Tell Me Your Stories
Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. [... ] His nesting places—the activities that are intimately associated with boredom—are already extinct in the cities and are declining in the country as well […] For storytelling is always the art of repeating stories, and this art is lost when the stories are no longer retained. It is lost because there is no more weaving and spinning to go on while they are being listened to. -
(Walter Benjamin, "The Storyteller: Reflections on the Work of Nikolai Leskov)
Today I ask only this, that you tell me your stories. As Benjamin writes, it is in boredom that we will soonest turn to storytelling, and it is the bored that will soonest recall past experience.
As we sit in quarantine, we bring back the art of the bored into the cities (and the country). I suggest, therefore, in our boredom, that we retort once again to the oral art of storytelling - to participate in the “weaving and spinning” that “go on while they are being listened to”.
Do you have a story? Any story…it could be from your family’s history, an amazing experience you’ve had, stories you’ve overheard on the train…
SHARE IN THE COMMENTS BELOW and I will reply with a story of my own!
Thought of the Day
As we sit in quarantine, we bring the art of the bored back into the cities (and the country). I suggest, therefore, in our boredom, that we retort once again to the art of storytelling - to participate in the “weaving and spinning” that “go on while they are being listened to”.
-Gabriela Milkova
Stay inspired.
