Stories

What constitutes a story?

Jeremy Nichols
Aug 25, 2017 · 5 min read

A story unfolds before our eyes, whether we realize it or not. Some, being gifted story tellers, highlight the nuances of everyday life and tell those, the masses, the truth that is their everyday life. The gifted story tellers find beauty in the mundane, seeing every faction of life hold beauty — viewing our daily occurrences as part of a grander picture; the details to a story waiting to be told. Each of us has a story and it is important that we recognize, as individuals, that we are a story. A grand story so inherently unique that it has never been told in the history of the world and will never be told again. Pain and progress unfold before our eyes, as an under belly to beauty, but there is a beauty to behold. No story is greater than the other just as no story is less than one it holds company with, the only difference being that one holds authority over the other given the way it is shared. A shared story holds greater esteem than the one that is kept silent.

This is not to say to shout all stories from the rooftop, in front of large crowds, or print them to be read by the masses. Some are indeed intended for this purpose and their truths are to be shared with those who find themselves related to the identity of the story. Other stories, those that reveal the vulnerabilities and struggles of a personal growth need time to percolate and develop — revealing their sensitive, powerful truths to those who are entrusted to share a fraction of their passion and emotion. Over time, as the teller gains confidence in their story through the sharing with those entrusted hearts, he or she finds that perhaps they were not alone in their feeling of struggle during their story, and may choose to share it with the rest of the world. Because, the truth is, while our own story is unique, our struggles and experiences are not; and there is someone out in the wide world who can benefit from the truths and sharing of a story from a unique life.

Stories of stories

This is what we embark upon to begin. We, as humans, love stories — from daily consumption, to entertainment, to the truths that we find within them that we hold so dear to our heart. This story, is perhaps, like many others that have come before it, but also is the first of its kind. A story of a unique life that has had its story waiting to be told, held close to the individual’s heart as they have tested its vulnerabilities and struggles with the most trusted of souls, slowly gaining confidence in the material before realizing that there, may be in fact, truths among it all. That there may be something beneficial to someone far, far away; or, at the very least, be entertaining to the general populous. A far away world only needs to make contact to have the opportunity at making an impression.

Stories make us listen

The story, however, takes mediums and distinguishes how we chose to listen. This happens through words — spoken or written, read or heard, and images seen and lived. The medium is only part of the equation, the initiator to the reaction a story incites, which buries itself deep within our being to be cherished, store itself for the future, or settle unseen weaving itself into the fabric of our being, its nature intertwined to become our very own — a story that becomes a part of our individual story.

Our story — what is that exactly?

We hear the term used often, but do we ever take a moment to ponder what that exactly means? Think about that for a moment, the most intricate story you will ever create will be your own; rough and beautiful, bursting with jubilation and periods of despair, elation and depression, grand adventures and routine mundanity, heartbreak and loss, and the repeated dance of progression that ebbs from darkness to illumination to encompassing darkness and light once again. These are the characteristics of the greatest stories ever told — Homer’s Odyssey & Iliad, Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Dostoevsky's Crime & Punishment, Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, and many, many, more that would take an entire story to name. They are also the blazing winds and subtle nudges that shape your life; the day to day interaction you experience with others and your inner self.

Any great story displays these traits, and thus, a life is a great story — the greatest work that primarily goes untold, left unshared with a world. A world in the grandest sense and one in the smallest of meaning — the difference being scale. The grand world, the physical, is that which all life calls home. This world is expansive and wide, filled with many minds and wonders. Within this grand sense of the world there are smaller worlds — those which encompass nations, cities, towns, lands, homes, but at the most micro level there is the individual world and, perhaps, of greater importance than the world in its grandest sense.

These individual worlds are not the world but a collection of worlds, each intrigued by the events of life that shape their stories as they knowingly and unknowingly shape one another’s world. As an individual world, it is beneficial to the grand world to share their story. It may not be ever heard by the grand but the individual world may accept it, impacting it in such a way that the individual’s story is intertwined in the fabric of another’s world and thus being carried into the grand scope. One may not change the entire world, but one may change a world, or many worlds — is this not more important?

That of course, is for the individual to decide. The individual world, that is.

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Jeremy Nichols

Written by

A writer | CCO at Planet Me Productions | Read widely, travel extensively. || Furthering The Kingdom ||

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