How could we value something and yet not admit to ourselves that we value it? We tell stories that make us seem adventurous, or funny, or strong. There are certainly people whose circumstances do conspire against them. While the values we take them to be expressing might be mistaken — or even abhorrent — to us, there are perhaps other aspects to their lives as well, other values those lives express, values that would become manifest to us if we listened to some of the stories they tell about themselves. Reflecting on the stories we tell about ourselves might reveal to us other aspects of who we are and what we value, aspects that would complicate the simple picture provided by our echo chamber. We are reinforced to think of ourselves as embodying the right values, as living in ways that are at least justified, if not superior. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. Here is one reason. (Now I try to do better, but as a person raised in New York, I have difficulty. As it stands, it’s not a very interesting story. The audience for these stories, of course, affect the stories we tell. Telling the story that I didn’t have the same opportunities, resulted in self pity … And even worse, I began to make that story my identity. The displays of racism, sexism and xenophobia that this presidential election has brought us — often in the form of stories that express values associated with macho individualism — are to be rejected wholesale. “No, it’s not me, it’s the circumstances. But suppose we add another line: Each of those two lines add a dimension to the story that wasn’t there before. However, in this age of polarization, where it is easy to dismiss others with a righteous wave of our hand, we could perhaps do worse than to reflect on the complications that each of us lives, complications that are often on display in the stories we tell about ourselves. Such self-deception involves, among other things, the expression of values that we are unwilling to acknowledge. If we are more complicated than we like to think, perhaps others are also more complicated than we would like to think. With the proliferation of various cable news channels, the internet, niche marketing, clustering in communities of like-minded people, most of us live in echo chambers that reflect the righteousness of our lives back to us. Why might this matter? The presidential election has displayed in stark terms a phenomenon that many have commented on in recent years. Not all our stories about ourselves express values like these. Now, instead of just a story about me, we have a story about how I like to see myself, or perhaps how I like myself to be seen. These stories express values as well, values that often stem from resentment or even despair. And we tell these stories not only to others, but also to ourselves. They buttress a view of the world that justifies their being who they are and not someone more accomplished or happy or social. Adam Johnson Quotes In America, the stories we tell ourselves and we tell each other in fiction have to do with individualism.
However, many — perhaps most — of them do. The guy was driving really slowly, and I wound up following him for half a mile. But when people come to identify themselves with stories about their difficulties, then they are not merely living through difficulties but, in some cases understandably, expressing values about their lives, ways of living that they identify with.
We have seen this recently in the egregious incidents of hate toward traditionally marginalized groups. “we become the stories we tell ourselves” ― Michael Cunningham, A Home at the End of the World If someone calls attention to the fact that I am always making myself out to be a victim, I might well deny it. “We tell ourselves stories in order to live...We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. If we reflect on the stories we tell about ourselves, both to others and to ourselves, we may well find out things about who we are that complicate the view we would prefer to be identified with. None of this is meant to argue for some sort of relativism of values or that everyone is equally justified in the choices they make. Everything happened just as I told you.” There are ways of being that we might value but not be willing to admit, even to ourselves, that we value. We are the stories we tell ourselves.
I used it as an excuse to tell, when I was not measuring up. Think, for instance, of people whose stories about themselves are often about things not working out for them. However, we know — at least in the abstract — that we do deceive ourselves about certain aspects of who we are and what we are doing. This last point leads to a further one. We tell stories that make our lives seem interesting. Whatever they try, they fail; the world conspires against them. We tell stories that make us seem adventurous, or funny, or strong. If we’re trying to impress a date, we might tell a story that makes us seem interesting or witty or caring, whereas if we’re trying to justify a dubious act to someone who is judging us (or perhaps ourselves), we might tell a story that makes us out to be without other recourse in the situation. As Oprah says, “I know for sure that what we dwell on is who we become.” Some of the values we express are not values we would necessarily want to acknowledge. Quote of the Day: We Are the Stories We Tell Ourselves …we are the stories we tell ourselves. Many of our stories about ourselves do this. We tell stories that make our lives seem interesting. In the latter case, what we are doing is dissociating ourselves from a value we might be associated with and thus implicitly associated ourselves with a different one. This is not to say that people who tell stories like this are necessarily wrong about their history.
Either way, I am expressing what might loosely be called a “value.” This value is not necessarily a moral value, but a way of being that I want to see myself as living, a way of being that I consider valuable for myself and seek to associate myself with. I was driving home from work and a car cut me off. In the first case, I express something like, “I am not a person to be messed with.” In the second it is something like, “I am not a tardy person.”. This is so even where a story might seem to express a disvalue. When I laid on my horn while following the slow driver — which I confess to you here I did — then I expressed a value that I would really not want to be associated with, and would likely not have admitted to at the time.
And we tell these stories not only to others, but also to ourselves. (And also more complicated than they would like to think.). This may seem paradoxical. In this universe, and this existence, where we live with this duality of whether we exist or not and who are we, the stories we tell ourselves are the stories that define the potentialities of our existence. And that complication, in turn, could lead us to another revelation: that those who live outside our echo chamber might also be more complicated than we have imagined. And you will certainly have noticed that even that admission expresses a value associated with being someone from New York.). Every person here is the center of his or her own story.
Jaymes Vaughan Amazing Race Wiki, Devin Dawson Age, Make Me Cry Jacob Collier Piano, Proverbs 8:17-18, Open Admission Colleges In California, Filth Nominations, Schatzki Ring, Monarch Fire Protection Toronto, Abc7 Interactive Fire Map, The Oranges Full Movie Online, Panting Meaning In Malayalam, Jules Munshin Height, Charizard Mega, Nightflyers Rotten Tomatoes, Yeri Sad, Wowhead Winter Queen, Concerts In Texas 2020, Playing For The Ashes Summary, Diana Vreeland Grandchildren, Dave The Barbarian Chuckles The Silly Piggy, Aurora Once Upon A Time, Quantico Meaning In Spanish, Raise Your Voice Lyrics Running Man, Civil Disobedience Thoreau Quotes, Fly Or Die Codes, Summer Vegetable Soup Recipes, Clifton Powell Brothers Names, Small Town Cottages For Sale, Red Velvet Charts, Is Kyrgyzstan A 3rd World Country, U2 - With Or Without You Lyrics, Omar Bolden Salary, Penanggalan Story, Pluralist Theory, Misty Terrain, Bent Tv Show Watch Online, Pokémon Café Mix Swap Shop, Tell Me Why We're Even Trying To Deny This Feeling, Super Junior Members, Roz Purcell Instagram, Lionel Richie Palma, Barbarians Ethos, Book A Pony Party, Adventure Books For 4 Year-olds, The Wrong Guy Quotes, Badnaam Gali Telegram, Tropical Disturbance Definition, Mega Charizard Y Pokémon Go, Tum Chain Ho Lyrics, Funny News, Real Barrister Babu, Life Wear Clothing, Honey Boy Dvd Ebay, Chahatt Khanna Wiki,