In the book one of my characters is talking to another and says, "You have to be careful not to wrap yourself so tightly in your own story that you hang yourself... or God-forbid let someone else do it for you."
I am a collector of people's stories. I love to discover them, to talk to people, to read about them, to watch documentaries about them. Two books and one documentary about Steve Jobs and I still want to know more. It's not just geniuses and humanitarians I want to know about though. In many ways I care the most about the stories of people I meet randomly on the street, at the library, on planes, the more outcast, the better. When I am out I am always listening to catch little pieces of other people's stories. I have always been that way. In a large part I was so quiet and shy when I was young because I was so attuned to listening and watching, it didn't occur to me to participate in a way. And, luckily for me, people love to tell their stories. Ironically, I really don't like to talk about my own story. That's why this blog has been such a challenge for me.
I really believe very deeply the lesson that my character is trying to convey. When I was young, my mother became sick in a very devastating and public way. It happened over and over again. It took a long time to resolve. While I was too young to understand what was happening fully, I could always tell who judged my family and who did not. Gossip and judgement surrounded me. I could feel it in the air. I think it made me even more quiet than I already was. If I had followed the stories I heard instead of what I knew in my heart, they would have hung me, not out of spite or ill intent, but out of judgement and careless, idle gossip. Anxiety is just stories we tell ourselves about the future. Depression is stories we tell ourselves about the past. Don't get me wrong, stories are so, so important. They just have to be discerning. And I believe you have to be fluid enough that you don't get so hung up in them that people can't get in and you can't get out.
Like water, a story just is. The best ones flow freely.
I am a collector of people's stories. I love to discover them, to talk to people, to read about them, to watch documentaries about them. Two books and one documentary about Steve Jobs and I still want to know more. It's not just geniuses and humanitarians I want to know about though. In many ways I care the most about the stories of people I meet randomly on the street, at the library, on planes, the more outcast, the better. When I am out I am always listening to catch little pieces of other people's stories. I have always been that way. In a large part I was so quiet and shy when I was young because I was so attuned to listening and watching, it didn't occur to me to participate in a way. And, luckily for me, people love to tell their stories. Ironically, I really don't like to talk about my own story. That's why this blog has been such a challenge for me.
I really believe very deeply the lesson that my character is trying to convey. When I was young, my mother became sick in a very devastating and public way. It happened over and over again. It took a long time to resolve. While I was too young to understand what was happening fully, I could always tell who judged my family and who did not. Gossip and judgement surrounded me. I could feel it in the air. I think it made me even more quiet than I already was. If I had followed the stories I heard instead of what I knew in my heart, they would have hung me, not out of spite or ill intent, but out of judgement and careless, idle gossip. Anxiety is just stories we tell ourselves about the future. Depression is stories we tell ourselves about the past. Don't get me wrong, stories are so, so important. They just have to be discerning. And I believe you have to be fluid enough that you don't get so hung up in them that people can't get in and you can't get out.
Like water, a story just is. The best ones flow freely.
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