Nothing But Edits: Why Autobiography is a Lie and Biography is a Double Lie
- Madhukar Dama
- Apr 18
- 3 min read
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INTRODUCTION: THE DESIRE TO BE KNOWN
Humans want to be remembered.
We want our lives to mean something.
So we write.
We write autobiographies — pretending to know what our life meant.
We write biographies — pretending to know what someone else’s life meant.
But meaning is always after-the-fact.
A funeral speech, not a heartbeat.
That’s why autobiography is a lie — and biography, a double one.
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I. AUTOBIOGRAPHY: A LIE WRITTEN IN FIRST PERSON
No one writes their life.
They write a version of it —
after surviving the chaos,
after justifying the betrayals,
after sugarcoating the selfishness
and romanticizing the mistakes.
Autobiography is memory weaponized by ego.
It’s the art of omission, dressed up as reflection.
We never say:
“I ignored my children for applause.”
“I betrayed someone who loved me.”
“I kept chasing status even when it hollowed me out.”
Instead, we write:
“I made sacrifices for a larger purpose.”
“I was misunderstood.”
“I struggled, but I was destined.”
We select only the memories that make sense in hindsight —
never the ones that expose how little we actually knew.
Autobiography is not truth.
It is self-forgiveness disguised as wisdom.
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II. BIOGRAPHY: THE DOUBLE LIE
If autobiography is a polished confession,
biography is outsourced myth-making.
A third party, with no blood in the story,
sits down and decides who you were.
Through documents, letters, photos, and interviews,
they craft a character — not a person.
They never knew your heartbeat.
They never heard the words you didn’t say.
They never watched your hands tremble when no one was looking.
Yet they write with authority:
“He was a visionary.”
“She suffered quietly.”
“They were destined for greatness.”
Biography is a lie spoken confidently —
by someone who was never there.
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III. MEMORY IS NOT TRUTH. IT IS A DEFENSE MECHANISM.
Ask two people about the same moment.
You’ll get two different realities.
Now imagine writing a lifetime.
We misremember.
We reinterpret.
We defend ourselves from the weight of who we really were.
And worst of all, we learn to perform for posterity.
By the time people write their story,
they’re writing it for readers —
not for truth.
And when others write it for them,
they’re writing for sales —
not for reality.
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IV. THE UNWRITTEN LIFE IS THE MOST HONEST ONE
The farmer who never left his land
The mother who never gave a speech
The laborer who never opened a book
The child who never became “great”
They lived.
Fully.
Messily.
Without polishing the narrative.
And they never lied about who they were.
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CONCLUSION: THE LIES WE LEAVE BEHIND
Every autobiography is a selfie of the soul, filtered through fear and pride.
Every biography is a portrait painted by someone holding a brush they never earned.
If truth exists, it lives in the moments no one saw.
In the trembling.
In the silence.
In the small acts we never included in the chapters.
Maybe the only real autobiography is the one written in how we touched others’ lives,
not in how we later wrote about ourselves.
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This Chapter Never Happened
(in the voice of Bukowski — whiskey-laced, cigarette-burned truth)
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they all want to tell their story
like it was a straight line
like it had arcs
like it meant something.
but i’ve seen those bastards
cry in parking lots
lie to their kids
beg behind doors
then type it all away
into “character building.”
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they skip the parts
where they were cowards,
where they envied their friends,
where they masturbated to attention,
where they forgot birthdays
but remembered to be brilliant.
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autobiography?
that’s just you
rewriting your sins
into strategy.
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and biography?
oh that’s even worse.
some clean-shoed researcher
who never saw you bleed
puts together your ghosts
from letters you didn’t mean
and quotes you never said.
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truth?
truth never makes it to print.
it stays in the sweat
of the guy who fixed your tap
or the silence
in your daughter’s stare.
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no one writes their life.
they just edit the aftermath
until it sounds like
they were meant to survive.
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