Storytellers all, we humans might run out of time even as we triumph over the problem of running out of space. But we will never run out of stories.
Interpretation
Humans will always create and share stories, regardless of the constraints of time and space.
In this quote, Tom Junod expresses the enduring nature of storytelling, suggesting that even as we face the limitations of time and the physical vastness of space, our capacity for creating and sharing stories remains limitless. Stories are fundamental to the human experience, serving as a means of connection and understanding that transcends our temporal and spatial boundaries.
In practice
During a writing workshop, to inspire participants about the importance of storytelling.
It is insufficient to say that my experience as a bully haunts me. Rather, my experience as a bully has been fundamental to the creation of my conscience, because it is what prevents me from making the basic human claim that I am a good person.
By turning our culture over to the spectacle of child stars and their growing pains, we simply wind up taking their childishness seriously and ensuring that they don't grow up at all. And neither do we.
That's the first thing you learn when you busk in the New York City subways: you immediately join the ranks of the marginalized, the unhinged prophets, the Christian shouters, the Hare Krishnas, the Jehovah's witnesses, the father-and-daughter kitaro team, the violinists playing for their sickly wives.
Cooking is, to me, the perfect fusion of generosity and selfishness, indeed the resolution of generosity and selfishness, the answer to my torn nature.
I cook so that there is no absence. I cook so that I am always there, even when I'm gone, even when I die, and my cooking translates in my daughter's memory as, simply, this: time.
The premise and promise of Big Data is that there are no stories, only patterns; that the human preference for story is aligned with the human tendency for error; and that only through dislocations in scale - the scale of sample size and of time - will truth emerge.
I walk on a stage, and I know if it's been a good show or not. You know when it's been a good interview. No one has to tell you. You know it. You feel it. You can feel the air. You can feel everything about it when it's a good show. And you know when you've messed up.
The world around us is in a sea change, and I think the glory of art is that it cannot only survive change, it can lead it
I think bridges have a special meaning in our life. I think a book is a bridge. Any type of art is a bridge that allows different cultures to connect. You may not understand your neighbour's way of seeing life, but you sure understand your neighbour's joy in painting or dancing.
My goal is to live the truly religious life, and express it in my music. If you live it, when you play there's no problem because the music is part of the whole thing. To be a musician is really something. It goes very, very deep. My music is the spiritual expression of what I am - my faith, my knowledge, my being.
The genuine music lover may accept the carnal husk of opera to get at the kernel of actual music within, but that is no sign that he approves the carnal husk or enjoys gnawing through it.
Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It's that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that's what the poet does.
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