July 22, 2008
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Storytelling
Do we become the stories we tell about ourselves? Sure we do. But not all stories are plausible. Many narrators are unreliable. The line between invention and articulation is a tricky one to navigate; our doubts and fears and desires get in the way.
A classic example of this is the mid-life crisis sports car. No matter how much the protagonist invests in communicating the story of his virility and youth, the subtext is clear: this man is terrified by death. He is haunted by each strand of hair that his scalp sheds. He desires nothing more than to be desired. He is a sad figure. He is telling a story with his sports car, but not the one he thinks he is telling.
Luckily, not everyone leaves the storytelling to the darker side of their psyches. Many people strive to shed the fictions inside of them and make an attempt at an authentic life. This doesn’t mean truth-seekers don’t tell stories, but they might forgo telling them through consumer goods. Truth-seekers seem more likely to bristle under categorization: unlike the mid-life crisis sports car man, they expect no definition or articulation of self through the cars, homes, or computers that they buy. While they are sure to have preferences like any living thing, someone dedicated to an authentic life won’t expect the type of car that they drive to say anything specific about them, other than the fact that they a.) are wealthy enough to own a functioning car and b.) know how to drive.
I’m picking on consumer goods because American-style capitalism thrives on the darker halves of our psyches, so the examples seem the most accessible. But examples could be found elsewhere: to what extent we are defined by our gender, our sexuality, and society’s expectations of someone born to our race/class/and region. Finding your authentic story is tricky amidst all of this. Its hard to know which things we’ve convinced ourselves of are inventions and which are articulations. Sometimes the cross-over between the two is so frequent the whole thing gets too blurry and boring to navigate. After all, we don’t want to live our whole life with our heads up our asses.
Stories are easy to find in others but they seem to hide away whenever we try to find them in ourselves. Perhaps they sense confrontation. In any event, I’ve only been able to nail down one that I’m sure is storytelling at work in me. It is a story that has had an impact in shaping me. It is a story that I like and am happy about.
Since my cousin and I were really small, we loved to proclaim: “We’re WEIRD!” We’d do this without shame, with a smile on our faces. I think this was referencing our preference for Garbage Pail Kids over Cabbage Patch Dolls, our love of making satirical radio shows with the tape recorder (“I’m Bob Evans. And I’m Seven Eleven. And THIS is 20/20.”), and our generally spastic games of make-believe (we liked to stage infomercials in which people died demonstrating various products). We knew that other little girls played dolls and house–both of which were UNFATHOMABLE to us. “We’re WEIRD!” was a challenge to that idyllic little girl and to status quo in general. It was a recognition that we were different and a proclamation that we wanted to stay that way forever. And for the most part, we have.
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Do you have a story that you tell about yourself? Feel like sharing?
Comments (2)
“We’re Weird!” I remember in high school it suddenly became really cool to be weird, or a “freak.” I remember having stickers and patches that said stuff like that.Yeah, I always tell the story of how I fell off the bus when I was a freshman in high school.Or I tell people about how for a long period of my childhood I spent it as an artist whose name was Purple Pistachio and then as the artist formerly known as Purple Pistachio. It was like a combination of prince and picasso. I was a bit of an odd ball.
I spent a good year untangling perceptions enough to gain an understanding of why I told a certain story to myself, somewhat unconsciously, that I was tougher and meant to protect others who were weaker in some way. It was in order to exist in a world I perceived as full of betrayal. That perception began at two and a half and was reinforced enough to make the story necessary for thirty plus years. It was incongruous to who I was/am though and there came a point of conflict that either could be resolved or I could end.Since that time I have no fucking clue what my story is. Clinging to the survivor identity doesn’t fit. It seems now that what I tell myself is that it’s okay to not know, and to just keep moving toward things I feel good about ethically, morally, spiritually or whatever. Still, no idea what anyone else would see and the times when I think of that I still get weirded out and sometimes angry so I substitute other thoughts. Maybe I am writing the story as it is happening? Who knows?Hey, I don’t care what other people think of what I drive so much, I just want to like what I see. So I will continue to buy cars based primarily on their cuteness. Is that wrong? Of course I’ll choose the cutest eco/gas-friendly car but it will be cute to me. I much preferred the Garbage Pail kids and the Wacky Packages too. You little weirdballs sound like you would have been perfect playmates. Hey, I made muxtape of a few voices my sisters and I did/do and I’m going to add more as I am able later. But if you ever have the time to do that with your cousin it might be a hoot!