We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live

"Everyone has their own story"

Said Kavita looking out at the Singapore River. It was her birthday. April 4th. A good night. She talked about her life, her loves and about her beliefs. As usual, I loved hearing her story. But then again, I have always loved stories.

As a child I hated eating. My parents, being enterprising souls, discovered that I would forget my inate hatred for all forms of sustenance ingestion if I was sufficiently distracted by a story. Perhaps it was then that I began loving a good yarn. Or perhaps they just awakened in me a dormant desire for a tale, any tale.

Of course, it wasn't long till I discovered books. To me they were treasures beyond compare. Heaven would be a library, I thought (of course Hell/Purgatory would be a place where I had to eat all the food I had wasted...or so Mummy said).

Growing up I thought everyone would have their Story. Like in the books, Stories would just happen to us. We would all have a Story with a beginning, a middle and an end. Our Stories would not encompass our lives, but our lives before the Story would be just a preparation period, a dress rehearsal of sorts. I couldn't wait for my Story to start. I thought it would be poignant, a trifle sad perhaps but full of courage, loyalty and dramatic moments. It would be peppered with personalities, strong and true, each unique in his/her own way.

My story did start, of course. Or at least I thought it did when I came to Singapore. Or when I was 11 years old and met a wonderful guy. Or when I stepped into NUS after a long and hard struggle. Or in my third year in NUS. Or on a bus in KL while at a debating tournament. But there never was a middle and never the kind of end a story has. Try as I might I couldn't create a story.

But stories and real life are not the same thing; one merely wears the trappings of the other, a gauzy disguise born of the need to make a story seem real. For in real life, things happen without causality or continuity; deaths occur, people disappear namelessly. Events just happen, often without rhyme or reason. We struggle with this lack of sense in the events of our lives, we persist in asking why though no answer may exist.

Instead of recognising events that happen to us as mere random occurrences, our minds instead want plot, "a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality." We put reason and explanation to mere events; instead of "the king died and then the queen died," we place in memory "the king died and then the queen died of grief."

We tell ourselves stories in order to live

We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five

Thus, I am not alone in trying to impose a narrative on the random events that happen in my life. After all, I am not alone in loving a good tale. Throughout the ages, man has revered storytellers; as is apparent in the exorbitant wages we pay those who aid in the weaving of stories (i.e. movie stars).

I suppose loving stories is only a step away from wanting to create them. And a beautiful story (without the usual cliches) can only be created from memory or rather the memory of moments. After all, my favourite stories from my childhood were stories Mummy told of her childhood. I especially loved the story about the light... how the light came on when a terrified, scarred child stepped into the house that was to be her refuge for years to come and sometimes her children's refuge too.

I looked out at the River. It glowed obsidian in the moonlight. I thought of my stories. April 4th. There was a story there too. It had a beginning... a rambunctious, confident, mischievous baby. It had a middle... an angry, irresolute, ungrateful, unkind teenager. What was the end?

I realised then that I did not have a Story. I had Stories. They had beginnings and they had middles with credible and original dramatic arcs. What they lacked were endings. And that was my fault, my sheer cowardice and blind hope that the ending would be different, but the stories have ended. If I did not want to close the books, it was my fault.

And so one day, I closed my eyes and closed the books of all the stories that have ended.

I closed the book on the story that started when I was a pensive, serious child of 11 in a foreign land, the middle of which was filled with electric talks, pictionary games and crossword puzzles.

I closed the book that started on a bus in a debating tournament in KL. Another story started there.

I closed the book which ended the next morning with a cowardly retreat. Everything after did not form a part of the story. Gone was the need for fake smiles or further resolution. There was only the memory of a craven heart.

I closed the book of the faithless, feckless friends who were fun but would never have your back and thus would contribute nothing to the greater story except further, unnecessary pain.

And last of all I sorrowfully closed the book on the lack of forgiveness and anger of the one I had loved and cared most about in the world. Yes I was strict with you. I loved you so much, you see. Didn't I always have your back? Wasn't I strong and true? Did I not forgive? Perhaps one day you will forgive me and yourself. I cannot really hope for the day. But if that happens, we will start another story, you and I. And maybe this time it will be magnificent.

And sometimes remembering will lead to a story, which makes it forever. That's what stories are for. Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story.