stories
You’re born into a particular place, at a particular time, to particular people, with particular views. That’s the problem with being born. No one asks you your opinion. No one asks you if it’s alright with you. Martin Heidegger calls it your "thrown-ness". The brute facticity of Being-in-the-world. You’re given a name and a birth certificate. You spend the rest of your life coming to terms with the context of it.
You're given a story about who you are, about where you fit in the world, about the way the world sees you, and then you start to live into. You turn it into an identity.
We need stories. There's no denying it. We need stories because they teach us things. They tell us how to navigate life and the ways we live it. But a story is just a story. It's fluid. It's porous. It's provisional. A good story is a good story in so far as it helps us to get to a better one. It's the raft that takes us to the other shore.
Sometimes we need new stories. New stories to identify with. New names in which to be known. New shoes in which to fill. New stories that provide us with a new sense of self. A new way of seeing and being in the world.
It's not just a matter of restoration, Robin Wall Kimmerer says, but a way of re-story-ing ourselves. "Reciprocity"
P.S. I just finished up a new, gritty, cut-out-poetry zine! If you want a copy you can find it here. And, you can find my first zine here.
P.P.S. I never get tired of cool people doing cool things.
made something wonderful with some materials from my collage paper grab bags.
P.P.P.S - ICAD Day 311-313 - all the collages featured in this newsletter are available for purchase here.
*special thanks to for providing me a bit of the source material for the collage above.
Really interesting post Duane. You've inspired me! We have agency in this short life.
Interesting post. Life, destiny, fate.... Campbell is pretty hot on worldly issues:
“We're in a freefall into future. We don't know where we're going. Things are changing so fast, and always when you're going through a long tunnel, anxiety comes along. And all you have to do to transform your hell into a paradise is to turn your fall into a voluntary act. It's a very interesting shift of perspective and that's all it is... joyful participation in the sorrows and everything changes.”
― Joseph Campbell
“One great thing about growing old is that nothing is going to lead to anything. Everything is of the moment.”
― Joseph Campbell
I certainly find that to be true of retirement and it's a very welcome relief!
I do like considering the role of fate (destiny?) though. Those pivot points in our lives - chance sightings, chance meetings etc. that dramatically change its course:
"Almost nothing important that ever happens to you happens because you engineer it. Destiny has no beeper; destiny always leans trenchcoated out of an alley with some sort of 'psst' that you usually can't even hear because you're in such a rush to or from something important you've tried to engineer." - David Foster Wallace,
'destiny has no beeper' - love that!
Yet the story continues ...
But where is what I started for so long ago?
And why is it yet unfound?
Walt Whitman