I cannot remember a time when I wasn't a writer. Words have always been my comfort food, my best friends, my parents, my children. I devour them...only to reorganize what I consume and produce a new configuration. Only to simultaneously dig inside myself while reaching out into the world to bridge the gap and tell another story.
I write. Every day.
When I was growing up, I aspired to write THE great American novel and win a Pulitzer by the time I was 25. No shit. I actually wrote that on my life-goal to-do lists as early as age 12. That’s how precious and naive I was. And I’ve come to believe that that’s also how precious and naive we were as a culture.
The great American Novel is no longer a possibility. Frankly, I’m not convinced that it ever realistically was. One monumental, epic magnum opus per lifetime makes absolutely no sense. At least not in foresight. At least not as a goal or an aspiration. At least not in the modern world where life is long and moves at meteoric speeds.
How do you quantify the greatest thing you have ever done or will ever do? And even if you figure that out, it’s a moving target.
For me, the greatest thing I’ve ever written is often the latest thing I’ve ever written. I also feel that way about my photos. In fact, I don’t know any storytellers who don’t share this perspective.
My latest baby is the one I love best. While I am birthing it. While I’m shaping and nurturing it. And for that brief utopian high right after I've released it into the ether, holding my breath, willing it to soar.
I never want to get to a point when I say, “I’m done.” There are an infinite number of stories in me, just waiting to be told. It’s not my job to judge them; I’m only here to usher them gently out of the dense, chaotic space between my heart and my head. What they become - how they’re received - that’s completely beyond my control.
So how many stories do any of us have to tell?
If you are thinking of a number - any number - I would be as bold as to say that you’re not only wrong, you are bound by the invisible limits you’ve tied tightly around your own imagination. A good storyteller can find a story in every moment; a great one will dare to tell a mere fraction of those.
And here is the most amazing thing I can tell you: YOU are a storyteller. Even if you think you’re not. Every single one of us is. You were born to spin yarns, to craft tales. Telling stories may be the single most divine thing that sets us apart from other living things.
Our stories are immortal. They are the imprints we leave on each other. They are the footprints we leave on this world. And while no one can definitively predict just how many great stories you have to tell, I can tell you with absolute certainty that it’s definitely more than one.