JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

What makes life worth living? Stories.

But a story has to be told. It almost demands to be told.
– Andi at Ditch the Raft [found via Annie at Ambivablog]

…what motivates people are stories…Narratives speak to the inner spirit…in short, they help us to become the people we want to be.
– Harvey Cox in When Jesus Came to Harvard

Read the raw notes from Shel Israel’s interview with Lenn Pryor on The Red Couch blog. What stands out? What do I remember days later? The stories. The night Robert Scoble thought the fire alarm was the Pryors’ door bell. Lenn’s Nyquil haze that led to an epiphany in the shower. Lenn and Robert ignoring most of Michael Jordan’s last appearance with the Sonics so they could brainstorm together during the game.

Stories explain our past. They explain our present. Stories link our lives.

Mike Casdra quoted the remarks of Nintendo President Satoru Iwata, speaking at a recent convention.

But after class, when my friends went back to their rooms to study, I took off on my motorcycle for one retail store in Tokyo. This was the first store to have a department entirely dedicated to personal computers. That was my hangout—and I was not alone. There were others there who also looked at those early computers, and thought the same thing I did—how could we play games on them? We became friends … formed a club …and soon rented an apartment in the Ahkihabara district of Tokyo, where we began designing our own games.

Stories let me step into someone else’s shoes and get a hug.

Janelle shared what happened when her husband came home from his five-month deployment on the USS Lincoln.

Every time the ship comes back I get a picture in my mind of what it will be like when I see him for the first time in months. I don’t know if everyone does this, but I get a little picture in my head (no, I don’t picture the lame sappy thing where we run towards each other with outstretched arms…). I can see the people around us but once I see him it’s like things move in slow motion and we just grin and put an extra speed in our step and once we meet it’s like a movie where there’s music playing and we kiss for a long time…blah blah blah. Of course it never happens that way. He inevitably has duty on the day they pull-in where he has to stay on the ship or he’ll have the last watch where he has to shut everything down (that’s what happened this time). Because of this he’s gotten out of wearing his dress uniform just about every time. He gets off the ship, there are so many people that I don’t see him until he’s practically right in front of me, we can’t stop in the middle of the rush of people so I get a big hug for a few seconds and then we have to keep moving.
We did hold hands though…

Stories intrigue us.

Betsy Devine’s post celebrating the billion-second-iversary of her marriage to Frank Wilczek hinted at a number of intriguing episodes. For example, why did they get married in traffic court?! And what were the two white mice doing in their apartment four months later? Were they pests? Experiments? Relatives of Stuart Little? As Betsy listed the significant seconds of their wedded life in powers-of-ten-iversaries, I confess I became curious. I want to hear more stories…

Speaking of married couples, mysteries and histories, here’s Ali Hewson explaining ‘Why my marriage to Bono works’. According to my calculations and information in the article, the Hewsons have been married approximately 725 million seconds, but have known each other for almost a billion. Perhaps Betsy and Frank should show Bono and Ali how to celebrate with rave rings and chocolates! 😉 Now that would be a story…