The Story

"I think a lot of people probably live their life not concerned with their own happiness, but with the story they're creating."

~ Philip Seymour Hoffman

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See also:  

• Happy Talk: Simon Critchley + Philip Seymour Hoffman,  recorded December 17, 2012 (Rubin Museum of Art's YouTube Channel)
• Blank on Blank
• Egocide
• Stay

Stories are Powerful

"Stories are powerful because they transport us into other people’s worlds, but in doing that, they change the way our brains work and potentially change our brain chemistry. And that’s what it means to be a social creature—to connect with others, to care about others, even complete strangers. It's so interesting that dramatic stories cause us to do this."

~ Paul Zak  director of the Center for Neuroeconomic Studies and author of The Moral Molecule: The Source of Love and Prosperity

See also: "Trust, morality — and oxytocin?" In this TED Talk, neuroeconomist Paul Zak shows why he believes oxytocin (he calls it "the moral molecule") is responsible for trust, empathy and other feelings that help build a stable society.

For No Good Reason

"One of the most difficult things to say to another person is, I hope that you will love me for no good reason. But it is what we all want and rarely dare to say to one another – to our children, to our parents and mates, to our friends, and to strangers. Especially to strangers, who have neither good nor bad reasons to love us. And it’s why we tell each other stories that we pray will be transformed in the telling ...made believable and about us all, no matter who we are to one another and who we are not."

~ Russell Banks, from The Angel on the Roof

Now and Now and Now

Elliott Alley, January 9, 2014

"You think you will never forget any of this, you will remember it always just the way it was. But you can't remember it the way it was. To know it, you have to be living in the presence of it right as it is happening. It can return only by surprise. Speaking of these things tells you that there are no words for them that are equal to them or that can restore them to your mind. And so you have a life that you are living only now, now and now and now, gone before you can speak of it, and you must be thankful for living day by day, moment by moment, in this presence.

But you have a life too that you remember. It stays with you. You have lived a life in the breath and pulse and living light of the present, and your memories of it, remember now, are of a different life in a different world and time. When you remember the past, you are not remembering it as it was. You are remembering it as it is. It is a vision or a dream, present with you in the present, alive with you in the only time you are alive."

~ Wendell Berry, from Hannah Coulter

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See also:

• "Trust your memory? Maybe you shouldn't," by Jacque Wilson, CNN, May 18, 2013
• "You're Still Mindful," short explanation from Shinzen Young regarding the content of thoughts versus their composition

Only One View

Biblios by Guy Laramée

"Because of your unique history, you have evolved a series of stories that you repeatedly return to throughout your life. These stories determine how you see yourself and how you interpret what is happening to you. You may well be overidentified with your stories and not see that they represent only one view of your circumstances. Your stories can limit what you believe to be your choices and define what happens to you in your day. They may not have even come from you but may have been suggested by someone else. You may not even recognize them as stories; to you they may seem like worries or just the way you are."

~ Phillip Moffit, from "The Fallacy of Story-Making," Emotional Chaos to Clarity, Chapter 7