Personal Narratives

Do you have your own life story? I do, and I imagine that most everyone does, at least those who have grown out of childhood. It takes form in a sort of narrative that we use to filter our ongoing experiences through. If something happens to me that affirms some aspect of my personal narrative, then I just add it to the "big story". And if something happens that runs counter to my "lessons-learned", then I tend to toss it aside as irrelevant. This is, of course an essentially dishonest process that I commit against myself. But it was not how I started out.

When I was a little child, I took everything in, noticing the kinds of things that, as an adult, I take very little interest in. For example, when I used to go to the local Kwik Chek grocery store with my parents, I got to know every decoration in the store, not to mention the colors of the walls as well as many other features that would carry little functional use as an adult. As I became older, I would choose to ignore those things that didn't contribute to the increasingly confined agenda of choices that I would be making in different situations. One of the upshots of this is that I have more vivid, complete memories of places from early childhood than I do of places I frequent nowadays. Living according to a personal narrative has caused me to ignore much of the reality around me that I unconsciously regard as irrelevant.

Another aspect of living according to a personal narrative is that it makes one less receptive to others' life narratives. As an adult, I've found that the idea of "getting to know somebody" essentially entails me just sitting back and letting them pour out their life's "story" to me, with very little room for me to actively participate in a meaningful dialogue. Even if I interject a comment pertaining to my "narrator's" story, they are more likely than not to object, no doubt holding that I have no business intruding on such a sacred thing as their great, personally unique story. Personally, I also, at times, feel an urge to "spill the beans" with another about my life's experiences and philosophy. But effectively mitigating against this is the simple fact that people in general aren't really interested in hearing about my precious (to me) narrative. It's all about them, don't you know!

The truth is that, while I habitually tend to react to things based on a rather "chipped-shoulder" personal narrative, part of me wants to be fully liberated from this type of mental and emotional self-imprisonment. And to this extent, writing a blog like this is very therapeutic. For although I put a personal touch on my entries, I've tried, for the most part, to be outward-looking and positive in writing it. Sure, I have all kinds of personal issues that I could vent and rant about. But that would not be very interesting to my readers, and it would only serve to affirm habits of self-doubt and self-pity that I am determined to change.