"Get Over Yourself": Bill Larremore's Legacy

Several people mentioned at Bill's funeral on Monday that he was still bringing us together.  Bill was one of those people who straddled a lot of cliques in high school.  He never seemed to feel that he was better than anyone else, and he seemed to get along with everyone.  I think Bill's secret was that he was pretty comfortable with who he was, so he didn't worry too much about defining or defending himself.

I was acutely self-conscious in high school and felt very vulnerable.  Hence I seldom took any chances when it came to reaching out to others.  The exhausting work of trying to define and defend my individuality trumped everything, and I was always at least mildly offended to find that no one else shared my fixation on me.

Of course life tends to erode our sense of self importance.  No matter how athletic or smart or good-looking or ambitious we might be, we inevitably encounter plenty of people who surpass us in those areas.  And we discover that we are very flawed as we wound people we love and devote ourselves to quests that turn out to be pointless--or worse.  Nor can we truthfully take full credit for even our modest accomplishments; they are, in truth, shared ones; none of us would do anything of note without the support of scores and scores of others.  So it eventually dawns on us that we needn't spend so much time and care defining and perfecting a self that really doesn't exist.

Bill seemed to grasp this truth from a young age.  He tried harder to be interested in others than to be interesting to others, was curious about people and life for their own sake rather than for how they might enhance his standing or image.  We loved him for that.