Story Stages

        We all love stories. I cannot recall if I have ever met anyone who did not like a good one. Young to old, we all enjoy them, and stories are how “history” received its name. But in our daily lives, we play two roles in the story process. We are either the ones who tell the story, or we are the story.  For so much of my life, I have felt like I was living the story.  At this point in my life, I have decided to stop for a bit and tell a few stories of my own and what I learned from being in them. Similar to everything else in life, it is important to find balance.  I feel that, at different stages in our lives, we always lean closer to one role as opposed to another.

           At the first youthful stages of our lives, we are more in the story. In the second adult stage, we can be equally in both, and in the third older stage, we tell more stories. I feel these story roles and stages are appropriate in the natural cycles of life because, as we become wiser and have more experiences, we can start sharing.  Having wisdom goes hand in hand with honesty. The same fundamentals to finding truth hold true in relation to becoming wise – silence, action, and in this case, and most importantly, time.   The challenge is finding the correct balance at the different times in our lives.  I have seen and experienced “imbalance” at all stages of life, whether it is too much talk and not enough action or too much action and not enough talk.  Discovering a balanced process of “what works” goes back to accessing our true feelings through reflection.

          In our present culture, the pace of growth has slowed down and many have a false perception of their growth. Often, many are concluding that they’re older or younger than they actually are. How has this perception affected our present culture?  Generally, there is too much talk and not enough action.  This imbalance results in a lot of unnecessary gossip.  Unfortunately, this gossip over time has traveled from the stoop or front porch to Wall Street and has become a staple in our present economy.  Personally, I do “okay” sometimes, and I did not do “okay” at other times.  Maybe this is why I have a bunch of stories to write in this book.  I hope when I get done with this process that I will find the right balance of talk and action at whatever stage of life I am in.

As we get older, many of us run out of energy to take certain actions, and thus, we run out of material. We can see this in the elderly who are either at peace with the absence of material and action or those who are in search of new, fresh material and action. Where do they turn to for this new material?  The most healthy and honest place they can turn to is nature and youth, which are both fresh. It is the responsibility of our youthful ones to provide the elderly with actions to fuel their storytelling.  Why the youthful ones? Our youth should be the ones in action.  Unfortunately, the dark side of this situation is that, in today’s society, many are turning to TVs or computer screens for new material because there is a disconnection between young and elders.  So, this fresh, new live action which provides new material is less present, slowing down our natural growth processes of experiencing life through action and mutual support, resulting in love.

          It is a personal choice to produce change. To change, one can start with a question. What am I doing from a physical point of view? Am I in action, or am I in interaction? Am I just sitting and looking at a screen and searching for someone off screen to yell “action?” Ask yourself why grandma or your child is watching so much TV or playing on the computer so much. Why? It’s because the ones in between these two stages (the middle age) have the most energy to be the story or the storyteller.  The more stagnant the middle ages become, the less interesting we are to our youth and elders. The middle age is the connection between youth and the elderly and vice versa. It is our (I’m speaking of myself and my fellow “middle-aged”) responsibility to help them sharpen their vision and feed them with nourishing, healthy food. This could be done in order to cultivate growth so they can feel the hope of the universe and know that all whom they love are at the very least trying to be happy.