Who Does Your Story Say You Are?

“We don’t know who we are until we tell ourselves a story about who we are.”  Sam Keen

Shades of Desire

“The more we know about the kaleidoscopic worlds of desire the more we are likely to be able to make satisfying choices. Desires range from split-second spasms to lifelong intentions. Some desires lead to action; others linger or wear themselves out in fantasy. Imagine a scale of desire. The weakest desires are fleeting wishes, such as: ‘I wish I could fly, change sexes for a week, eat chocolate every day . . . .’ Wants are one degree stronger than wishes: ‘I really want to have a baby, write a book, learn to ski.” Willing and deciding are manifestations of even stronger desires: ‘I probably won’t become President but I will write a book.’ Action is the final stage in the realization of desire: ‘I decide to write and am typing this paragraph.’ There is no reason to assume that all desires must end in action, but it is helpful to know which of our wishes to ripen into wants, which wants to deepen into decisions, and which decisions to finally actualize.” Sam Keen

Who’s Writing Your Story?

“We are the first generation bombarded with so many stories from so many ‘authorities,’ none of which are our own. The parable of the postmodern mind is the person surrounded by a media center: three television screens giving three sets of stories; fax machines bringing in other stories; newspapers providing still more stories. We are saturated with stories; we’re saturated with points of view. But the effect of being bombarded with all of these points of view is that we don’t have a point of view and we don’t have a story. We lose the continuity of our experiences; we become people who are written on from the outside.” Sam Keen