Reading My Own Story - How Meta

I believe that a story could be made about any person, but the story itself may not actually lie in that person’s life. Each person is exciting or strange or unique in his or her own way, and all it may take for that story to come to life is a creative way of telling it. Take The Sun Also Rises for example: the core concept of that story is a man loves a woman and they go with a group of friends to visit Spain. It doesn’t sound like the most exciting story in that sense, but give it to Hemingway and suddenly we have a strong protagonist and a deeper plot that drives the characters to hate themselves.

I honestly believe that any story can be told so long as there is a creative mind telling it. I wouldn’t find my life to be the most exciting or entertaining in my eyes, but given some of the unique ways people can tell a story, even my life can be somewhat exciting. A story can be made exciting or dull all depending on who telling it and how it is being told. A good story (at least in my opinion) needs to be crisp, thoughtful, telling, and attention grabbing.

To be honest, I find myself to be more of an observer of amazing feats rather than a participant of them. This gives me (and I suppose my narrative) a different perspective than it might otherwise have if I was a participant. I have more time to think and be analytical about the evolving situation(s) and I can give my own perspective on the event. I make judgments and observations that way, which would lend my own little twist on my narrative. I suppose in that way, a narrative based on my life would be entertaining, but the reader would begin to question why I don’t participate in those events. My answer would hopefully be mysterious and thought provoking and keep the reader reading.

Reading a narrative about my life would be strangely…meta, depending on the perspective the narrator provided. I would wonder what they would think about the things I thought about and it would add a very interesting layer to my life that I might not have ever appreciated or understood before. I think it would be nice to at least have it written down so that I could look back on my life. It would also provide a third layer of analysis: my initial thoughts, the narrator’s thoughts, and then my “reader” thoughts. It would be pretty interesting looking at a self-narrative in that light, but again, that’s pretty meta.