Our stories evolve as we do. They morph and change. Ideally, they grow in essence, even as they become agile in form - bendy, I like to say. They push us like the wind in the trees. They speak gently to us, and through us, like the stars at night. They hold us up when we don’t know who we are, like the ground we walk on. They are alive so long as we are. This is contrary to what we are taught about facts...

So, here we are. You and me, touching somewhere across time. I’m speaking way over here, sending the waves of my voice, with meaning, with intent, through something we have fantastically called ‘the web,’ and you’re there, wherever and whenever there is for you, receiving me. If that doesn’t blow your mind, I have more. There are billions - many billions - of people on the planet...

Where do old stories go to die? As we are nearing the end of these stories about stories, it’s a fair question. Do stories die? Do they end? Can they end? Or are they like energy - only (and always) changing form? Sure, our stories will go on through the stories of others we have touched. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about stories as we carry them. Can we leave them, or lose them, or let them drive off into the sunset without us? This is more important than you might think...

Betrayal. It’s a classic story element. An act of disloyalty. We are misled or outright deceived. Someone we trusted steals from us. Maybe it’s something tangible, maybe it’s more like our soul. Trust can be stolen, and with it, a beautiful innocence we had somehow kept safe untill now. Someone acts out of meanness or jealousy or vengeance. (What a word - vengeance - sounds as bad as it is). All this is standard story fare. Nothing new. Nothing unusual. Anyone can tell you about it. Everyone has seen it for themselves, though some more than others. What people don’t talk about so much, though, is the “great betrayal.” The one that stands above all others. The one we see folks never get over, never talk about, never attempt to seek balance in the injustice. The betrayal of self...

A myth is not a lie. It’s a bigger truth. Rather, a story told to reveal bigger truths. Truths that touch each of us at some time or another. Myths are not old and outdated. “Urban legends,” for example, speak to something more today. There’s one I often tell to explain the conundrum we are in with artificial intelligence. Back at the turn of the century, urban legend has it that there was a city planning meeting where there was much discussion about the rapidly growing New York City. One planner suggested the others need not worry - population would be limited by the amount of horse shit they could get out of the city. Of course, the automobile was about to arrive as one of the greatest disruptors of all time...

Unconscious. Subconscious. Pre-conscious. Shadowed consciousness. Altered consciousness. Just look at all the ways we can not be conscious. To get at this, there are a lot of methods to approach what we know - but don’t know that we know. We could spend an entire lifetime probing into this unawareness (and some people do). Classify it. Codify it. Poke and prod. Philosophize. Create a double blind study. Look under taboo-rocks, and then under the earth that supports that rock, then under that, all the way to hot lava. Metaphorically, of course...

Meaning. Purpose. Passion. Impact. These are the story elements we all want. They are what makes the story of our lives worthwhile. More and more, though, I’ve noticed most want them in a drug-store greeting card way. A vision-board-to-make-it-so way. In an addicted, life-has-no-meaning-without-them way. In a “lookey, lookey what I’ve found” way. In a self-loathing, “what a failure I am to NOT have found them” way. In a “only if I can make money off it” way. Here, let me get up on my soap box for a minute...

Risk is defined, quite simply, as the possibility of something bad happening. An exposure to danger. A threat. Sounds doomed from the start, doesn’t it? Sure, bad things can and do happen. Very bad things. Worse things. The worst of all things - whatever that might be for us. Why would anyone risk, then? Why would anyone leave the house...?

Science describes energy as the ability to do stuff. Move stuff. Change stuff. Transform stuff. Heat. Light. Motion. Gravity pulls down. Steam engines chug-chug forward. There is potential, or stored, energy. But also kinetic, or working, energy. Converted energy, too. Renewable and non-renewable; primary or secondary. Science has its fingers all over our energy explanations. But how much do we actually know about the origins of the energy of life? Where’s the generator that started this whole she-bang? And what about black holes? When does string theory run out of… string? Explain it to me like I’m five...

Home is not a place. It’s a story. A feeling. A sense of arrival. A need met. A recognition. A resting. A safety. A knowing. A Mecca of the heart. A satisfaction of the soul. To be honest, I’ve been trying to write about home ever since I got the assignment from an English professor in college. I tried and got a decent grade but it was crap… and all these years later, I’m still at a loss for words. But it’s important, especially at this point in our story. So… here goes. Again.

As a fiction writer, we must know what our characters want. As a non-fiction writer, we must know what our audience wants. As the master storyteller of our life, we must know what we want. Let me be clear, the me of today wouldn’t ever suggest that organizing our life around our surface wants is a good idea. It’s a sales job, and a con job at that. Everything in our culture teaches us to want, primes us to want. Our biology gears up our wants, namely to procreate, but also to adventure into new territory in search of evolution, or sometimes just food. Our psyche tells us to want to stay socially safe, but also to differentiate, be unique, special...

One of the first courses I taught was called The Second Half Of The Mountain. It alternated between lessons on daily life as it related to Shamanism, Taoism, and Alchemy. When one path failed to help, one of the others always could jump in. The premise was simple: Any path will take you halfway up the mountain. No path will take you up the second half. There are signposts - hence the class - but actual feet to the ground? That’s our journey to take...

Storytellers play god with their stories. They bless and they curse. They create and destroy. They let people die, or live, maybe healthy, maybe maimed. It’s all up to the story’s author.  There are a few safeguards. First, the storyteller knows the receiver can always choose to put the story down. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stopped a story (book or movie) halfway through because I didn’t want to be left with what was going to come next. I am self-protective that way and glad for the right to be so. And if by chance I miss the opportunity to be surprised...?

Land has a story. As does sky. And sea. But land, especially, for this is where we make our homes, find our people, raise our children and in many cultures, bury our dead. The land is the soil our stories grow from and are returned to. But what land is your land? What land is mine? How do we know...?

Travel changes us, or at least it should. To see others living out a different story from our own, in ways astonishingly foreign to us, is to grow. Lately, there has been a lot of buzz about privilege, and who has it, and who does not. If we have the means to travel, we have privilege. The least we can do is use it well. Where you choose to travel, and when, and with whom, sets the stage. From there, you’ve got another host of choices....

We hear a lot about self-esteem and self-image. We have entire sections of the bookstore devoted to self-help. We may uproot our lives to go “find ourselves.” Theoretically, our “self” is that part of us that tells us what we believe we are capable of—and not—thus creating a “self-fulfilling prophecy.” Also, the “self-made man” we hear of. But what is the self? I would argue - nothing but a composite of stories added to the predisposition of personality. As a concept, a reflection, even a perspective of consciousness, there is nothing materially real to our “self.” The hard science folks agree—our “self” cannot be found. If we are only a combination of brain synapses creating ideas and images that project themselves into our selves… sounds like a scam, doesn’t it...

Once upon a time. Past tense, future tense, present tense. (So tense!) Our stories about the mysteries of life may require us to think in a way that transcends time—but that is also a reference to time. The timeless in opposition to time. Our sense of time moving fast or slow tells us something about how much we are enjoying the string of present moments we are in. We have good times and bad times, boring times, climactic times. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was the okay of times...

When it comes to stories, there is one skill that—with no exaggeration—will make or break our lives. This skill is a choice that shows up every day, in every interaction, and through everything we create. When the choice comes at a particularly important crossroads, it is vital to exercise this skill. But small, everyday choices add up, too. What is it? When in doubt, and especially when it is impossible to know a given truth, choose the best possible story...

Not all stories are created equal. Rather, not all stories hold equal weight in our lives. I have long explained this through the metaphor of a very, very expensive cake. Imagine you have a roommate and you have just moved in together. It’s her birthday and you decide to swing by the local grocery and get her a cake. The cost is $6.99 - and maybe 15 minutes of your time. You decide you’ll take the chocolate. When you give the cake to her, she says, “Uh, thanks, but I don’t like chocolate cake.” You think “rude” and choose to eat the cake yourself. Next birthday, though, no cake. You know her better and are closer, but you remember her last response. Kind of hard to forget...

Imagine a box. A story box. Everything in your life fits in this story box, and as time passes, some things fall out, while new things are put in. The new shapes the memories of the old so that a sense of incongruence does not arise. We can travel through our lives with a box that feels cohesive. Carrying this box, we feel like “us” to “ourselves” and not much changes that feeling. We feel like ourselves even if—upon closer examination—there’s not much to support that feeling. All goes well with our story-boxed life until something happens that does not fit; does not match who we assume ourselves to be on the surface. At this juncture, we have a decision to make. Will we accept what we cannot understand? Will we investigate further? Or will we say, “Well, that was weird,” and forget about it...