Friday, October 23, 2009

Telling Our Stories


"We are our stories. We compress years of experience, thought, and emotion into a few compact narratives that we convey to others and tell to ourselves. That has always been true. But personal narrative has become more prevalent, and perhaps more urgent, in a time of abundance, when many of us are freer to seek a deeper understanding of ourselves and our purpose."


                                                ----- Daniel Pink in "A Whole New Mind"


When I started writing about my daily life here more than five years ago I didn't anticipate that anyone would read it beyond a few members of my family and a couple of friends. I can't tell you how flattered I am that you read along and share life with me.

This has been a catalyst for meeting a number of the people I now consider friends, and has made other casual relationships deeper. It was even a factor in me getting the job I now have at the Cosmosphere. (Odd, but true, my blog helped me GET a job, instead of the opposite, which seems far more common.)

I've been writing every day since I was a child. Since my friend, Martha, shared the article from Scott Ginsburg about how writing every day influences your world view, it has been on my mind. There is some wisdom in what he says about how writing helps you define what you believe.

I sometimes think of this blog as the ultimate in narcissism. But it is one way I tell my stories. Perhaps the self-centered part of it is that I tell one almost every day. And, lets face it, I don't have a fascinating story to tell every day. Some entries are more of the "chronicle of life" variety, while others are a synthesis of ideas that have been cooking in my brain for awhile. But all of them give a bit of a snapshot into who I am and what I think about.

I believe blogs have grown in popularity because we have a need to connect with other people and this is one way we can do it without risk. We can read someone's blog at any time, on our schedules, and visit their world without any commitment about how long we'll stay or what we'll do while there. Maybe it's one of the modern ways we capture our stories.

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