Lifestory...

The earth orbits our sun, a Type G star on an outer arm some 50,000 light years from the center of our spiral galaxy. Here's a fact to give you some scale: the Voyager I space probe was launched in 1977 and has been traveling toward galactic center at some 8,000 miles per hour ever since. After 35 years Voyager I has covered just 17 light HOURS and is only now moving out of the sun's magnetic field, the first object (as far as we know) ever to exit our solar system. Our planet, which solidified some 4 billion earth-years ago, took over 3 billion of those years to generate reproducing cells and most of the rest to evolve the early forms of us a million years ago. Gradually we developed consciousness and with it memory and imagination. In other words, awareness of past and future, of time. That awareness haunts us. I assemble my life around a story of my past and imagine it continuing tomorrow. What's haunting is the knowledge that I emerged by chance into this awareness and I'll be giving it up sooner or later on my death. Last night I saw Klugman & Sternthal's The Words. The film presents the lives of three writers, each telling a story about one of the others. It's a subtle demonstration of the fact (even though one character denies it) that lives consist entirely of stories--fictions--we create by our actions and interactions. New materials keep appearing as we live, love, fight, and regret. But they're just materials. They have to be fitted into my story. The most difficult thing is to become, and remain, aware of the story I'm telling myself and others. If I can do this, the story can change and so sustain me. Those who are not aware that their lives are made up feel forced to defend one story, to the death...