The Storyteller's Guide to Quick Fixes and Silver Bullets

The Storyteller's Guide to Quick Fixes and Silver Bullets

We all want it to be true, don't we? That one "thing" that solves all our problems, that fixes everything. Most of the world's marketing tells us it exists: "it's so easy! Just buy this product, and your problems are over!" But when we buy the product, somehow we're still in the same place, with the same problems. The thing didn't live up to its promise...

A few years ago, Rach and I had lunch with our accountant, Hau (pronounced "how," just to save your brain for the remainder of this article.) Hau is an incredibly generous, powerful and humble soul, who has taken care of me ever since we studied business and accounting together. In those classes, he was the A-grade student who would have his head down, scribbling furiously and soaking in all the information, while I was the art-brained student, clearly on the wrong career path, staring out the window and falling asleep on the desk.

I don't even know how we became friends, but decades later here we are - meeting over lunch to talk about family, love, tax and cryptocurrency.

On our way in, Rach and I were not doing well. We were shattered, heart-sore and bank-account-sore. We were in the middle of a project that demanded all our time and all our savings, so each day was a battle to stay above the chaos. Our project was epic - the destination was so exciting - but some days, the journey really hurt.

So we drove in silence. We took some deep breaths and sometimes reached for each other's hand. I couldn't get my words right, and there was a lump in my throat.

The restaurant was in the Crown complex, so we headed to the free parking area and started walking. In a few minutes we were surrounded by shiny lights, glass towers, theatres and bars. The casino was pumping. As we passed the entry, each gripping the other's hand a little too tightly, I imagined just swinging in to the roulette table. "Five minutes," I'd tell Rach, and then I'd bet the car, or something, and win big, and walk out with a cool million in cash, and then finally be able to buy Hau lunch instead of the other way round.

Hau meets us with laughs and hugs, shaking his head at everything that's going on in his life. "Eat! Eat!" he tells us, "what are we just sitting here for?" And we head to the buffet. I'm still deciding which kind of rice should accompany my first scoop of curry and Hau swings past with a plate full of vegetables and greens and something that looks like salmon crossed with a dumpling crossed with a cucumber. "Come on Nathan! Fill your plate man!"

I'm still thinking about the casino. How great life would be if we just won a bazillion dollers. How much of the chaos could be removed.

In ancient Greek and Roman drama, there was a cheap practice that playwrights often employed to resolve the chaotic plot lines in their stories. When everything got too messy, instead of working the characters through conflict, growth and change, the writers would simply have one of their many gods turn up to solve everything.

Literally, two minutes before the end of the play, an actor playing a god would appear, suspended by a crane over the stage, and they would fix everything.

In Latin, this was called “deus ex machina.”

God, from a machine.

We use the same phrase today in storytelling, to describe random acts or events that save everything, that come out of nowhere and just fix all the chaos and resolve all the conflict. It’s the weakest way to resolve a plot, and the audience feels it instinctively: all this conflict was built up, ready for some powerful story-moments, and then, poof! Any sense of meaning turns to disappointment, eye-rolling, frustration and betrayal.

All that aside, I’d still be up for a super-improbable event to solve all my problems. Maybe a rich relative could leave me a mansion?

Hau is talking about crypto now. There was a big crash in the market recently, and many investors were left with nothing. Hau said that those who lost everything were the ones who put all their hopes in the one magical crypto stock that they hoped would take them to the moon. They stopped trying, growing, learning, he said, and instead they just waited.

I ask what stops him from becoming like them - content to just wait for the big rescue. He pauses to think, and then tells us that every morning when he wakes, he signs the cross, and gives thanks for his breath, his health, the sunlight on his face, the children in his household. He doesn’t demand or expect a magical rescuer. He just gets into the work, and remains thankful for any provision that comes his way.

I look over his shoulder to the flashing lights of the keno machines, and give a little sigh.

As we walked back across the parking lot, nothing had been solved. Hau didn’t fix us, we didn’t win a million dollars, and we were already late for our next thing. But, Hau did give us a "next step," which had us excitedly talking about the work. We were either very foolish or very courageous, but we weren't afraid to get back into the work, to keep going in the conflict.

"Deus ex machina" is so attractive - even the thought of a lucrative win is enough to flood our brains with dopamine - but the reality is that a meaningful story needs more than an easy win or a quick fix - it resolves through highs and lows, conflict and growth, allies and villains and memorable moments and character transformation.

We are all capable of bringing our own order into the chaos, and we're not going to wait for someone else somewhere else to solve everything for us.

And if a deus ex machina moment does happen to occur? Well, it's going to have to keep up, because we've got work to do.

_________

How would a storyteller write your life?

The Storytellers Guide explores how a storyteller might approach everyday situations, in order to deliver a compelling character who experiences meaning and transformation. Read more at www.thestorytellersguide.com

The Storyteller's Guide to Coffee

My first experience with coffee was on a farm in Narrogin, three hours south of Perth. I say "experience" because I'd had coffee before, but it was without context. It was a cup of hot liquid that kept me awake. It didn't mean anything, and was immediately forgotten. In Narrogin, I remember everything.

I was 16 years old, and staying in a big farm shed owned by a friend of our youth group leader. In my church days, we would go on camps during the Spring break. We'd all bundle into a minibus with our sleeping bags, Bibles and notebooks, and drive for hours to somewhere remote, and we'd just exist together for a week. Someone would bring a guitar, someone else a football. I brought a camera.

At sixteen, everything is exploding in a person. Our juvenile souls are reaching, stretching out, tendrils of naivety and curiosity testing the waters of the universe. In church camps like these, we discover our spiritual shapes, the light parts, and the darknesses in us. We feel everything. There was a girl I liked, and it was that camp where I watched her fall in love with someone else.

Each night we'd all stay up late, and in the mornings we slept in. I discovered I could wake early by not wearing socks - the chill would find its way through my sleeping bag and between my toes, and I'd have to get up.

One morning, my toes woke me at quarter to six. I pulled on some boots, wrapped a blanket around my shoulders, and slowly negotiated my path out of the shared sleeping quarters, treading carefully through the sea of snoring faces and haphazard limbs. There was a kitchenette area with a stovetop kettle from the dark ages, and a Tupperware container full of tea bags, and a jar of instant coffee.

Full disclosure, instant coffee hurts. It really does. If I drink it nowadays, it shoots hot needles into my skull. But back then, I had the immortality of youth on my side, so I didn't notice the pain. I just heaped two teaspoons into a mug and poured in the water, sending steam swirling up to the window, fogging the pastel sunlight that cut across the glass.

With one hand gripping my blanket-cloak at my throat, and the other holding my mug, I edged open the door and made my way to the firepit. The coal was white, but still warm, with an occasional ember flaring orange in the breeze. I sat on an eggshell green 70's kitchen chair, stared into the coals, and sipped my coffee. With each sip, my vision would defocus from the steam, and my world would contract to the space between the mug and my lips. Hot coffee, crisp air, warm blanket, watercolour hues.

I felt like a piece of paper, creased in the middle, with its edges being slid together. I was the crease, elevated high above the campfire in a sharp fold of limitless perspective. I was outside of time, on a knife edge of aloneness and clarity, and in a single breath I knew the truth about myself. And then the page flattened back out, and the steam from my breath danced with the steam from my cup, and the sunlight became solid on the salmon gums across the valley.

Eventually others arrived. The girl I liked sat across from me, eyes lidded, lost in the coals. Her hair was a mess, and I liked that she didn't care that it was a mess. She blinked then, and looked up, catching me watching her. I smiled and tipped my head slightly, and she returned my smile with a boyish grin, scrunching her eyes shut and rubbing her palm across her face. I knew then that we would always be this, and never more than this, and it was enough. I swirled the remaining liquid around my mug, and it flickered back at me a sky of dazzling pale blue.

These days, when I reduce coffee to the level of a basic drug, a "caffeine hit", I actually feel guilty. I feel like I'm disrespecting the experience, like the coffee is a character and I'm treating it poorly. Like an effervescent friend kept around just to make me laugh, or a relationship that exists just to avoid feeling lonely.

In story, there are characters that step in to arrest the momentum of a protagonist. A villain steps in the way of victory. A mentor steps in to realign our compass. A jester steps in to remind us to enjoy the moment. An ally tells us we're not alone. These characters are written in to a story because without them the protagonist will hurtle too far in the wrong direction. It's our tendency to stop thinking, once we believe we're on the right track. We become lazy, or heroic, or zealous, but it's all a kind of tunnel-vision until someone helps us get perspective. We need these moments of perspective.

Coffee, taken mindfully, can be an excellent character addition to our lives. As protagonists in our own stories we can define its role every time we drink it. A line in the sand. A chapter shift. A turning point. A starting point. An escape. A reprieve. A confessional. An honest moment. A clarifying moment.

And the caffeine can become a secondary thing, a bonus. Coffee draws us into mindful awareness, then caffeine kicks us out to action, with the difference being the direction in which we launch ourselves.

If you’re thinking “this isn’t really about coffee at all, it’s about mindfulness," well, you’d be right. You don't have to be a coffee drinker. This isn't about a beverage. But all of us will have things in our lives that we unconsciously treat like a drug - I do this to feel this - and if we had any power to write our own stories, we'd want to give these characters better roles, or cut them out.

For me, I'm starting with coffee. It's in my routine already, and all I need to do is remember to crease that page, and slide the edges together, and allow my perspective to lift. My first coffee is with Rach, so it plays a kind of "ally" role - reminding us both that we do life together. My second is often taken in the middle of all the hustle of my working day, and so I let it play the "mentor" role, and I take a moment to check in on my direction.

Whatever "coffee" might mean to you, my encouragement is to respect the experience, and consider what character role it could play in your day. Even the simplest thing can make an impact on a story. Sometimes, it makes such an impact you remember it thirty years later. Even if it's instant coffee.

_________

How would a storyteller write your life?

The Storytellers Guide explores how a storyteller might approach everyday situations, in order to deliver a compelling character who experiences meaning and transformation. Read more at www.thestorytellersguide.com

The Storyteller's Guide to Forward Motion

Often, as I'm writing a character, they don't do what I want them to do. They don't keep going in the direction I want them to go. It's ridiculous. I want my character to succeed in life. They've told me that they WANT things, and that they're willing to do the work, but somehow, they just... get distracted.

      Erin wants to leave. She has to. This sharehouse was fun four years ago, but she is feeling a rising sense of desperation now. Nothing is changing. She's surrounded by friends who are happy to just coast in life, but she's feeling older, and she's feeling like she's losing her power in the world. She's beginning to feel trapped.
      She searches for apartments. She Googles "rooftop pool." She grabs her sketchbook and shimmies up the tree beside the house, clambering less than gracefully onto the garage roof. There are two beachchairs and an ashtray, and she gets comfortable, and starts to draw New York City rooftops, at dusk, with pools and gardens and those cool water tanks silhouetted against the clouds.
      Hours later, she holds a pretty pencil sketch of Manhattan, and some random song lyrics written down the side of the page. Tobias has appeared on the other chair, and they've finished two beers apiece. He's idly strumming his guitar.
      Erin lies back and closes her eyes, feeling the breeze on her skin, listening to the rustle of the leaves, the laughs of her friends inside the house. "It's not so bad here." she thinks. "I’m enjoying my life."
      Tobias cracks open another beer.

I'm not even kidding, this is where my characters end up, even though I'm in charge of writing their story. It's not even their fault. Erin is waiting for me to write her a better story, but with what I've given her, she'll OF COURSE choose the path she chose. And she'll do it again the next day, even though she's feeling trapped.

We're already a whole month in to a new year, and some of us may be feeling a little like Erin. How do I get going? How can I stay focussed? How can this year be one of change, growth and transformation, and not another "nothing-year"??

Here's what a storyteller would do to keep their character focussed and moving forward:

1: Want something. My character needs to WANT something. The more specific the better. It's their North Star amidst all the distractions of life.

2: Make a plan. What's the very first step to take? And then the next step? Then the next? Characters won't move if they're in a fog. Get some clarity, write some steps down.

3: Expect conflict. Without conflict in a story, nothing changes. Characters don't grow, audiences don't care, the story doesn't move forward. Writers know this, and characters try to avoid it, but the truth is, if you want anything worth anything, there will be barriers you must overcome to get there. Antagonisms that force the growth you need to get where you're going. And the writer must deliberately write these barriers in, or the story won't work. As the lead character in our own story, we can predict the conflict, and be ready for it. Would a gladiator step in to the ring and be surprised that there were battles to be fought?

4: Gather tools, skills, allies. What will a character need, in order to overcome the forecasted conflict? And where will they find this support?

5: Build habits. My character is going to need to build the habits that will keep them going. What will they do when they receive their first knock-back? We can practice these responses. For example, when I feel tired, I'll take a walk. When I feel low confidence, I think of clients who I've helped. When I catch myself doom-scrolling, I swipe the screen closed and immediately type a new note that reads "I am a character who wants ________."

6: Kickstart the story. A character will naturally choose comfort over conflict, so their writer needs to force them into a better story. And they do that by designing an inciting incident. An opportunity for change. A door that, once entered, locks behind you.

An inciting incident can generate action in two directions: a discomfort to avoid (run away), or an aspiration to attain (run towards). Psychologically, discomfort is twice as motivating as aspiration, and writers know this. Here are a some examples:

  • Discomfort to avoid: Set a meeting or deadline, make a promise, book an event, announce a release date. You'll now work hard to avoid the embarrassment of not being ready.

  • Aspiration to attain: Set an intention, create a mood board, manifest the dream, write down your destination daily, place your "north star" goal absolutely everywhere in your daily life - sticky notes, phone reminders, etc.

So, back to Erin, on the rooftop in her quiet desperation.. How do we get her moving into a better story?

      Relaxed and beer-buzzed, Erin barely registers Tobias sliding her sketchbook off her lap. He begins to hum, and soon has a rudimentary song going. She recognises her own lyrics, paired to the same punk riff that Tobi always falls back on when he's been drinking.

           "the simple life is beautiful. all i need is beer here.
            the other me, the one that's free, is far away i fear.
            don't tell me i need something else, I'm fine, I'll die alone,
            the fireworks of life can dance across my brittle bones."

      Erin opens her eyes, jolted back to reality. A single tear makes its way down her temple and into her ear. She feels a dark panic rising in her gut, fermenting the beer with waves of nausea and hopelessness. Did I really write that? Am I so far from my own self now?
      Tobias stumbles over her next lyric, and begins the song again, but Erin doesn't want to hear any more of her own prophecy. She rolls away and clambers down the tree, missing the last branch to land hard on the earth. Oof. The fall at least takes the nausea away, so she stays there in the dirt, and takes a deep breath. "It's going to be okay.." she mutters to herself.
What a dumb mantra.
      Marah opens the door then, arms full of plates, phone jammed between shoulder and ear. "I'm sorry, hon, I really am. We just have no more rooms. I know, I know, it's the greatest place. But until one of us leaves - which, let's be honest, will never happen - I just can't help ya. Okay, yeah, of course I'll let ya know. Okay, bye love..." She shuffles past Erin, still in the dirt at the base of the tree, and clatters the plates onto the bench table. "You okay down there hon?" She peers down at her friend with mild concern.
      Erin just stares back. Eyes wide, muddy tear streaks from eye to ear. Marah squats down in front of her, offering her full attention. "Hey, Erin. How you doing?"
      Erin blinks, realises she's been holding her breath, and gasps in some air. "I.. Who was that? On the the phone just then?" Her voice was a whisper.
      "Oh that? Just a friend. Looking for a place, and of course wanting to be here. Who wouldn't, right?"
      Erin draws another breath, this time more slowly, deeply. She realises the panic has gone from her gut, and it's replaced by something new. Something like fear and hope, mashed together.
      "Marah? Give your friend my room." As soon as she says it, she feels the fear and hope explode inside her. The fireworks of life, she thinks wryly. "Take my room, Marah. I need to go."

_________________

How would a storyteller write your life?

The Storytellers Guide explores how a storyteller might approach everyday situations, in order to deliver a compelling character who experiences meaning and transformation. Read more at www.thestorytellersguide.com

We can't ignore ourselves

"We need to chase down our authentic core. Every time we unearth a clue, every time we discover a piece of the puzzle that is “us”, we must chase it. We can’t just ignore what we know to be true about ourselves."

Read full article here.

Voyage and Return

It is 5am, and I’m downstairs on the couch, sitting right up against the front window. I reach my fingertips out, and feel the remains of the night chill on the glass. It’s beginning to get light outside, but there isn’t any colour yet - just a vague pastel blue grey. There’s a tree by the street, every leaf still and monochrome like a pencil sketch. I know that each minute that passes now will lift those leaves into more vibrance, along with the sky, the streaky clouds, and the limestone wall along our garden bed. And sometime between now and then, the sun will have risen, and the day will become distinct.

January to me feels like this time between first light and sunrise. A no-mans-land of vagary and indistinct shapes, each new day bringing a little bit more colour and clarity to the year, but, who really knows when the sun will actually crest the horizon. After the mad hustle of December, January is a reprieve for some, a recovery for others, a reward for yet other others.

I don’t know if it’s because I have kids, or because I'd shot weddings for so long, or both, but January was never any of those things for me. It was just, messy. School holidays meant a kind of responsibility-overload, paired with the hourly deadlines of editing the outstanding weddings of the last 8 weeks, and then topped off with all the existential questions one asks of oneself each new year:

“where am I going?”
“what really matters in life?”
“did I live a life worthy of living last year?”

In those past years, the only way to survive was to compartmentalise. In this moment, I am fully present with the kids. In this next moment, I am fully present with my editing. The next moment, going for a walk, spending time with loved ones, laughing at a thing.. It went moment by present moment, each of them disconnected from the other.

It’s not like that anymore, thank goodness. For something unsustainable, I sustained it for too long. But, January is still messy.

This year, I’m finding it useful to assign a plot archetype to the month of January. For me, it’s a VOYAGE AND RETURN plot. A protagonist heads out into the big world, experiences some things, and returns changed somehow. There’s a transformation, or an elixir brought back, or whatever else. So I’m looking back over the month as if I have just returned from a great voyage, and I’m sifting through my pockets of experiences, searching for elixirs.

With the sun already warming up the sky, and the leaves across the street bright and dancing in a new breeze, I find that my pockets are full of elixirs. I have a hope here, that I feel so deep. It will support us the whole year I reckon. Rach and I have communities that we can work with and play with, who love us and believe in great things. I find so many vials of encouragement, gifts from distant lands reminding us that we are all connected, and all valuable.

January hasn’t been a mess. It has just been a journey, and we have returned with dusty clothes and happy kids, a renewed focus and a burning drive to create things in the world.

We’re tired, but we are together, and we are as excited about the year as those dancing leaves seem to be about the new day.

On joining a gym

A month ago, Rach and I joined a gym. I’ve never been any good at these things.

I tried a gym once when I was nineteen, and it was a disaster. I would put my headphones on and stride into the place like I saw the guys in the movies do, and just start loading up the weights. After three dumbbell curls my arms hurt too much to lift them, and a few leg presses later I was exhausted. I didn’t have a trainer or anything, and I didn’t know how to ask for help, so five minutes in, I’d be packing up to leave. And that was really my only experience with gyms.

That, and the time I was hit on in the gym pool by a much older man. Being alone and wearing very little, while a large hairy stranger describes how attractive he finds my body, was definitely a strong reason to never, ever return.

Anyway, 20-odd years later I'm trying again, and this time everything is better. Rach and I would go together, our own little team, every second morning at 7am. There were no monster heavyweights strutting about looking down on us, no spectacularly beautiful bodies demanding that we go harder and faster and better and one day we'll look like them. There were just everyday humans in pretty good shape high-fiving and encouraging us to do our best, but not so much that we throw up. It's been really great.

This morning, halfway through the session, I noticed something that's probably quite obvious to everyone else. I was hanging from a bar, trying to lift my knees up to my chest for the fortieth time, sweat running down my face like acid rain, and I realised that all of this, really... hurts.

Like, every moment of our 50-minute session involved some kind of pain, each muscle group getting their chance to endure a bit of hell as we moved around each station. Swinging from that bar, I looked around the room, and each face wore its own version of agony. There were grunts, gasps, panting, the occasional expletive. Everyone was feeling it. Actual pain, and the worst thing is, we had all chosen it for ourselves.

I got my knees up that last time, and dropped to the floor with a little "oof," and crawled over to the burpee station. Before I had a chance to think anymore, I was off on a new journey of pain.

I do know how exercise works. We exert some effort and the endorphins kick in and then we experience some kind of "high." Honestly, I haven't felt the high yet, which means I may not be pushing myself enough or something, but what I really, really appreciate is what happens to my mind during that hour:

When we start the workout, the rest of the world, with all of its pressure, anxiety, uncertainty, and busyness, fades away. Our attention is completely present, in this moment of our next breath, nothing beyond the routine before us. We're not forecasting or fearing the future. We're not retrieving or regretting the past. We're not processing intellectual arguments or emotional conundrums or responsibilities or anything else.

Within this 50-minute timeframe, we are at peace. There is pain, but there is also peace.

And for me, I also feel a sense of freedom. Which is strange, considering the amount of restrictions and limitations that the workout demands, but nonetheless, I feel free. By choosing the path, by clicking "attend session" on the app, I create an oasis for my mind, a reprieve from the overwhelm. For one hour, the entire world is held back. It can go wait for me over there, by the door, while I do my thing.

Stories are often crafted around a three-act structure, where Act 1 pushes a character into the conflict, Act 2 describes all the conflict and transformation, and Act 3 wraps it all up with a resolution and ultimate transformation (for better or worse).

The interesting thing about Act 1 is how difficult it is for the character to make that first decision, the one that forces them into the big story. It's a comfort-or-conflict choice, and the rest of the story hinges on the answer. But, once the decision has been made, the work begins and the character doesn't struggle with that choice anymore: life is too exciting now.

I feel like that with these workout, and I often feel like that with the rest of life. It's the hardest thing to click "do it!" on the app, and lock myself in to a session, but once I have, my mind relaxes, and I just go and do the work.

After the decision, there is peace.

Within the limitations, there is freedom.

Though there is pain, there is also pride, and transformation.

I'm absolutely not an exercise junkie yet, and I still dislike pain. But, I'm finding myself more and more looking forward to these sessions, and will even tap "yes" to them now with a tiny bit of joy.

Plot choices

Since January 1, there have been three specific subjects that have leapt to the surface of all the conversations I've been having. On both sides of the vax fence, across the wealth and privilege spectrum, and with no regard to age or gender, these three threads of consciousness keep spiking up, like a heartbeat monitor, or a FaceBook ad. Ordinarily I might have overlooked them as, well, pretty legitimate concerns given the world we're in right now. But, the three threads together caught my attention, so here we are.

The first thread is this:

"It's a new year, I must plan my days, make some resolutions."

The second, not surprisingly, is this one:

"The world is so uncertain right now. I feel more fear than hope. I don't know how I'll actually get through this year."

And the third, probably due to my role as a Story Coach, is this:

"I'm not a storyteller."

Maybe you can see already how these three ideas connect, but it took me a while. I had to close my eyes and just type it out - freewriting the tangled mess of thoughts and intuition in my head. As I typed, I realised I was feeling some anger, and frustration, and some hope.

I'm frustrated at most of humanity, to be honest, including myself. Every time we say "I'm not a storyteller" or "I don't have any good stories to tell" or "I just live a normal boring life" it jars my soul. Because we are ALL storytellers. We are constantly telling and retelling our stories, to ourselves, to our friends and family and kids and social networks. We go to sleep telling our stories to ourselves, making things mean this or that, blaming this person or that person, validating this hurt or elevating this piece of ego. We are prolific storytellers.

This is the whole reason I do what I do: I think EVERYONE needs to share their stories. I think it's vital for humanity, that the rest of us hear what you have discovered about the world we're all scrambling through. We are all built to consume stories, and we are all, always, telling them. And while my job is to help people craft their ideas in a way that is meaningful, the paradigm goes far beyond books and presentations. We have the power to craft our life stories in the same way.

But, when our crafting ends up on auto-pilot, our stories end up just feeding our ego, or our pain, or our pride. Even though they have such great power to nourish our souls with deeper elements like meaning, peace and hope.

(I guess this is all sounding a bit mad by now, but stay with me. I'll either bring this home, or completely lose my way. It's really 50/50 at this stage...)

For me, what connects the three big ideas together - making plans, fear and uncertainly, storytelling - is CHOICE.

A writer is constantly making choices about the events that are included in their story. While absolutely EVERYTHING might happen to a character, not everything deserves equal weight, and the writer will elevate some events, diminish others, and even cut some scenes from the book, in order to keep the focus on what is important. And we do the exact same thing in our lives. When we retell our stories, and when we are right in the middle of living a story, we will unconsciously elevate certain events and diminish others. I do this all the time, and very often I end up with a story that feeds my own ego: "here's a story of my day that shows how awesome I am..." or worse, "...how tragic my life is."

The power a writer has, and the power we all have in life, is this: We have the agency to elevate or diminish the impact of an event in our lives. And we can craft the telling of these events in such a way as to transform ourselves, and those around us.

Even with all the uncertainty, we can still ask ourselves questions like "what is valuable in life?" "what do I believe about love? Hope? Beauty?" And then we sort through the mess of life events, elevate some and diminish others, and slowly craft a story that resonates with that message.

The way we shape our stories can bring hope, encourage a fresh perspective on life, contribute to a deep insight of the world, all of those things. When we don't have so much control over the events, we still have control over the telling of the story, and it's my hope that all of us take up the "storyteller" mantle for ourselves, and curate our experiences in a way that will nourish our souls, and eventually, perhaps the soul of the world too.

Looking for the exits

Last year, I wrote about Rach's shakti mat. It was all about distributing conflict, so as to avoid one piece of discomfort becoming so sharp and urgent that it takes over our whole life. It's a great read, I think (and you can find it at nathanmaddigan.com/blog) but it turns out, I'm not done with this damn shakti mat.

Yesterday, I was lying on it again. And it hurt so much.

First I tried to ignore the pain - you know, think happy thoughts, tell myself stories, replay a tv show in my head - but that didn't work at all. So then I tried to get away from the pain somehow. I'd sit up, try and roll over a bit, arch my back so that less tiny spikes were stabbing me. But nothing helped.

It was exhausting, and frustrating, and somehow, the pain kept hurting. And it felt broad, like it was everywhere. Any mental exit I ran to was suddenly blocked by the pain. Happy thoughts, stories, the tv show, they all had this cloud of discomfort that dropped between us, so that I couldn't find the door handle and escape.

My mind felt like it was rolling around in a soft panic, unconsciously pushing back against the pain, searching for a way out.

After a few minutes of this torture, I tried something new. I gave up.

I stopped looking for exits and just leaned all the way into the mat, and focussed my attention on the needles pressing into my skin.

It was a completely different experience. My mind cleared, the panic subsided, and I felt free to just put that pain into its own compartment. Once I allowed myself to focus directly on the pain, I could see its edges, and it wasn't as huge as I thought. It wasn't all-consuming.

It was there, but it wasn't EVERYWHERE. When I was ignoring it and searching for relief, it felt like it was everywhere, and it was trapping me, controlling me. When I looked directly at it, I kind of trapped the pain instead. I could see all the exits now, I had some perspective back.

As I kept doing this focusing-thing: eyes closed, attention narrowed to the pointy daggers in my back, I began to notice something else: the pain was becoming less. My body was getting used to it, my mind was observing it, and I began relaxing, softening.

It was doing its Shakti-mat-healing thing, I suppose. The pain was slowly replaced with a warmth, as the blood flowed to areas on my skin that needed it the most.

Whatever was happening there, five minutes later I was so comfortable I had a nap. Truly. Right there on a bed of nails.

Now, please, please hear me: this post isn't really about pain, per se. I'm in no way suggesting that I have some kind of zen-like solution to pain, especially debilitating chronic pain, and I'm definitely not playing it down. Experiencing ANY amount of pain sucks. It hurts, sometimes a whole lot. Sometimes it takes over your entire life, and every day is a struggle to keep going.

With deep respect to those who experience this kind of life, it would be daftly naive of me to profess to know how you feel, or give you some kind of solution. This post is not *that*.

If anything, this experience with the shakti mat might just be a metaphor for the way many of us deal with discomfort.

In storytelling, characters will always try and avoid discomfort. They look away, turn away, walk away, avoid, ignore, distract... It's human nature, and it's okay. If a character didn't do it, we wouldn't even believe the story. It would seem somehow false.

The problem is, while the characters try and avoid all discomfort, the writer is spending all their time focusing on it. Writers know that stories need conflict. That conflict drives change, decision, transformation, all of that. So the writer will be considering the pain in great detail, finding the best way to get it right up in the face of the characters so that they must engage with it, and respond to it somehow.

I hate discomfort. And conflict, and pain. I'd choose comfort every chance I get, just quietly.

But, this shakti mat helped me realise that when there does happen to be a pain, a discomfort in my life somewhere, things do NOT go well for me or those around me if all I do is run about in a panic, looking for exits. I don't treat people well, I don't think straight, and I often don't even know exactly what it is that is hurting me. I only know that it keeps getting in the way of my exit strategy.

It's only when I stop unconsciously reacting to the hurt, and deliberately look at the source, not the exits, that I find my way forward.

So, with all that Rach and I have on this coming year, I know there will be great discomforts, great challenges and conflicts and hurdles to get over together, and as a character I'm completely terrified of that.

But as a writer, I'm wildly excited about this story. This year is going to be great.

All words no pictures

I love this week between Christmas and New Year. Nobody seems to know what to do. Some shops are closed, some are open, most of the population have headed away from the city for their holidays, and those that are left wander the streets like kings of the apocalypse, owners of a ghost town. None of the usual rules apply.

It's a limbo week, as the year wraps itself up, and everything new is right there on the horizon. Fresh starts and open skies, just over that ridge. And as we walk towards the shiny lights, we discard the luggage of the year, letting go all the victories, the defeats, the joys and the hurts, so that we can start again.

This year for me was all words, and no pictures. For fifty-two weeks, I only wrote. As a photographer, who was only known for being a photographer, this was a different path, and certainly not one that any business coach would advise. "Leverage your imagery" they would say. "Don't waste that talent."

But, way back in January I wrote about "chasing ourselves" no matter the cost. That is, leaning in to who we are becoming - whenever we discover another piece of ourselves we chase it down, and we keep growing.

And that's really what I did this year. There were so many pieces of myself that resonated so strongly around meaning, relationships and storytelling that I wrote all year about it, and had the pleasant surprise of not running out of things to say.

I've loved every moment of this process. It was hard sometimes in those zero-degree mornings to get up and write, and it was hard after a 15-hour day to head out to a bar and write, but every single time I did it, I loved it.

Story theorist Robert McKee once wrote that when we experience a story, we are seeing the storyteller's own map of the hidden order of life. In all the things I've written, some of them simple stories, some of them a little more complex, what has risen to the surface are ideas around meaning, connection, conflict, relationships, identity, work, authenticity, truth, awareness, love, and whimsy. And all of it, wrapped in this frame of "storytelling," and "story-living."

If these elements were my personal map of life's hidden order, I'd be okay with that.

I'm excited about 2022. I'm excited to write more words, and perhaps also play with some pictures again. Or video. Or paint. Maybe some interpretive dance. I'm sure the medium doesn't matter as much as any of us think. But whichever form it takes, I hope I can keep accessing my map of life's hidden order, and when I share it, I hope that you will take only what is useful for your own world, at the right time.

Thank you for your encouragement over the year. Thank you for reading and commenting and sharing. I know I'm just writing for myself ultimately, but it's really fun to hear how these words resonate with others. We really are all in this together.

And Rach, thank you for giving me that soft but oh-so-powerful permission each day to spend the time.

With so much love, and giddy excitement for the new year.

The Christmas show

One year in my early twenties, I was in a Christmas production for our local church. I played Joseph, soon to be married to Mary, the mother of Jesus. I’m not sure how I was roped in to this role, but it probably had something to do with Mim.

Mim - Miriam was her full name - was the kind of human that was just born with shine. At nineteen years old, she was already completely fine in her own skin - confident, dorky, just as willing to get up on a stage as she was sweeping up the trash after a show. She laughed all the time, and she talked all the time, and her talk was filled with questions, ideas, and rants about God and boys.

Once, she was so into her monologue that she followed me into the church bathrooms, all the way in. She even stepped up to the urinal with me, at which point I waved a hand in front of her face, pointed down, and laughed “Mim. Urinal.”

“What?” She looks around like she just teleported onto the tiles, and her eyes go wide. “Oh shit!” she squeals, and careens away, like a baby giraffe on a slip-and-slide, “Ew! Ew! Gross! Ew!” Mim was great.

So, Mim and I were in this play. For a week leading up to Christmas we would act out the birth of Jesus - the Christmas story. Mim played Mary, and most of the days she got to hold a real live baby, which was pretty special for the audience. There were shepherds, and wise men, and a star, and a choir. We even had a real donkey. Just the one donkey, but it somehow represented all the animals in the manger, or something. What it did best was leave enormous landmines at the door of the church. But between the dumping donkey and the real-live baby Jesus, we had a pretty solid production going on.

What I remember most though, was the Thursday lunchtime show. The show where everything fell apart.

First, the baby wasn’t available. Double booked for a Huggies commercial I suppose. “Fine,” says Mim, “I can nurse a little watermelon or something."

Then, the donkey got lost, somewhere on the farm. Then two of the three wise men had forgotten to ask their parents for permission to be here, and were stuck at home. One by one, the cast dropped away, until our production manager Kelsey declared that we’d have to cancel. She said it was only a small group of parents anyway, and they could attend the Friday show.

Mim shrugged, and looked at me. “What else can we do? We can’t play all the roles ourselves, and I don’t have that many watermelons."

I looked back at her, and because she had asked the question, I felt I needed to answer.

“Let’s do it anyway.” I say.

“You’re kidding. With watermelons?” Mim claps her hands.

“Watermelons are expensive.” Kelsey states with a frown.

“No, not watermelons,” I’m staring over Mim’s shoulder to the television in the corner, some talk show is playing on mute. “Let’s have a question-and-answer time. Mim, you and I can just be Mary and Joseph and let the audience ask us questions. We can still share the Christmas story, but it can be more casual, you know?"

Kelsey is still frowning, but I know she’d rather run something than have to cancel. Mim is nodding slowly, eyes bright, a little half-smile on her lips.

“Let’s do it!” Mim announces.

So, an hour later, before an audience of twenty, Miriam and I walk onto the stage, all dressed up in cliche Biblical attire, and pull up some stools.

Back then, I had no idea what the ingredients were for a successful story. I thought we just share information, and label it “story.” That was what our production had been doing all week: We were pretty much laying out the information about Jesus’ birth, with some actors reading some lines.

So when our first question, from a young mother on the front row, was “Um.. How was your trip to Bethlehem?” we replied with some information: “Oh, fine thank you. We took a camel from here to here, there was no room at the inn so we found a stable…” etc. Even as I was sharing it, I felt the energy dropping. Information-sharing isn’t the same as storytelling.

Another question followed, for Mim, “Mary, it must feel wonderful to have such a supportive man by your side, while you carry the Lord’s child inside you?”

It wasn’t even a question, but Mim responded with a smile, “Oh yes, it's really very nice."

Energy. Dropping some more.

What happened next was out of character for me, except that I was playing IN character, so it seemed to fit. A man in the back row was already asking another question, and I stood up, with my fake beard and funny robe, and I held out my hand, which stopped the question mid-sentence.

“Hold on.” I said, taking in the surprise on each face, and the concern on Kelsey’s. “I.. Um..” I looked at Mim, who looked equally surprised, but excited too - she gave me a little nod and a smile. “To be honest,” I continued, “it wasn’t nice at all. It was horrible.”

There were a few gasps, and Kelsey slapped her palm into her face, but in such a way that she didn’t even blink, which I thought was impressive.

“What was horrible, Joseph?” A grandfather at the side of the group seemed truly curious.

“The whole process!” I replied, sitting back on my stool and shaking my head. “How would YOU react to your fiancé suddenly and mysteriously becoming pregnant, and then saying the baby was God's?” Mim caught up instantly.

“It’s true, Joseph was a mess! He did not NOT take it well.” She crossed over to me and put her hand on my shoulder, still addressing the crowd. “He thought I’d cheated on him. Then he though I was mistaken, making it all up. We had some fights.”

“Some big fights.” I continued. “I mean, she’d never done anything like this before, but it was really hard to get my head around. I was so angry.”

“What were you angry at?” A tiny woman sitting on the floor called out.

“Well, I was angry at Mary, for being so calm about it all, and I was angry at God, for doing things in a way that I just NEVER understand, and I was angry at myself, for not knowing how to deal with it all.” I took a breath. "I wasn’t being my best self, and I couldn’t change it, and I hate that."

I had passed my hand over my eyes for a second, and when I looked up, everyone was staring at us. There were nods in the crowd, a few tears. Mim returned to her stool, and the questions after that became a lot more interesting. We talked about the Christmas story, sure, but we did it in a profoundly human way, with real emotions and conflicts and doubt.

We’d somehow shifted from the surface questions of “what happened?” to the deeper story-questions of “what did you make all that mean?” and “what do you believe about it?”

At the end of our hour, the audience applauded and many came over and hugged us. One man said that he finally understood something he’d been struggling with for a decade. The tiny woman on the floor shook my hand solemnly and said that she absolutely does not believe in God, but she thinks He did a good job when He created human emotions.

Another woman drew Mim aside and sternly advised her to raise the child well, and not let him ever be ashamed of his beginnings. Mim nodded sagely and thanked her with a hug.

I think I remembered that hour so clearly because, out of all the shows, this one seemed to matter. Whatever happened there wasn’t the usual information-sharing, with a bit of entertainment thrown in. It went deeper. The audience were moved. And we felt great playing our part in that movement.

I reckon this was what playwrights felt when they put a new play on the stage, and saw their audience engaging with the story. And it is probably why they write such elements into their scripts as vulnerability, honesty, conflict and beauty.

Because we want our interactions with others to matter. And all these elements of humanity - the vulnerability and the conflict - help to unearth the stuff that matters.

A social constellation

A few days ago, Rach and I found ourselves driving along the coast of Cottesloe, heading towards a party filled with people we mostly wouldn't know. The sun splashed sideways across the windshield, catching on every dust spot and unfortunate bug that had settled on the glass. Beach-pines lined the road on our left, creating a strobe of shadows and blinding brights as we cruised past the little beaches and ice cream shops.

"I might not last too long tonight." Rach says. "We've been up since five am, hey?"
I look over to her, awash in the flickering golden light, and want nothing more than to turn the car around, head home, and snuggle in to bed with snacks and a movie. "I'm with you, love. We can just drop in, say hi to our new friends, and then sneak away."
She nods, and smiles at me. I don't know if her smile looked tired, or if it was my tiredness that made me interpret it that way.

I sometimes wonder why we say "yes" to things. What was going on in my head that caused me to respond so positively to an invite from a stranger? By saying "yes" Rach and I effectively locked ourselves in to a commitment that would take energy, time and even money (we are bringing a plate and a beverage after all) for potentially zero returns.

On the rational surface, we both should have said "no." Our weeks are busy, our bodies tired. But there was something else in us, something deeper, that whispered "yes." Something aspirational, perhaps.

I slowed the car as we got closer to the address, looking for parking, and taking in the area. On our left was the ocean, on our right, our destination: an ageing apartment block, old - like 70's old - red brick and white cement, pretty run-down really. As we rolled past, I could see couches and rugs laid out on the grass behind the letterboxes. Low tables with cheeses and a little stage in the corner. It was neither a house party nor a beach party, being where it was right there on the verge. A border party, maybe. Switzerland.

We parked a bit further up, and started walking. There was a delicious barbecue aroma in the air, and some upbeat tunes in the wind. Around us, others were arriving, converging from all directions. I imagined what this would look like from high above, through a filter that only sees energies, and none of the geography.

I would be a pale blue line, travelling from there to here. Rach would be a yellow line, right now snaking alongside me, but will no doubt skew once we arrive at the party. And then there would be all these other lines - every colour in existence, all streaking across the landscape, heading towards each other. I imagine it would look a bit like a constellation, with each intersection of lines a tiny stardust explosion. Every crossing of one human with another, a potential connection point, a potential new creation.

The possibilities that these simple intersections carry are mind-blowing, if you think about it. Five years ago my line crossed with Rach's and we backtracked, crossed again, spun and danced and twined ourselves up so tight together that it must have looked like a supernova tied in a knot.

We step off the curb and enter the party - all these energetic lines slide past us, weaving, sparking, all smiles. A complete stranger in aviator glasses points at me from across the grass, waves, and nods his head knowingly before turning back to his conversation. I laugh, surprised by the gesture, and another stranger sees my smile and returns one of her own.

Something happens in places like this, places where all our lines converge. I'm sure it can go either way, but what I saw on this afternoon was a gathering of souls all attuned to the same intention: openness, grace, kindness, interest. We all thought the best of another, and gave the best of ourselves.

As the sun dropped below the horizon, the live band gave way to the DJ, and the picnic blankets became little dance floors. Neither of us wanted to leave. I was deep in a conversation with some new friends, and Rach was dancing with a diminutive ninja sporting an afro and a catgirl mask. We stayed for hours, laughing, dancing, connecting. The tiredness that accompanied us on our drive here had certainly not stuck around.

It's a strange dynamic, this give-and-take of energy between humans. Without any of the intersections, Rach and I would have lasted ten minutes at that place. But our lines collide with others, and in little starbursts of humanity we both light up. And we return with stories, experiences, new friends, even new projects to begin together.

When storytellers are crafting a meaningful story for their characters, they will use "conflict" as a vehicle to get their characters moving, growing, changing. But conflict isn't always painful: sometimes it's just the thing that pushes up against comfort. Technically speaking, it was harder work to go out and talk and listen and dance than it would have been to just watch a show in bed. But, once we were there, once we tipped ourselves out of the comfort and into the melee of life, we actually enjoyed the additional work.

It’s like we needed to be here, at this place we didn’t want to be at, because it would make our lives more meaningful. And in a story, the writer knows this. The writer knows what each character is capable of, and will place them in circumstances and interactions that will get them there. I think we can all have some measure of trust in our innate human ability, when intersecting with others, to shine.

This is why writers throw characters into difficult situations. It’s not cruelty. It’s omniscience.

Deus ex machina

This week Rach and I had lunch with our accountant, Hau (pronounced "how," just to save your brain for the remainder of this post.)

Hau is an incredibly generous, powerful and humble soul, who has taken care of me ever since we studied business and accounting together. In those classes, he was the A-grade student who would have his head down, scribbling furiously and soaking in all the information, while I was the art-brained student, clearly on the wrong career path, staring out the window and falling asleep on the desk.

I don't even know how we became friends, but decades later here we are - meeting over lunch to talk about family, love, tax and cryptocurrency.

On our way in, Rach and I were not doing well. We were shattered, heart-sore and bank-account-sore, to be honest. We are in the middle of a thing that demands all our time and all our savings, so each day is a battle to stay above the chaos. Our "thing" is epic - the destination is so exciting - but some days, the journey really hurts.

So we drove in silence. We took some deep breaths and sometimes reached for each other's hand. I couldn't get my words right, and there was a lump in my throat.

The restaurant was in the Crown complex, so we drove to the free parking area then started walking. In a few minutes we were surrounded by shiny lights, glass towers, theatres and bars. The casino was pumping. As we passed the entry, each gripping the other's hand a little too tight, I imagined just swinging in to the roulette table. "Five minutes," I'd tell Rach, and then I'd bet the car, or something, and win big, and walk out with a cool million in cash, and then finally be able to buy Hau lunch instead of the other way round.

Hau meets us with laughs and hugs, shaking his head at everything that's going on in his life. "Eat! Eat!" he tells us, "what are we just sitting here for?" And we head to the buffet. I'm still deciding which kind of rice should accompany my first scoop of curry and Hau swings past with a plate full of vegetables and greens and something that looks like salmon crossed with a dumpling crossed with a cucumber. "Come on Nathan! Fill your plate man!"

I'm still thinking about the casino. How great life would be if we just won a bazillion dollers. How much of the chaos could be removed.

In ancient Greek and Roman drama, there was a practice that playwrights often employed to resolve the chaotic plot lines in their stories. When everything got too messy, instead of working the characters through conflict, growth and change, the writers would simply have one of their many gods turn up to solve everything.

Literally, two minutes before the end of the play, an actor playing a god would appear, suspended by a crane over the stage, and they would fix everything.

In Latin, this was called “deus ex machina.”

God, from a machine.

We use the same phrase today in writing, to describe random acts or events that save everything, that come out of nowhere and just fix all the chaos and resolve all the conflict. It’s the weakest way to resolve a plot, and the audience feels it instinctively: all this conflict was built up, ready for some powerful story-moments, and then, poof! Any sense of meaning turns to disappointment, eye-rolling, frustration.

All that aside, I’d still be up for a super-improbable event to solve all my problems. Maybe a rich relative could leave me a mansion?

Hau is talking about crypto now. There was a big crash in the market recently, and many investors were left with nothing. Hau said that those who lost everything were the ones who put all their hopes in the one magical crypto stock that they hoped would take them to the moon. They stopped trying, growing, learning, he said, and instead they just waited.

I ask what stops him from becoming like them - content to just wait for the big rescue. He pauses to think, and then tells us that every morning when he wakes, he signs the cross, and gives thanks for his breath, his health, the sunlight on his face, the children in his household. He doesn’t demand or expect a magical rescuer. He just gets into the work, and remains thankful for any provision that comes his way.

I look over his shoulder to the flashing lights of the keno machines, and give a little sigh.

As we walk back across the parking lot, nothing has been solved. Hau didn’t fix us, we didn’t win a million dollars, and we’re already late for our next thing. But, Hau did give us a "next step," and we’re already talking excitedly about the work. We’re either foolish or courageous, but either way we’re not afraid to get back into the work, to keep going in the conflict.

I hope our audience never gets the chance to roll their eyes at us. I hope that we can keep going, keep engaging in the highs and lows. There is so much meaning to be found, moments to experience, good work to complete, and so many incredible humans to share life with.

We are capable of bringing our own order into the chaos, and if a "deus ex machina" moment happens, we’ll take it for sure, but it’s going to have to keep up, because we’ve got work to do.

Show don't tell - llet t'nod wohS

After last week’s post, where I dropped in the concept of “show don’t tell,” I haven’t been able to let it go. All week, there’s been a vague shadow of an idea, like an irrepressible ghost trying to get through to me.

I’d be cleaning my teeth, and over my shoulder is this thought, just kind of staring at me, eyebrows raised.

I’m in a meeting, and across the room in an empty chair, the thought is sipping ice water and rolling its eyes at my jokes.

Even now, in this bar with the renaissance cat paintings on the wall - the thought is next to me, flicking my glass, drumming its fingers on the table, staring at me expectantly.

Fine, I say to the shadow. I’ll write you.

--

The concept of “show don’t tell” is as old as any story. It’s powerful because it’s true, but it’s not simple, and it’s not binary.

On stage or screen, yes, we craft the story so that the audience can see the character’s identity through the actions they take. But what about literature? We learn so much about a character through their own internal dialogue, about how they perceive their world, and that’s all TELL, without any SHOW.

I am more like a book than a movie. I’m ruminative. I need to talk things through before ever acting. I have to speak, rant, question, second-guess myself, to get some clarity. And it’s not just clarity on what to DO, but even what it is I BELIEVE. My friend Jason and I are both ruminators, and will spend countless hours wandering city streets, spending a whole night on a single topic, just musing and playing with ideas around it, trying to get to the core of what each of us believe.

It sounds a lot like "all talk no action." How does “show don’t tell” work for that?

Often I have behaved as if my life were literature, and others could just read my mind. I’ve assumed that they understand my intentions, my motivations, my heart. On the inside I’m feeling all these things, and believing all these things, while on the outside, I’m as dull as a brick. I remember once being accused of indifference, of not caring about someone, and I was so shocked. To me, I cared deeply about this person - they were always on my mind - but to them, I was distant and uncaring.

Nobody can read our minds. Whatever we are thinking needs to be demonstrated somehow before others can believe it.

So we speak, or we act.

But, if we ONLY speak, then we may not seem authentic. We say things that aren’t proved by actions.

And if we ONLY act, then our actions can be misinterpreted. We do things that aren’t explained clearly.

“Show don’t tell” becomes a lot less simple, and certainly not universally true. To be honest (and to borrow a phrase from a Roblox game my kids play) it’s an absolute clutter-funk.

I look over at the shadow-thought, reclining in the candlelight, and I scowl.
"You are not easy to write." I grumble.
“But here you are writing” it replies smugly.
"But all I’m doing is dumping words onto a page. Adding to the noise. It’s all ‘tell.’" I say.
“So it doesn’t matter?”
“If I don’t do this, nothing happens at all. The words stay locked in my head, and nothing reaches anyone.”
“So it does matter?”
“Oh shut up."

Show. Tell. Talk. Act. They're all important. And we’ll all do it differently. This dance between speaking our truths, and acting on them, is a fluid, ever-changing energy, and really can't be constrained to a rulebook of specifics.

It's frustrating to admit, but most of our decisions are born from intuition rather than logic. Behind all the words and all the actions is a mysterious drive, a spark, a shadow of an idea that pushes us towards speaking or acting, and I don’t really know how much control we have over that. I heard an interview with a writer this week, and she was asked about her process, the rules she followed for writing her books.

She said that no system has ever worked for her. She said that the words come, and all she can do is write, and observe what she is writing, and make sure she believes it, and then edit appropriately.

Which I thought was wonderful, because I can’t do systems either. For writing or for living. But I can try to stay open to intuition, and respond with both words and actions, and then observe it all, and make changes, and keep growing.

I stare over my empty glass with a sigh, and the shadow-idea stares back.

“Is it enough?” I ask, a bit hopelessly.

The shadow leans forward, places a hand on mine, and smiles. “It’s enough."

The "inspirational writer"

This week Rach and I attended a book launch for a dear friend of ours, John Woodhouse, whose book I had designed. It's an enormous art book, so the launch was also a one-night exhibition, with framed proofs of images from the book up on walls for purchase. A few hundred people attended - artists, collectors, models, restauranteurs, business owners, photographers, writers - the group was extraordinarily diverse.

As we mingled and flowed around the artworks, we would strike up conversations with strangers, sharing what we loved about a particular piece on the wall, or what we loved about John. Just as each artwork was born out of nothing, each of our conversations and connections were now doing the same thing. Nothing into something. I was loving the evening.

A half-hour into the event, I was being introduced to someone, and it went like this:

“Nathan is a writer - he writes inspirational words… He’s an inspirational writer. You write inspirational words too, don’t you? Beautiful. You two should talk..”

And we talked. My new friend quickly clarified that no, she’s not an “inspirational writer,” she just writes as honestly as she can, and she hasn’t even done that much lately. And I qualified myself too, explaining that I don’t even understand the term, but it didn’t sound as complimentary as I’m sure it was intended. “Inspirational” sounds like some kind of advertising angle, or self-help guru. Here, have a warm fuzzy to get you through your day.

Not that it matters, really. In writing, in art, in life, we all do things, and everyone else makes it mean something for themselves, and we have very little control over it.

Sometimes the things people conclude about us are complimentary, and we feel great about ourselves. Other times, it’s hard judgement, and we feel horrid. Either way, us humans seem to have this uncanny habit of subscribing to it.

We just go there, immediately.

“She said I was rude to her friends! What a bitch!”
“He called me fat! He’s so mean… but he’s right, I think.”
“They gave me an award! I. Am. Amazing!”
“I didn’t win the award! I'm so crap and talentless.”
“She told me I’m boring… I am so boring.”
“2000 likes! I am so popular!”
“Only 39 likes.. I am such a nobody."
"There's a comment on my feed about my face. Am I ugly?"

We take these tiny comments from others, and we blow them up, we call them truth, and we put so much head and heart space into them. We subscribe.

There is a character in episode five of BJ Novak’s wonderful new show, The Premise, who describes her Instagram commenters as truth-tellers. "They are objectively right” she declares, because they are distant and don’t know her, so can’t be subjective. And her own voice doesn’t matter, because she is too close to herself, so can’t be objective.

Obviously it’s pretty extreme to write off the opinions of anyone who actually knows us, and trust only in the opinions of strangers. But it’s equally extreme to only believe ourselves, our “inner voice” and ignore any praise or criticism from others: how would we ever grow?

So where do we land, then? If everyone is just doing their best to fill in the gaps of their understanding of each other, no-one is going to get it right. We’re all essentially playing Marco Polo in the dark, hoping someone will guide us towards our best selves.

There is a well-known phrase in storytelling, “show don’t tell,” that encourages the writer to let the character come to life through their ACTIONS, not through any words the writer might say about them. If the character is brave, for example, we don’t write “Emily was a brave woman.” Instead we place Emily in a situation that elicits a response, and when she acts bravely, the audience draws the insight of bravery for themselves. The words aren’t truth. The action is truth.

Extending the concept, if Emily were to SAY something like “I am so brave,” it would also not mean anything until she acts. If she says “I’m fun” or “I’m so boring” or “I am not rude” or even “I am inspirational,” none of the words really matter.

Once she acts, then the audience knows the truth. She has to SHOW, not TELL.

To combat all the words, the judgements, the criticisms, the praise, perhaps we could just turn down the volume, and NOT subscribe. Perhaps we can use all that energy that we would have used to reply, defend, share, amplify and put it towards DOING something. Just doing the things that resonate with who we want to be.

People can call me an “inspirational writer” and they can call me a “shallow romantic dreamer.” They can say I’m a super privileged white man, and they can say I’m too young and optimistic. They can even say I’m a bad father, while others tell me I’m dad-of-the-year. And then I can say even more things about myself, just to try and keep up with it all.

But the best thing I can do, and the only thing that can really make any impact, is this:

KNOW what I think is important in life.
DO things that support that.

For me, here’s what I think is important:

I think we are all built to witness - to interpret our world and each other. We are built to inspire, encourage, excite and inform each other.

So when somebody makes what I say or do MEAN something for them, even if it’s different to what I intended, I will try and be interested, instead of defensive. They've seen something I haven't, and it could be useful for me to hear it, without taking out a whole subscription to the idea.

Because I’m still learning about myself, it’s all just words anyway, and tomorrow I’ll be getting right back into the truth-doing.

Haben Girma

This week, Rach was speaking at a two-day online conference run by the incredible Mary Freer, called Compassion Revolution. Seth Godin was speaking too, but the really intriguing human that was sharing the stage with Rach was a woman named Haben Girma.

Haben is a deafblind woman of colour, the first deafblind person in history to graduate from Harvard Law School. She chats with presidents, advocates for greater human and disability rights, and is beautiful and funny and gracious. She delivered a keynote over zoom that got us all thinking deeply about our biases and identities and potential.

Incidentally, for those who, like Haben, are reading this post (yep, it’s possible) I am a tallish white male in my forties, currently folded into the back corner of a coffeeshop with a notebook and a laptop. I’m wearing a dark blue t-shirt that is splashed with white flowers that have pink edges. There are so many humans around me, but I can’t hear them, because I have headphones on, listening to “Games” by Bakermat. The music is joyful and melancholic, and feels like someone is shaking both your hands, but in time to your heartbeat, so that your whole body bounces in rhythm to your pulse.

Anyway, the morning after the conference, Rach and I are sitting in bed drinking coffee and she says simply, “my Instagram is ableist.”

I ask her what that even means, and she explains that without choosing to, without even thinking about it, she has built a collection of imagery and art that only those with sight can enjoy. There are videos whose auto-captions would barely make sense to someone without hearing who rely completely on captions.

“That’s hardly ableist, though.” I say, trying to defend her honour or something, “It’s not like you’re deliberately marginalising anyone.”

She stares into her cup, the steam backlit by the early sunlight. “But that’s the thing. It’s not deliberate, but it is ignorant. I’m being lazy, Nath, because I’m comfortable doing things the way I’ve always done them.”

“So it’s ignorant ableism, then?”

“Yeah, I think it is. By not even thinking about inclusion, we are by default EX-cluding people."

This is how we talk sometimes. Big concepts (at least big to me), just casually introduced at 5am before the caffeine has even kicked in. I try to keep up. “How can your Instagram be more inclusive then?”

And she comes alive. Descriptions for each of her artworks, captions that are accurate, commentary on the visuals of our white papers, multi-sensory experiences. And then I get excited too, and together we come up with all these ideas around experiential art exhibitions, better websites and identity descriptors, and other stuff that just feels powerful to talk about.

We talk about community, how it has always shined the brightest through service. Helping, lifting, sharing, encouraging, contributing, they’re all elemental traits that build humanity. Though all of us prefer comfort, as soon as we react to someone else’s need, we feel a sense of forward motion for humanity. Like we actually contributed to a meaningful story.

I know right now this is talk not action, but the talking helps remove the ignorance. It shines a torchlight in a corner that I forget to look at. Ignorant ableism is absolutely a thing I do. Along with ignorant racism, climatism, sexism, and every other big conversation. I just don’t know what I don’t know, and that’s a whole lot.

And, I don’t know what to do, all the time. What the right things are, the best way to act, etc. But I do know that I’m built for this: for learning, growing, serving, assisting. We’re all built for it. My challenge is to stay aware, and to not be fearful of the discomfort as I learn and grow. Because finding ways to lift each other up and value everyone equally is soul-edifying, it is life-giving, and it is absolutely human.

Learn more about Haben, and buy her memoir, at www.habengirma.com

More about Compassion Revolution: www.compassionrevolution.care

One year

A year ago, Rach and I got married. In a beautiful mess of laughter and tears and kisses, we put rings on fingers, made vows and commitments, and danced through the night. It was a powerful day, a chapter shift, a line-in-the-sand for us. A rebirth.

Today we are in a little cabin on Prevelly beach, a few hours south of Perth. This campsite is special to us now - we tented here for our honeymoon, and are back for our anniversary. It's 5:30 in the morning, and Rach is still asleep. The walls of the cabin are kind of magical - they seem solid, but they let in every bit of the chill from outside, so I'm already awake. Rach of course is completely content in a 5-degree climate, but I can't feel my toes.

There is a pigeon somewhere outside, who has been releasing a slow and rhythmic chant solidly for the last hour, like a priestly mantra, covering the campsite in a resonant blessing: "whooot... whooot... whooot..." There are finches at the window, back for more breadcrumbs, and I can just hear the distant crash of the tide on rocks.

If I'm honest, it's not just my frozen toes that are keeping me awake. I'm thinking too much. And there is some fear, too. It's been a year since we married, five years all up since we even met. We stripped away all our security and careers and started a whole new life together, and it's been mind-bogglingly amazing. And impossibly hard. We started with love, a love that immediately sunk deep into our cores, and has held us together through all the things.

But in these early hours, I sometimes wonder if love is enough. This is a world of hustle and progress, where we have to make real-life grown-up decisions every day. We have to work and provide for our family, and do all the responsible life things. Am I being naive to make "love" my life's priority?

The pigeon continues to whoot, and I carefully roll myself out of bed. My toes are mutinous, avoiding the cold floorboards so that I am waddling on my heels and the sides of my feet. I penguin my way across to my shoes and pull them on, barely keeping my balance, then step out into the morning.

It's cold outside, but no colder than inside, thanks to our magical cabin walls. On this day a year ago it was not as cold, but I remember Rach and I watching the sky all day, watching the clouds gather closer and darker over our outdoor ceremony space. We would look up to the sky, and then look at each other, and then one of us would remind the other "hey, I love you," and we would agree that no, the clouds won't break our day, and that yes, we would totally do our first dance in the rain.

It did rain in the end, but later on when everyone was inside. And we did dance in the rain, just a bit, before running for cover.

The beach is only a couple of minutes walk from the cabin, not enough to actually warm up, so I find myself too soon stationary again, standing at the shoreline with arms wrapped around arms like an octopus in a straight jacket, my eyes on the horizon. I can't hear the pigeon's blessing anymore, just the ocean's soft applause, and the fizz of the tide soaking into the sand at my feet.

I stare into the horizon, a blinding white that splits the blues of ocean and sky, and send my questions across the waters:

"Have I made the right choices for my wife and kids?"
"Am I being responsible enough?"
"Am I putting too much faith in love?"
"Am I a good husband?"

In the bright silence, I wonder if there even are answers for such questions. I close my eyes and slow my breathing and try and listen anyway.

I hear the fizz of the tide. A seagull cawing overhead. The slap and crash of waves on rocks.

I hear Rach, a year ago today, reading her vows to me. She declares her security is in our love. She says she is so proud of the way we forge our lives together. She tells me I am her home, and it is a joy to build it together. She says we are a shiny mess of potential, and that we live our lives in uncertainty, and that is what allows such an exaltation of our spirits.

I hear the ocean's applause.

--

Rach finds me a little later on the front porch of our cabin. The sunlight is stronger now, but I am still wrapped in a blanket. Her toes seem completely content out here in the chill. She nuzzles her face into my neck, and then peers over to the notebook on my lap. I've copied out a page from Kahlil Gibran's "The Prophet", and she smiles in recognition as she reads:

You have been told also that life is darkness...
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself,
and to one another, and to God.

Subplots

When I think of my life, I mostly see stories. The past, with its memories and experiences. The future, all hopes and dreams. And the present, where I try and direct my story so that I get things I want in life. Basically.

This isn’t a new revelation or anything, and we all do it. It’s fundamentally human to arrange our lives into stories, and it’s how we end up connecting with other humans: we share our experiences and we listen to others’ share theirs. I'll ask you about love, and you might start with something intellectual, but you’ll end up referencing a personal experience.

If I ask about shame, it would be the same thing. Or laughter, or God, or book reading, trees, swimming pools, fresh bread, sleep, Sonic the Hedgehog.. No matter what the subject is, you and I will both head to the library in our heads and find the book that connects to the topic, and we’ll share it.

I have friends who are amazing at accessing the right book at the right moment. For any subject or topic, they can just grab the relevant book off their mental shelf and share their story. They are some of the most entertaining humans I know.

I tend to meander through my library. I’m not quick to grab the obvious book, because for me there isn’t one. There are ten. You say “swimming pool” and I reach for the books about "gasping for air," “summer nights,” “whirlpools with neighbours,” "skinny dipping in Los Angeles" and "favourite kitchen designs."

And the older we get, the more stories gather in our mental bookshelves. Stories and opinions and insights and memories. We have galaxies in us.

But here's where it falls apart. As magical as our brains are at cataloguing all this data, it's still a bloody big bookshelf. And, if we're honest with ourselves, our cataloguing system is a complete mess. With every new experience, we toss another book onto the pile. It's easy to start looking at our lives as an eclectic mix of disconnected experiences.

For my story coaching clients, our greatest challenge is almost always this one: to craft meaningful plot lines out of all the random experiences and ideas of life. Without curating and arranging the stories, the whole thing becomes noise.

I have a dear friend who recently shared with me how much of her life feels like noise. She said she has been working on so many subplots in her life that she can't even find a central plot anymore. She had invested her life into the side-hustle of her children, for example, and suddenly realised she had lost her self in the process.

Kids are a big one, but it’s not only the “children” subplot that can take us over. We give so much time to our work, our hobbies, our partner, our responsibilities, our health, our studies, that it’s no surprise we lose our hold on a “central plot” for our lives. In fact, for many of us, we would struggle to even be able to define a Central Plot. We may have had aspirations at one time in our lives, but now we're just living in subplots, filling the gaps with smaller stories.

I'm not saying that living a life of subplots is bad. In storytelling, subplots exist to add dimension to our narrative, and to our identity. They keep our life stories interesting, they allow us to learn more about stuff and things. Subplots are awesome.

Except, when we lose control of them. Except when we forget they are SUB plots and start thinking they are our EVERYTHING plot.

What I mean is this: in a great story, every subplot will serve the overarching Central Plot. Ideally, a subplot would push us along the path of our Central Plot, with great pieces of conflict and challenges and choices to make. A really good subplot can even launch us into our Central Plot, and get our greatest life stories happening.

But, there must be a relationship between the plots to hold the story together. If the audience cannot find a unity between the subplots and the Central Plot, then it disengages, and the plots split into confusion. I've felt this way so often over the years. The confusion of disconnected plot lines.

I think we are called to BE someone. Not just DO a whole lot of disconnected subplots, but to BE someone. We are each valuable and powerful souls, journeying through this life growing into ourselves, daily becoming. Who we are, as individuals, matters to the world. Who we want to become, matters.

My own Central Plot is (of course) a work in progress, but I know that I am heading towards a greater capacity to love, and to receive love. To write, and create in a way that pulls humanity towards freedom and hope. To support, listen and empower others. To dive deep into story philosophy and then share the bits that matter when the time is right. To be a joyful wide-eyed soul in the world. All of that.

And there are subplots that push me along that path, that add meaning to my days. But there are also subplots that distract me, that split my story into confusion. Each time I discover one, I have to seek help, try to rewrite or remove it.

I know this is a strange post. You're probably trying to decide if it goes on the "self help" shelf or in the "confusing musings" corner. Wherever it lands in your library, I hope it can be helpful when the confusion arises, as a reminder that the things that matter to you, actually do matter.

Human(kind)

I am in a candle-lit corner of Mrs Brown, a late-night bar in North Fremantle. The sofa is at least a four-seater - I’m snuggled in to one corner, and way over on the other end, a stranger is drinking his wine very slowly, taking turns reading his phone and then staring up at the wallpaper, a tangled illustration of ivy and vintage lilies.

Across the room, an older couple are having what looks like a fascinating conversation, their noses about four inches away from each other. Their hands are as twined as the wallpaper ivy, and they look happy.

Against the wall two exceptionally good looking humans are drinking something bubbly and resting their chins in their hands, taking turns sharing stories and nodding with deep knowing nods.

Closer to me, a group of men are laughing hard, slapping backs and buying rounds. They were talking about redundancies and the price of gold last I listened.

I came in here a half hour ago to write, and I haven't written a thing. I tried to be intelligent, then funny, then whimsical, then disciplined, but, nothing. It’s hard to gather momentum at nine o’clock at night. Rach and I were up at five this morning, so I suppose that doesn’t help things.

So, here I am in my couch corner, drinking my own wine very slowly, with nothing to say. I reach for my headphones, close my eyes, tune out the voices, and turn up Phoebe Killdeer.

The bass line kicks me over the edge, and I start to observe instead of define. The flickering candlelight plays warm over faces, it lights up eyes, casts dancing shadows against the encyclopaedias on the bookshelves.

There are pockets in this place, not light-and-dark so much as thermal energies. Spiritual warmth, or something. The back-slapping guys are deeply interested in each other. Solid eye-contact, edge-of-the-seat leaning-ins, the works. Nobody cuts another off, they each take turns to speak. They are gentlemen souls, wrapped in rough exteriors. The older couple at the fireplace are themselves embers, holding a deep heat crafted over years of attention to the coals.

I watch the room from behind the rim of my glass, a curious wallflower, and I think back to something I heard Hugh Mackay speak about recently. He said that good news is everywhere, but it is the BAD news that gets the screentime, because good news isn't "newsworthy." He said that kindness is everywhere, happening all the time, but it will never make the news.

The distant man on the other end of the sofa stands to leave, and realises that I'm in his way. His looks down at me, momentarily confused, brows beginning to scrunch together, clearly stuck. I smile, tuck my knees up, and nod him past, and his face becomes human: wide grin, laugh-line-crinkles, nods of appreciation. I swear he almost hugged me. I didn't even take my headphones off and we could have hugged goodbye.

That moment won't make the news. Even though it proves our inherent human disposition towards kindness and connection, it won't be reported because it's just not newsworthy. It's commonplace, everyday. And we're all far more interested in the bad news.

And right here is the tension of my whole professional existence: I want things like kindness and human connection to be the news, to be talked about, celebrated, applauded and encouraged. But everything I know about life and story says that nobody will care. Hell, I won't even care - not if there is a "bad news story" competing for my attention.

As far as attention goes, conflict is king. Successful marketing demands we "start with the problem." Storytelling 101 says "a story needs conflict." News reporting needs conflict, or viewers will change the channel. Advertising first convinces us that we have a problem, and then it sells us the solution.

With all these influences, we have become attuned to conflict, to the drama of bad news, and we forget what we are meant to do with it. We forget why conflict even exists in the first place.

In storytelling, conflict exists to draw out a response. We call it an "inciting incident," that forces a character to make a choice, to respond in some way. We present our protagonist with some bad news, and see how they will react to it. If the response is kindness, then that kindness is more meaningful because of the difficult context.

The bad news calls the good news into action.

I think in real life we often stop too early in our story. We hit the conflict (ours or someone else's) and we stop reading, as if THAT'S the whole story. But that's the story just getting started. It's the next chapters that are transformational. How will the the character respond? Who will they become? Is there still hope?

As I walk out of the bar I realise I am surrounded by good news stories. None will be aired, but like Mackay said, these stories are everywhere. Kindness and connection are an inherent part of us.

And if I can remember all this when the conflict comes, then I might allow the kindness to be called into action, and perhaps I too will contribute to the greatest narrative of all: being human.

Giving voice to the radio waves

Hemmingway once said "write drunk edit sober," which I love. Not that I often do exactly that, but the idea of freewriting is a strong one - that open-minded, hold-it-lightly, stream-of-consciousness that just plucks words out of the ether and tosses them to the page.

So, this post is a freewrite. I'd normally refine it, simplify it, whatever, but after reading it I thought it would be most authentic to just leave it as is.

Enjoy.
__________

What if everything is just flowing through us like radio waves all the time?
Energy and creation, messages from God, voices from the past.
And what if most of us, most of the time, were just oblivious to it?

The few who are sensitive to certain frequencies would “see” something that others don’t. They would “feel” something. An intuition, a 6th sense, a premonition, a prophecy.

In the pentecostal church I grew up in, we were encouraged to reach our senses out, stretch our sensitivity to “discern” spiritual movements in the world. And we did, and we felt stuff. We saw things, and heard things, we dreamt dreams and saw visions.

I have a friend who sees feathers. Not “I see dead people.. and feathers” kind of thing, but she just notices them. A feather in the wind, a feather on the ground, a feather in a doorway. She is very aware of feathers, and she assigns meaning to them. It's never just a happenstance, when a feather appears. The moment is elevated, and my friend feels seen and known by forces greater than herself. I see way more feathers now too.

I have another friend who feels the darkness someone else is holding. He says it's like a black wave, like ink, and when he gets that feeling be becomes more interested in the person, more attuned to their words, their fears and masks. And when the time is right, he calls it out. He asks them about their darkness, and they respond with surprise and relief, and they leave with a lot less ink in their waters.

I’ve been wondering whether this might actually be the masterplan for us humans: That we each see different things, interpreting the same event in an entirely unique and personal way, so that together we can be a full-spectrum community. I see X in that event, and you see Y, and instead of arguing that only one is correct, we consider that both frequencies are valid. An attitude like this would allow us to paint all the dimensions of something that would otherwise be limited to our single-perspective shape.

Like, if a giant cylindrical pyramid landed on its side in the desert, and there were two groups of people, one at the south end, and one at the west end. Those in the south would declare that what they see in the distance is absolutely a circle. Those in the West would say it’s definitely without a doubt a triangle. If neither group moves, then no amount of conversation between them would result in a change of opinion. They both have the absolute truth, and therefore the other options must be false.

It’s a dimension thing, and a perspective thing.

The solution of course is simple. Somebody leaves their fixed viewpoint and takes a journey of discovery. They do a lap of the cylindrical pyramid and realise that there are other dimensions in play. And when they return, they can share with the others the new, broader, wider truth:

That both sides were true, and neither had the whole truth.

But in our lives, we often can't move. We're stuck in our spots, and when we hear of new perspectives it's very hard for us to shift our understanding to believe it. Even when someone who has taken that journey of discovery explains it to us. But I think it's our unique privilege to try.

Perhaps what makes us human is our ability to intuit, to NOT take a “fact” at face value. To ask of everything, not “what is happening?” but “what do I make this mean?”

To incline our hearts towards the radio waves, and allow everything flowing through us to have a voice.

In story, we know that truth is NOT the facts. Nobody really cares about the facts. The audience is not here for the facts. That is just information. What the audience is most interested, in, and what we all actually need the most from each other, is an understanding of what we made the facts mean.

Meaning is not found in a list of facts, but in every unique and differing perspective of humanity. None of us alone can build a complete picture of our world.

We need each other.

Flexing emotions

In my late teens, I discovered the wonderful world of gossip.

At the time I had no idea that that was what I was engaging in, but it absolutely was. I had friends who told me things, in private, to be kept secret, and I had other friends who asked me things about those private conversations. And when I shared these little details, my listeners became deliciously attentive. A sinister and attractive connection arose between us, where I would share information, and they would respond in wonder and delight.

“Nathan, you’re good friends with Beth, hey? Has she told you who she has a crush on? Is it Michael?”
“Uh, yeah, she’s been flirting with Michael, but he’s not the one she actually likes.”
(Gasping) “Oh reeeeally? Then, who is it? It’s so cool that you know, when none of us do!”
“Well, it’s Ben. She actually loves Ben, and is just using Mike to get closer to Ben.”
“OMG! Wow. Isn’t that so interesting? And gosh, poor Michael, because, doesn’t he like her??”
“Yeah, he does. He’s in love with Beth, but she’s in love with Ben, and.. you know what?”
“Yes? What?”
“Ben just told me he's is in love with Kate.”
“Noooooooo!!!”
“Yeah.”

And so on. I didn’t even consider the moral fallout. At 16 years old, I was still new to this world, I was still learning, I was naive. I was firmly in the present moment, and every other moment was just collateral damage.

These conversations went on for months, I’m ashamed to say. Beautiful faces with nice-smelling hair were paying me so much attention, actively seeking me out, pulling me aside, asking me what I know about others. And every time I shared something, their eyes would grow wide, their delicate hands would stroke my arm, and I felt warm feelings everywhere.

I had no idea that with each interaction, I was building an identity for myself. That I was becoming someone untrustworthy.

Anyway, with all the attention, and the warm feelings, and the pretty faces, I was never going to change. I was a wide-eyed deer enjoying all the shiny headlights. Until Maddie-day.

It was a weekend, and we had just finished our usual catchup: my friend Maddie is innocently asking me all about my friends’ secrets, and I'm spilling the beans. But then, instead of giving me the warm eyes and arm-strokes I’d become accustomed to, she goes dark. She pauses, with this smug smile on her face, and says bluntly,

“Nathan, you know that none of us girls would ever share our own secrets with you, don’t you?"

And it was my turn to go wide-eyed. I didn’t know what to say, but my foolish 16-year-old face forced a smile, and I asked “Why is that?”

“Because, dear, you are a gossip. All the girls just talk to you because you tell them your friends’ secrets. No one here actually trusts you at all.” She smiles again, gives a little “and that’s that” shrug, and trots off.

I was stunned. Every conversation from the past six months crowded back into my brain, and I started piecing together the looks, the hugs, the interest, and all the words I spoke so foolishly. She was right, of course, but in that moment all I could think was “Maddie is so mean. So rude. I hate her.”

I walked away, and stopped talking to her. But, I also stopped talking to everyone else too. The next time someone asked me to share some secrets, I would simply say “ah, that is a very good question, and one that is not mine to answer!”

For a long while, I didn’t get the excited looks from the pretty faces with nice hair. I didn’t get arm-rubs and eyelash-batting. I just wasn’t interesting anymore.

After another long while, things started to change again. New faces would lean in, and whisper their confessionals. I would nod sometimes, and cry with them sometimes. It became my hand that rubbed their shoulder, my eyes that grew wide, my head that would shake slowly. A soft trusting connection would form, and it was now me trying to make them feel warmer.

I really don’t know what made Maddie say what she did. I despised her for saying it, but in hindsight I see a deep intuition that neither of us were old enough to own. As painful as her words were to me, they were true, and they saved me.

I realise now that what I was doing was what story theorist Robert McKee would describe as “flexing emotions.” He explains that stories resonate in us because we all want to "visit another world, and be illuminated." We want to "use our minds in fresh and experimental ways, flex our emotions.” A story is a safe place for us to exercise all of the feelings, because in the end, it’s not really happening to us, but we can hold the feels for a while.

What the naive 16-year-old me was trying to do was really the same thing: I was holding other people’s relationships, feelings, lives. I was flexing my emotions vicariously through other humans' stories, like a commentator at a football game who never actually picks up a football. What Maddie did was force me into my own story. I had to experience my own emotions, with all the highs and lows that go with them. It was far more difficult than running commentary, but also, more rewarding.

Reading a great book, or watching an engaging TV series, or scrolling through everyone else's social media stories, all help us to flex our emotions. We visit another world, and try to find some illumination. Spending time listening and retelling each other's stories is exactly the same: we are in another's world, and vicariously feeling what they feel.

Our challenge, in fact one of our greatest challenges in life I believe, is to know what to do with the story once we have heard it.

A below-the-line response to a story is passive, reactive, gossip. We sit back and enjoy it all, and then we might perhaps reshare it, someone else's moment, and pretend that their feelings are ours.

But, an above-the-line response is entirely different. It's active. It seeks meaning and connection and illumination. It makes it personal. When it reshares, it doesn't need to share the story verbatim, but the insights gained from the story.

Stories are not meant to provide an ESCAPE from life. They are meant to help us FIND life. To find new perspectives and emotions and insights for our own lives and relationships. The goal of the storyteller has always been AUDIENCE TRANSFORMATION, and in our real lives, we can actively choose that path: every story we hear can transform us. From cinema hits to heart-journeys of loved ones, we can visit these other worlds, flex our emotions, and bring back some illumination.

And that illumination is ours, it is truth, and is exactly what the world does need to hear from us.