Re-writing the Narrative

Putting the cart well before the horse, I hope this blog will be: a combination of storytelling and cultural criticism; deeply unsettling yet hopeful; thoughtful and mildly entertaining; fodder for frustration and food for thought.


Here's a few themes that I hope carry throughout:

• That as people and as a culture, we have huge untapped potential to be happier, more peaceful, more generous, more compassionate, more nuanced, and more responsible
• That many of the ways we behave and act as people and as a culture are related to stories, implicit and explicit, that we learn through media, conversation, and lived experience, and that operate on us constantly in ways we cannot even begin to comprehend
• That by being self-reflective and culturally-critical, and by telling different kinds of stories, those based on the values that we wish to embody, we can begin to shift our lives and our culture
• That we have far more power to transform our world and our lives than we think, that we don't need a degree, a change in career or more money to do it, but that it will require risk, deliberation, and humility

My hope beyond hope for this blog is that it will shift, in some miniscule way, readers' perception of the world.  This is, in part, why I've chosen the title "Re-writing the Narrative."**  I want this blog to tell a story: not about how the world is, but rather about how we might choose to see the world.

I hope it compels you.

Much gratitude for your attention,

Sam

**"Re-writing the Narrative" is also the title of my senior thesis, a story about the first month of an 11-week road trip I took in the summer of 2010 to visit a number of community-based organizations around the US and Canada.  Happy to share upon request.