Monday, December 16, 2013

What Do Our Stories Mean?


Here’s my list of movies I can (and DO) watch again and again until it makes my wife sick:
  •  Invincible
  • A Knight’s Tale
  • Lord of the Rings
  • It’s a Wonderful Life
  • They Might Be Giants
  • What do these say about me? What’s in there? A heavy dose of underdog, some nobility, People changing their destiny. People realizing their worth – people discovering what’s important and acting on it. Heroism – imagined and otherwise. Redemption. LOTS OF REDEMPTION.

    These are all external to my – other people’s stories. But all of us also have narratives we tell others (and ourselves) to help define who we are. If you’ve known someone long enough, you’ll hear the important ones repeated over and over again. The touchdown on the school playground by the un-athletic kid, or run-ins with the law confessed by someone too honest and straight-laced to have REALLY done those things. Stories we tell about things we remember doing (even if we didn’t.) Memories are malleable, so we shape them to make it easier to live with ourselves.

    Is it what I’m living, or what I wish I was living, or what I should be? Where is reality? Caught somewhere between the Dreams of my Past and the Fears of my Future.

    I’ve heard that people go into psychiatry / psychology (as a profession) because they have issues to work through (there’s admonition that a lawyer who defends himself has a fool for a client that might apply similarly, here.) I’ve also heard that Writers use their stories in their own way to work through personal issues – exposing (if they’re brave enough) much of what troubles them.

    I think my movies tell you where I think I should be – what I ought to be striving for, and the stories I tell others in person about myself reveal what I wish I’d been and done. But if what I’ve heard is true, the fictions I write may say more about WHERE I AM AND WHERE I’VE BEEN than any of those.

    I’ve written some strange stories so far. I wonder what it says about me. There’s a lot of them (and me) out there now on Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble (ALMOST SHAMELESS PLUG.) Maybe if someone were to read them, they might be able to figure me out.

    Just saying…





     

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