Live to Make “Love Life” Stories

Why should anyone write down their life story — isn’t simply living it good enough?

I think not — and the reason why is quite similar to the reason why many people keep journals of their dreams. In fact: This idea came to me in a dream, and since I don’t keep a dream journal, I have forgotten some of the minor details of the plot. Yet it was a quite lucid dream, and therefore I remember the main gist and the major thrust of the idea quite well.

First of all: Life stories are made by stringing life experiences and life events together. You yourself create the narrative, even if the individual building blocks seem to be plain matters of fact… and you can actually build many different narratives from the same facts.

Second, very little of what we believe are obviously true facts are actually very much open to interpretation. Everyone has their own point of view, and these different perspectives create inherently different biases — there is no such thing as an unbiased opinion. It is far more fruitful to become aware of bias than to attempt to eradicate it.

From the above two observations, it should be quite clear already that the complexity of managing so many “variables” is quite formidable. It has often been said that one reason why humans started to write was in order to externalize data and thereby free up space in the CPUs — their brains, their capacity to think, ponder, reason, etc. without at the same time having to worry about each and every bit of detail. This is the reasoning behind storing data externally — in other words: writing it down.

Another similar motivation for storing data externally is to document the same event from different perspectives — this is the main reason why the “Wisdom of the Crowds” idea became so popular. What many overlooked in their fanatical flocking to overcrowded websites, though, was that this only helps if the different perspectives actually complement each other. Millions of identical perspectives do not really improve the view of any particular event.

Ultimately, one primary reason to document your own life experiences is to enrich your own perspective on your own life — and perhaps also your perspective on the life of others. Do you know people who might “feature” you in their story — but do so in a way that makes it clear that your existence in the story is after all mainly about them? You can enrich your story by weaving other people’s stories into your own (whether or not they reciprocate by weaving your story into theirs). Be willing to tell other people’s stories: They will love it! You will expand your own horizons! And, in the end: You will have woven a fabric of love — a loving network of interwoven stories that complement each other and from which each and every individual gains perspective.