A long time ago, I blogged about forgetting to put the coffee filter in the coffee maker. Today was one of several days since that time that I almost did the same thing again, but remembered blogging about it.
Maybe, if I hadn’t blogged it, I would remember, instead, doing it, and stop myself from doing it again. But maybe not. Telling stories has a powerful and magical function within us. It alters what we remember. Maybe it’s grandiose to say it changes who we are, but it gets inside us and changes…something.
I read earlier this week that blogging is declining among teens and twentysomethngs, replaced, I suspect, by tweeting and updating your Facebook status. And there’s nothing wrong with just needing to say something, which is what 140 characters does. It doesn’t tell a story, it just says something, and we need that too.
But storytelling serves a real and age-old human need. Blogging is, in that sense, old-fashioned: Have a story to tell, tell it. It’s just a new way to tell stories, but so was the Guttenberg press.
I so need to tell more stories. Thanks for the kick in the ass. (The third storytelling-ass-kick this week, actually. It’s like the Universe is trying to make a point or something…)
Look, it’s a stupid story. Leaving the coffee filter out of the coffee making process is not Great Literature. But the act of having told it shifted my reality a little, and that’s the point.
More proof that blogging is taking over our lives… (gahhhhh!) I have to say, though, I rather like being able to publish my thoughts, whether or not people actually read them… Thanks for the post!
Deborah,
Thank you for this, I am wrestling with my myself and my writing, and this brief piece of wisdom was very helpful to me.
Peace,
Pax