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someguyfromcanada  ·  3128 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The Dangerous Idea That Life Is A Story

My life has not been a series of fluid transitions, each building upon the last stage. My story is not a narrative in the traditional sense. Even though almost everyone builds upon their experiences I have no idea why most things in my life have happened or the reasons behind them.

I think of my life as mostly regular day to day stuff, punctuated with tellable anecdotes that I can share. IRL I do not talk much about the monotonous daily moments which comprise the majority of my life such as grocery shopping for my mother, drafting contracts, going to silly movies with my nieces and nephews, etc. But give me an opening to tell a story about how Charles Barkley bought me a few scotches, running into a barn on fire to save horses, sleeping in a wilderness tent and eating off a Frisbee for 3 months, flying a biplane across state, etc. and I gladly will. Thankfully I have hundreds of those!

Those are stories that are worth telling but are not my life. Just anecdotes. And they may not be entirely factual. Especially the older anecdotes as memories fade and evolve over time even without malicious intent. I think I know what my earliest memory is, and my mother has confirmed that it happened the way I remember it, but I can't be sure either of us is correct.

But the one thing they have in common is that they exhibit consistent personality traits. So maybe that is the autobiography that I am constructing for myself even though it may not be true. Dunno.

And I will never know as I do not get to write the epilogue.