Reply to comment

"If we change the stories we live by, quite possibly we change our lives."

That is an interesting statement.  I have found that in my life, that idea is true. Often enough I have purposefully altered the way I look at past events in order to change my life for the better--even though it may only be a small change. For example, if my dad let out a curse word when opening our Barbie packages on Christmas morning, I might edit that memory to where my dad exclaimed calmly that it was a difficult package and got the kitchen shears to open it instead. That's just an example, that never happened in my life. I can't find the exact source, but a long time ago I heard about the idea that If you tell a lie often enough, you start to believe it. (I used to think Hitler said this, but the internet is telling me it was Joseph Goebbels and I can't find the right quote. This is a tribute to my mindset that if it works, use it. I was a strange child.) So I would do this to myself intentionally, even if it was something as simple as "I like high school, this is fun, I have friends, I can make it through today successfully." While one might argue that that is simply a method to keep up my optimism and my day would have been fine even if I hadn't told myself that, we'd never know because I did tell myself that. And I did with it what I would. [/stretched reference.]

I don't know if I'd go so far to say that stories are all we are. I mean, when Wolverine got his memory wiped clean after the Weapon X operation, he still had morals, and morals are a large part of who we are. Okay, maybe Wolverine is a bad example. But if all we are are stories, does it mean that we are all the stories that we’ve been told or our memories that we have turned into stories? Do our experiences count as stories? Because that way, a hypothetical person who hasn’t heard any stories would have enough stories/memories to make up a [whatever it is that stories define].  How does one define a “story,” anyway? A story could be the Iliad or “This morning, I woke up and went to breakfast, then to class, and then to soccer practice,” if you told it like a story. Is a story something you can recount to someone else or yourself? Does it have to be steeped in tradition like Aesop’s fables or the Grimm’s fairy tales? Could it be The Sound of Music or the last episode of Lost? Or could it just be something your best friend tells you on the way to class about how she came to play the tuba? Even Wolverine had the memory of waking up after the Weapon X operation, so at least he had something to go from.

And what part of "us" does it define, if stories are all we are? Our personality, our morals, thoughts, actions, creeds, our physical selves? How far does "we" extend? I'm sorry if these questions are bothersome, but I like to know exactly what I'm discussing before I discuss it.

The last thing I want to add is a bit more of my response to The Truth About Stories. I think I covered my feelings in class (or at least agreed thoroughly with other people who spoke, I can't fully remember) but I thought I'd mention that I am part Native American, mostly white, so the book guilt-tripped me doubly for being a white racist who killed all the Indians (and the memory of the Indians) and for being ignorant of my own heritage.

Lovely.