"A man is always a teller of tales, he lives surrounded by his stories and the stories of others, he sees everything that happens to him through them, and he tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story."
— Jean-Paul Sartre
French Writer
1905 - 1980
Commentary
What stories are you telling others? What stories are you telling yourself? Stories are vital to our understanding of who we are. Stories connect us with others. Stories connect us with ourselves. Stories are the lenses through which we understand the world we inhabit.
My story: One summer while in college I attempted to read Sartre's novel, Nausea, but the book made me sick to my stomach and I never finished it.
My story: One summer while in college I attempted to read Sartre's novel, Nausea, but the book made me sick to my stomach and I never finished it.
Creative Practice
Tell a new personal story this week -- one you have never told before. Tell the story several times to different people. Let the story grow and evolve. Retell the story with new emphasis.
Jean-Paul Sartre was a French existentialist philospher, novelist and playwright. He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize for Literature but he declined it.
Quote Source:
Jack Maguire, The Power of Personal Storytelling, p. 46.
