Slouching Toward Nosiness

So the award for best book title ever, in my opinion, goes to Joan Didion for We Tell Ourselves Stories to Live.  Didion's title is tops because it is both mellifluous (listen to the rhythm of it, breath triplet triplet stab) and true: stories are the stuff of us, what fuels us through the long months and deaths and generations, what keeps us running (our mouths).

So why don't we tell more of them?  And I don't mean manufacture, mind you.  There are plenty of prefab stories available for consumption on your television set, but they are, in general, assembly line productions, designed and crafted specifically to get you to drop some cash.  No, I mean not-for-profit stories, stories made from natural materials, organic stories, stories that are still alive.

I mean you, people.   I want you to blog.

Aren't there enough bloggers in the world, you ask?  Aren't there enough people who think they have something to say?  Well, yes.  But most of them are fourteen years old and have attention spans the size of peas.  You, on the other hand, are lovely, literate folk who appreciate cheese, and I wanna poke my nose into your narratives.

I hear, on cue, the collective whine: It takes effort!  It takes time!  I am very busy and important!  To which I say, is there anything more important that living?  And if, as the best title ever indicates, we tell ourselves stories to live, the clear implication is that, without stories, we're dead.  So get telling!  It's lonely out here.