"Nothing More Universal than One Person"

I think that this statement by Satrapi in her interview is well in accordance with one of the themes of this class (at least, as I have perceived), which is the inherent allure of the individual.  Memoir taps into that individuality.  Despite the apparent contradiction, there really is nothing more universal than an individual, because it is the most basic commonality shared by all:  we are all people, pursuing our lives as individuals, participating in the human condition.

Once, when I was seventeen, I was driving down Blanding Boulevard, the main highway in my home town of Orange Park.  The speed limit on the particular stretch on which my story takes place is fifty five miles per hour, which, for the locals, translates roughly to "at least sixty five in the right hand lane".  As I drove down the road that day, probably somewhere between sixty and seventy miles per hour, the hood of my car abruptly flipped back and shattered my windshield.  The rearview mirror went flying past my right ear as shards of glass went everywhere.  I knew this stretch of road very well, so it wasn't as incredible a feat as it sounds for me to ease on the brake and pull off the road without being able to see the road in front of me.  I was very calm as I put the car in park, turned on my hazard lights, unbuckled my seatbelt, and stepped out of the car.  But as soon as I was out of the car, panic set in as I checked my body for wounds.

That's not the only time I had a near-death experience in my '95 Honda Accord, nor was it the most extreme, believe it or not.  It malfunctioned in freak ways roughly once every other month, and I eventually named it Joan Rivers because it was so old but its parts were constantly being replaced.  Plenty of people have car troubles, but I'm pretty sure many of my experiences in Joan are unequaled.

Yet still, the hood-through-the-windshield scenario can be called a universal experience.  I don't know anyone who hasn't had some kind of trouble with or been in a dangerous situation in an old car.  I don't know anyone who hasn't after twenty years had at least one moment where they thought "holy shit, I could have just died."  I don't know anyone who hasn't been that stupefied by something that unpredictable happening, so scared, so confused, so at a loss as to what to do, or any other emotion I felt that day.  That said, there's nothing more commonplace or universal than your hood abruptly flying open and shattering your windshield on the highway, because we're all human.