Creating Your Story

Is Better Than an Existential Crisis

Now that I have tried 32 years on this earth I’ve come to realize all the time unchallenged expectations of adulthood and workforce rituals have stolen from us. The fearful acceptance of totalitarianism has limited us of our humanity.

To philosophize and question. To have passions and creative endeavors. To have an afternoon walk with a friend. Visit our parents. Be a little silly. Honest. Adventurous.

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What am I doing with my life?

The most alarming thing is the loss of imaginative power that could alight this world a little more if we were a little less loyal to “the grind” and let our imagination create a life of abundant flow. Letting yourself be less productive and more intentional. Allowing more space for ease, play and community. Letting go of more things to fill our rooms, mouths and egos.

It is also human to reflect on oneself and wonder what the point of it all really is.

You know, it is our special superpower - to contemplate and actualize. With that you can continue the dialogues humankind has been passing on since antiquity: the power of stories.

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Telling Stories

Humans have and will always create meaning of their life through the creative act of storytelling. Why do we partake in stories? To self-reflect. To teach. To preserve. To connect. There are endless reasons. And if you can create your story, then you have found your purpose.

The fates, gods and sovereigns have no reign over what you choose to be your story. There’s no judge that determines your flaws over your perfections. We all come distorted. We will all just try to live with each other’s personally sourced values and hope it won’t shatter our weighted perceptions of truth. We just have each other to teach us how to live together because our divine virtues are hidden in another.

The story starts when we decide to reinvent ourselves and cultivate a part of those divine attributes. That is when the story begins.

A shift in our purpose. An altered mind. Without exposition of our flaws as we struggle into a new becoming, the connective pleasures of being human cannot occur.

Everyone has an intuition, a story that undeniably wants to be told. It is the author’s choice to chase the inspirations that let their story unravel.

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Our Stories Become the Answers

In stories, we explore ourselves. Our flaws. Our illusions of control. How we empathize. The beliefs that hold up our world. It’s all in the narratives we retell in our own minds. In our own realizations, we try to accept that our version of reality isn’t synonymous with our neighbor.

In our story, we re-discover ourselves over and over again. We meet ourselves. Each chapter, a refreshed perspective on who we choose to be and why. What motivates us will reshape. The struggles we grapple with. In Will Storr’s The Science of Storytelling, he attributes the conscious with the text and the subconscious with the subtext of a story. There is insight in both levels of being.

The dialogue we engage in with ourselves continues to question our origin, our values and neglected emotions. As humans we are wired to connect. We are destined to dominate. We ask the sky, “Do I want to be good?” The secret is that we cannot contain our chaos. Every 5 years, I question my own beliefs. I question who I am and if I want to still be that person.

We all have blindspots courtesy of our selective brains. It’s how we all created this world with a different perspective. We get to decide how we feel. What’s real even.

We ask ourselves if we are brave enough to become a better version of ourselves in a world that is asking to be reborn. There’s a variable in life always challenging our routine behaviors and beliefs. This is adventure. Humans are made for this. Adventure is the theater of our desire. Our adventures define our reality. Like a story, your life contains peaks and valleys.

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We allow our emotions to be like a compass, leading us towards personal meaning. As life continues to flourish, so is your desire evolving. Will Storr says that your pursuit is the plot. Change is what makes life. Change of character. Change of scenery. Change of narrative. Change of event. Change of plot. Change of self. Or supporting roles. Passions.

The end of a chapter doesn’t satisfy without immense effort of transformation. Storr reminds us that stories are a representation of the human consciousness. We cannot control always what happens to us, but we do control our narrative.

Some leave this world changed because they dared. They were open.Surrendered. Persuaded by something greater. Some may leave this life with never a wonder why they began to breathe in the first place.

In each of us, there is a flaw. One within or one that is of the world lived in. What drives us to fight for our burning needs or hide in our heavy shame?

In a moment, you may take an opportunity - a turn of events to awaken another self.

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In Anne Lamott’s famous book about writing, Bird by Bird,she begins by telling the truth. Anne Lamott claims the plot of life starts with the drama of going against all warning and precaution to find one’s self and purpose. No one lives this life in perfect harmony. Even so, we find the harmony when we resonate in our imperfections. Often, we’re taught to be practical or expect less of life, but guarantee you’ll be unexpectedly enlightened. Lamott says it’s “inevitable.”

When we let all our chords play, we find those connections that were always there hidden in the pure light of our presence to it. In order to really shape a human, I think she puts it clear, to “write into the emotional center of things” and “tell the truth as you understand it.” In her mind, this is the moral obligation of oneself. And somehow, when we’re fearless in our words and the honesty in our voice is heard, the potency of it reaches the depths of our hearts.

To be a writer, Lamott tells us that you must be attentive. Conscious. Detail-oriented. Focused on “each syllable of life as life sings itself.” To see what is, you must pay close attention to the nuance. You must be open to find those moments where a “fleeting sense of being startled by beauty or insight, by a glimpse into someone’s soul. All of a sudden everything seems to fit together or at least to have some meaning for a moment…when this happens everything feels more spacious…that God is implicit in all of creation.”

I had to directly quote this from her book and it just really moves me to see how unique each of us interprets the same feelings of awe, inquiry and love. It is my greatest pleasure - artist to artist.

And as artists of life, we choose to be, as Lamott describes it, “part of the landscape to evoke something so deep that you can’t seem to put your finger on it.” This is how we lose our minds and reveal who we really are. And Anne, you are right. She believes in this intuitive power. Our true power as humans who can think, feel and intellectualize is to create.

Inspired by the rhythm and blues of our lives, we let our tuned selves architect an existence that fulfills our purest desires.

Anne tells us that our spirit is meant to be stimulated and nourished. To build a place that let’s you wander in your imagination.

“We’re given a shot at dancing with the absurdity of life.” And yes, Anne. I will take it. I choose to correspond to a world I know is as alive as me.

And with that I wish you much luck and courage on your journey.

Love,

Mel