaska flying, well - how much does that matter? They learn what it is really like up there for commercial pilots but do they need to know that? It's not a cure for cancer I've been working on, it's just revelations about one small job in one state in one corner of the world.

I'm not ending a war with my words, I'm not even commenting on one. So do my words matter? Do any words not committed to world peace or ending hunger or curing disease matter?

I don't know the answer, and Daniel doesn't know the answer and everyone who made me read Shakespeare in the 9th, 11th and 12th grades does not know the answer. Why is Shakespeare so important? Why have his words stood the test of time? (And I'm not sold on Shakespeare really being Shakespeare, just so you know...) And how come we all need to know his name, but not the name of John Daniel's father who spent his whole life trying to change the world for the common man, trying to make the workplace safer and the workday shorter. Shouldn't we know his name?

Why Shakespeare and not Franz Daniel?

For the record my father was a waste water treatment supervisor. He monitored sewage, he treated it, he worried about it, he took classes to better understand it. He learned the job in the air force and then spent almost forty years doing it for a living. He didn't like his job, but it was a valuable one to the people who depended on him to do it right. It was important to the people who needed his paycheck. He had two children, one is a design engineer and one is a writer. Who can tell me what the more important job was? Who can tell me what name should be remembered?

John Daniel has made think a lot the last couple of days. I can't wait to see what the rest of his book has to say.