In each person's life, there are countless events, countless meetings with different people, elements, in different environments, contexts, and situations. Often, many times does not necessarily mean deep. Passing by, sometimes there are worries, concerns, and torments.
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When I worked at my old agency, he was a colleague who occasionally wrote reports, notes, and sometimes even passionate domestic affairs articles. I was the "gatekeeper" so I was fortunate to read his works, review, edit, and approve them for publication. They were absolutely not about remote, difficult mountainous areas that few reporters set foot in to work, so they were favored. They were absolutely not articles that could be published or not published. His articles were all invested with a lot of effort and passion, from discovering the topic, exploiting materials to expressing, arguing, and interpreting. Both the words and the writing style were very deep and meaningful with the mountainous areas and with the people who still had many hardships where he lived. Absolutely no comparison, sadness, discouragement,... but very humane, optimistic, and bright.
It had been nearly 20 years since we last met. He had retired for more than ten years. Riding a motorbike to where we were staying, only about 5 kilometers away, but “his hands were a little shaky, because since retirement he had only been used to riding a bicycle, just for exercise”. Passing by the locations, the historical sites in the province, he recalled many stories. The time we went on a field trip together was nearly 20 years ago. The few times he went to Hanoi. Even the times he “skipped” Hanoi because “the bus company didn’t go that route, so when I went back to my hometown I always stopped by the capital”. He remembered many stories, recalled many stories about editing articles, published works, winning awards, and even stories about how I picked up and dropped off, drank. Of course, there were stories I remembered, even very clearly, without forgetting any details. But there were stories, in fact, I didn’t remember anything, especially stories related to work.
And at work, not only with him, I also have the same "absent-mindedness" with many colleagues, especially with collaborators. Many people also recall similar published works. The things I don't remember, in my nearly 30 years of working, through 3 different press agencies, are probably a lot. The things I don't remember, in my career of traveling everywhere, are certainly immeasurable. But not remembering does not mean being indifferent, insensitive, indifferent, or apathetic. Simply, it's because it's the job I have to do. It's a duty I have to perform. It's pure work.
Of course, the same is true in life and other jobs. For example, when teaching, even though I am just an amateur, I have taught many classes and courses over many years. Of course, I will remember any class with a particularly impressive student, but the rest will not have enough time, attention, conversation, or exchange to remember for a long time. I only know that when I mention the name of the class, the name of the school, or the course, it will definitely bring up something general, special characters, rare, impressive events. Therefore, there have been many times when we met again, some people who had heard me lecture or exchange professional knowledge said that they really remembered the lessons and stories I told, even that subject or lesson was an inspiration, a turning point that changed their way of thinking and future work...
In each person's life, there are so many events happening, so many meetings with different people, different elements, in different environments, contexts, and situations. Regularly, many times does not necessarily mean deep. Passing by, sometimes there are worries, concerns, and torments. Life is the same. Work, people are the same. The things we don't remember, are not necessarily meaningless, wasteful. I just hope that the things we don't remember don't hurt or harm anyone, even though that is not easy...
Nguyen Tri Thuc
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