I want to share one paragraph from the Introduction to my new book, which I hope to publish in the next two months: The Way of Myth: Stories' Subtle Wisdom. I have been working on it since March, 2020 when the pandemic hit. The paragraph, I hope, stirs some thoughts in you about your own narrative self. Here it is:
"Stories define us; some of them try to destroy us; others bolster our sense of ourselves and our relation to others. Pay attention to the kinds of stories that draw you into them, as into an interactive field, and you will garner indications of who you once were, are now, and who you aspire to be. Stories aid us in remembering ourselves as well. How often in reading a story--ancient, classic, popular, or modern--a long-forgotten memory will suddenly loom up with such force that you may stop reading the current plot on the screen or in your hands, and pivot into this personal slice of your history to contemplate it through the prism of the story you are presently attending to." Dennis Patrick Slattery