Story Time

It occurs to me that I have never met a person who was mislead by a secondhand account of events or people of which they had firsthand knowledge. And so while it is easy to blame the media for misleading people as to the ideas and motivations of others, the fact of the matter is that if people did a better job of telling their own stories to others, there would be less room for misinformation to spread.

The reasons why people don't communicate with one another are many and varied. Some are understandable, and others seem less so. But the fact remains that the best way to ensure that someone has a particular piece of information is to take the responsibility of sharing it with them, and finding a way to make it worth remembering. Not to say that it isn't difficult. Sharing the one's truth of oneself with another person while not threatening that person's truth of themselves is often difficult, especially when questions of worldview are involved. Clearing up someone's misconceptions often pushes them to feel like dupes or idiots, and that ego-dystonia can quickly shut down lines of communications.

But one thing that I've learned is that other people have little reason or incentive to accurately tell my story for me, and so, if I want it done right, I have to do it myself.