>Rob Henderson has a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Cambridge, where he studied as a Gates Cambridge Scholar. He obtained a B.S. in psychology from Yale University and is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force.

So, political crap?

What could you possibly read as being political in that pedigree? That he went to college? That he was in the military? God help us if we consider either fundamentally political.

I suspect the trigger word was Gates.

The trigger word was “memoir”

Isn't he 30 and trying to write memoir? Rediculous no? These things should be attempted after 50...

Altogether being highlighted by a memoir at the age of… 30

Narcissism

Looks like he grew up in some pretty bad circumstances and then got a PhD in psychology. There have already been a bunch of “personal brand” pieces about his story, which his website helpfully links to. His angle is the “renegade conservative”, where someone with a bunch of liberal “badges of honor” writes ideological shoring stuff for conservative readers, for example https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/21/opinion/foster-child-cons...

So I’m guessing the focus of the memoir is on that early part, because otherwise he’s just a random guy at Yale (a year of being an undergrad admissions officer, 2 years of being a research assistant, doesn’t really talk about his publications on his site at all).

I’m still in my 20’s and even now don’t think I’d be “wise” enough to write much more than a “dumb crap I did in my 20’s” post.

A memoir, to me, is a story of someone’s most impactful time of their life. And I hope my most impactful moments come after my tumultuous 20’s, heck after my 30’s

At least the author is able to reflect on his life, at multiple times in his life. That’s not a bad skill.

Writing a memoir at 30 is probably a surer sign of narcissism than an ability to reflect.

Which is itself results in an ironic lack of self-reflection.

Indeed. Also, the sheer pretentiousness of writing your memoir at age 30!

I thought the same, now who the hell does he think he is, writing 'memoirs' at 30 like he's somebody.

Lots of people here seem very upset at the idea that someone could write their memoires at thirty. While it wouldn't be something for me (either to do or to read), I can think of lots of reasons for doing it which would not have to be indicative of a disordered personality.

Maybe the author is just the kind of person who parses experience through the lens of writing. Writing down notes about what you're doing, what you feel about it, is could be a way of understanding it more richly. And there ARE advantages to records made in the moment. Yes, the author could wait until they're fifty and have achieved 'wisdom' or 'success' whatever the hell either of those things mean, before they look back on their life. But the record they'd come up with would be edited and distorted in so many ways that it would be useless as a description of how this person felt in their twenties.

Sure there's a chance that such a record will be self-indulgent, stupid, vacuous etc. But there's also a chance that writing of this kind will be one of the things which helps the author to grow. And even if doesn't, so what?

As you said, he probably has non-vain reasons for writing his memoirs, but I could not help thinking what I said in my comment.

I had the same gut reaction.

Then I thought, “who cares!” If he wants to capture himself at 30 told by the 30 year old version of it, this is the only moment in time he can actually do that.

I bet if he were to recount his 30s at a later time in his life, say 60 years old, the story and points of focus would be pretty different.

I like this point. There's something valuable about documenting who you are at a given point in your life, because you lose a certain amount of recall or resolution once you've move too far away from that period.

While I've never written a memoir, looking back on my journals from 15 years ago shows me a very different person that I don't remember at ALL. I was stupider (no surprise there), fairly self-centered, and very angry. The anger surprised me a lot because I have no recollection of it. But it's great to look back and see how I've matured, how my values have changed, and how I spent my time.

I'm very interested in this idea of being able to map how we as individuals grow and change over long periods of time. It seems like a poorly represented field of study. If anyone knows of resources, disciplines, or people who that are related to this idea I would love to hear about them.

Quite.

I have read a handful of memoirs written by persons around 30, and the ones that impressed me were memoirs of military service: Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves (yes, evidently he got various details wrong), The Killing Zone by Frederick Downs, etc. But in general I'd rather the memoirist have fifty years under his or her belt.