Chris Sypolt

"You are born, you walk around the planet, and then you die. What happens in between is the question: What is the story of your life?"

I'm writing this mainly in response to one review of 80 Days, No Regrets here, which had some very valid points.

First, Letters to The Big C and 80 Days, No Regrets are not novels. They probably are better described as memoirs. I do not agree with the convention of adding a subtitle to non-fiction books as a way of further describing the title; it seems wasteful and inefficient. I know that this adds to confusion, but so be it. I've never done well when hewing to convention.

Secondly, both books take a while to leave the station, so to speak. They are about finding oneself on unfamiliar ground, trying a bunch of stuff, seeing what sticks, and then doing more of that stuff. They are iterative, rather than planned. My favorite book of all time, Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, also takes about 150 pages to get out of the station. I reasoned that if it was good enough for him, it would be good enough for me. The man is a brilliant wordsmith and teller of stories. If you have a choice, read his stuff before you read mine. And then re-read his stuff again.

One of my hobbies is history, and my favorite finds are diaries, or first-person accounts, of what it felt, sounded, and smelled like at the time, before the longer view of history takes hold. Both books are, essentially, what I was thinking and feeling and observing at the time.

The two books really are the same story, in the same way that Godfather I & II are, in effect, the same movie broken into two more easily-consumable pieces. But more than that, they are invitations. We are all essentially open books, and I wanted to write about my open book. Steve Jobs once said that once you realize, and really internalize, the fact that you are mortal, it makes decisions really easy:

"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

Isaacson, Walter (2011-10-24). Steve Jobs (p. 457). Simon & Schuster, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

So, this is what I did. It is my attempt to answer the question about the story of two years or so of my life that altered pretty much everything I thought I knew.

I'm fairly easy to find on the Internet. Look me up and we can tell each other stories.