Telling a Story

"Experts believe that stories go beyond our capacity for keeping us entertained. We think in narrative structures. We connect events and emotions and instinctively transform them into a sequence that can be easily understood. It's a uniquely human achievement. We all want to share our stories, whether it is the trick we saw at the party, the bad day at the office or the beautiful sunset we saw on vacation... We turn facts into similes and metaphors, and even fantasies. We polish the rough edges of our lives so that they feel whole. Our stories make us the people we are and, sometimes, the people we want to be. They give us our identity and a sense of community. And if the story is a good one, it might even make us smile."
--Excerpt from Marco Tempest: A magical tale (with augmented reality) from TED.com

We all want to share our stories... can there be a more human achievement?  Our entire lives are the narrative steps of a wider story in which we live.  We're all constantly trying to share that story with one another...   The point of blogs such as these are to create the "digital campfires.

Stories are here to be shared and given meaning within the wider story.  Indeed, a single step merely described is a mechanical action, but a step in a direction is a life with purpose.  We are all constantly trying to create narratives, though they're often imperfect, because if we figure out what those actions mean in the wider sense, we can begin to discern our identity and community.

It's an odd paradox... we must simultaneously be the character within our stories and its narrator.  Maybe we aren't THE NARRATOR (after all there's only one of those) but maybe we desire to enact some element, some divine share of that personhood that we share in common.

One of the odd things that has always struck me is how much people like to talk about themselves... we all do it and yet we're almost all offended by it at the same time.  Meanwhile, it also serves to put things in order for the one telling the story.  There's a fine line between the braggart and the teller of tales, but both tap into that uniquely human need.  Both embellish their stories and try and give them meaning.  But we condemn the one and listen to the other.   Maybe because the first embellishes for his own sake whereas the second for the hearer's...

In the end, I find myself realizing two things: (1) we must share our stories, it's essential to we are and (2) we must listen to others' stories as well.  We all need to listen and be heard.