Our Fictional Lives

Our Fictional Lives

Airports are libraries.

Sitting at a table eating overpriced Chili’s chips and making small talk. Walking from gate to gate with coworkers. Starting a shift at the TSA. Sorting bags.

Each day thousands of stories check-in and checkout from the airport.

But unlike your neighborhood library all of the books on the shelves at the airport are fiction.

With Each Heartbeat

human-heartbeatWe each serve as the narrator in an unwritten best selling novel in which we’re both the protagonist and the antagonist.

Unfulfilled.

Arrogant.

Proud.

Satisfied.

Humble.

Meek.

Kind.

Cruel.

We are monsters.

We are kings.

We are champions.

We overcome.

We stumble.

We despair.

We are desperate.

We are fat.

We are an athlete.

We’re buffoons.

We are savage.

We are superhero.

We are a moment away from being a millionaire.

We are a moment away from being on the streets.

We are loved.

We are lonely.

7 Inch Novel

A Metal RulerWe live the fiction of our lives, a narrative in our heads, pursuing what we want, neglecting things in pursuit of what we want, utterly blind of dimension for the things we miss or our impact. And it all plays out in the 7 inches between our ears.

We see what we want to see.

We filter the days events to fit our storyline.

That’s the point.

It’s easy to label. It’s easy to presuppose. It’s easy to look at each person as a supporting character in your own narrative.

But to do that is to misconstrue reality to fit your own needs. To do that is monstrous.

The Human Form

05_anatomist_fullsize

Because we are all human. We are all the narrators of the greatest story ever told, our own.

I’m the main character in my story. And you are the main character in your story.

Other people are not extras.

Each is a story.

Each is the greatest fiction tale never published.

We are whole. We are unfinished. We are published. We are unpublished. We are known. We are unknown.

But we are all fully human.

We all have equal worth.

And, while we are largely unseen by one another.

We are seen.

Cover photo credit: At the airport by Andreas Schalk via Flickr (Creative Commons)

Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

Leave a Reply