koji berry

koji berry

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

The importance of creating your own story

I used to wonder what the meaning of life is. But after watching Cosmos at National Geographic, I realized that it was an irrelevant question, as what George Lucas mentioned. We did not exist. Then we exist. Then we'll gone in a fraction of a blink of an eye. There is no meaning. We are.

However, Cosmos is also a very beautiful story of our universe. Last week I watched The Grand Budapest Hotel, and basically it is a version of somebody's life. The writer said, "If people know you are a writer, they will come to you and tell their stories". Stories give color and differentiate our life, or universe, with the others. As it turns out that our universe is not the only universe in the multiverse, it means they are many other stories. The number of stories that have been, and will be created, is infinite.

When you remember somebody, what you remember is also the story he created, or the story you created when looking at him. When you said "My grandfather liked to take me to .... " then you are telling the story you create about your grandfather.

Our universe starts with a big bang and will be ended with a massive shrinking. One particular planet in our universe has one-cell organisms, dinosaurs, mammals, ferns, and human (not at the same time).  Human life starts with a birth and ended with a death. But what happens in between is different. As we are craving for immortality, we want our stories to linger even long after we died. It doesn't matter if the story is good or bad, as long as it is a story. Evolution is an example of a good story. Another example of a good story is that in The Big Fish.

I used to have a story. However, these latest years have make me spread thinly, the plot of my story weakens. I realized this as sometimes during parties I met people and I could not think of anything interesting in me to be told. I wanted to be a person I thought I needed to be (to be loved), and abandoned my story. Maybe that is why this pause period is given to me, to let me pick my story where I left it.

Paulo Coelho said once "don't be useful. Be yourself". Functionality is not the most important characteristic of our lives. We are not a pair of scissors. I believe that when we stay true to ourselves, we are creating our stories.

In the next posts I will write up my story. What is your story? If you don't own one, make it. It doesn't have to be true. Truth can be boring, and we are not writing a peer-reviewed paper. It was not important if the story in The Big Fish was really occurring. "Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story"*, said a guide in Prague to me. Make a good, glorious story of your life, one that make the eyes of the children wide open when listening to it.

*Turns out this is also a title of a song from Gaelic Storm.