I was recently reading this New Yorker article about how some people view their lives as one continuous narrative while others have a more disjointed experience. How can you tell which type of person you are? Try to remember life as you lived it years ago, on a typical day in the fall. Back then, you cared deeply about certain things (a girlfriend? Depeche Mode?) but were oblivious of others (your political commitments? your children?). Certain key events—college? war? marriage? Alcoholics Anonymous?—hadn’t yet occurred. Does the self you remember feel like you, or like a stranger? Do you seem to be remembering yesterday, or reading a novel about a fictional character?
I can look back on a variety of lives I have lived, and while they may feel like opposite ends of the spectrum (mother, stock broker) I think it was always me in there. Some lives just had more sleep than others!
I definitely have a sense of continuity with my selves from about 16 to the present, with a few epochal changes that permanently added to the underlying (and overlaying) Me.
I can look back on a variety of lives I have lived, and while they may feel like opposite ends of the spectrum (mother, stock broker) I think it was always me in there. Some lives just had more sleep than others!
I definitely have a sense of continuity with my selves from about 16 to the present, with a few epochal changes that permanently added to the underlying (and overlaying) Me.
I’m wondering if most writers have this sense of continuity… makes us predisposed toward narrative arcs.