My Story
The author spoke about story. And how our life is a story. We are characters. In your own story, you are the protagonist. But perhaps in others you are the antagonist or maybe you just play a small part.
Being somewhat of a writer, I soaked in the words he spoke. I thought about the character Jason and what role he played not only in his story, but in the story of others. What kind of character was he? Was he a hero? A villain? A lover? A friend? A stranger?
I wondered how consistent my character was in the stories of others. If two people I knew—who had never met before—described my character to one another, would they think they were talking about the same person? What if my uncle spoke to a college friend? Or my co-worker spoke to my grandma? Or a friend from San Diego spoke to a classmate from Denmark? Or a former girlfriend spoke to a girl I recently met?
I don’t believe they would think they were describing the same character. Is that okay? I don’t know. But I think we all serve a different purpose, and play a different role, in each story in which we are a character.
Sometimes the character must play a supportive role. Sometimes the character has to play the responsible, hard working role. But sometimes that character plays the role of a jokester because he’s experienced life and knows not to take it too seriously.
And maybe sometimes the character is quiet and shy in another story. But maybe there’s more to that character than you thought. And that’s the great thing about story; sometimes you just don’t know a person until you read on.
This is my story.
Posted in introspective, thoughts/life
February 15th, 2008 at 7:28 am
Jason,
Teaching Post-Modernist Literature to my students right now and you are writing about metafiction…..funny how the world works. Hope you are well.
Kindra