We are stories

Am I first post-er? I'm not entirely sure, but I'm just going to go with it and say that I am! I think we might have gotten ourselves out of order, but it's no trouble!

So one thing that comes to mind when discussing identities, stories, and narratives is something that we brought up back in the very beginning of the semester. Doug said, "I am a lot of different people, and most of them I didn't choose to be." I think this is the spark that I am going to go off of for this post. To me, this seems to be pivotal. The people we are today are affected by everything that has happened to us previous to today. We can no easier change the things that have happened to us and where they have directed us than we can change the color of our skin. Every facet of our self is made up of many things beyond our own control. We do not decide our parentage, our skin color, the year in which we are born, the financial setting into which we are born, the place we live (until we are older, that is). There are so many things that we cannot change or control, and yet they are every bit as much of a part of who we have become as the things we did choose--if we played sports, if we played instruments, if we went to college, where we went to college, what we choose to study, which social groups we place ourselves in. The person that we become is inevitably a product of the stories of the past that brought us to this place.

Although we are these creatures, that in them tell a thousand different tales, how do we articulate this? I feel that anyone has the capacity to tell a story, but only some have the capability of doing it well. Now, I don't wish to say that a well-written story is always a believable one. A story could be 100% true, and feel entirely falsified--as if the human mind cannot wrap around the disgusting reality that someone has been through. Readers, people, do not like to view the world through a dirty lens. We do not like to see the ugliness in this world, yet it is there, lurking in the depths of some of the most cheerful and optimistic people. We often wonder how such a person could hide something so dark and disturbing, and what has kept them afloat. These people could write the most horrifying and real story about what has happened to them, and it would be difficult to believe that such a person could come out alive from such an experience. The story can be eloquently and beautifully composed, and we might have a difficult time acknowledging its truth. I think what makes it feel true, and real, is the balance of good and bad. Sometimes it seems that playing into the cliches is the only way to make something--especially something dark--believable, and in truth, life does often follow them. 

I think what makes a story believable to us, and one that we can identify with is one that speaks to a part of who we are. Either it is a story that we can see coming to fruition in reality, or one that we have experienced ourselves, or even one we can simply empathize with. A story that is true, and has the capability of striking some facet of who we are is one we will be more inclined to believe.

It seems to me that we are stories. We are narratives. We are more than just “this thing the world sees” (451). We are everything that happens to us. We are everything that we do. We are every passion that we have. We are every thought we think, every word we speak. We are the cumulative of everything that has ever happened, is happening, and will happen in our lives. We are narratives. We are hypertext. The idea that humans are narratives, that humans are hypertext is beautiful and intriguing. The idea that each story we tell is backed by another story—all of it truth to us—is wild and wonderful. 

Allison places us before a wall covered in words. She touches a word, a brick falls away, and behind that brick is another. The new brick holds another word, that word tells another story. At the end of it all, we are all the many stories that build the novel of our lives.