I think that even though some of the things on 'Humans of New York' are kind of very personal and very revealing, I think the discomfort with sharing that tends to be overwritten by the appreciation of being able to distill the experience of your life into a story and share it with other people.
Interpretation
Sharing personal stories can be uncomfortable, but it can lead to deeper connections with others.
In this quote, Brandon Stanton emphasizes the transformative power of storytelling, particularly the sharing of personal experiences. While revealing one's life may create discomfort, the value derived from articulating these experiences into relatable stories fosters connections and understanding among individuals, ultimately outweighing the initial unease of vulnerability.
In practice
This quote can be used in a motivational talk about the importance of openness in relationships.
When you are interviewing refugees, each person you talk to has a different story that could come from a horror movie. So many people talk about seeing their families get murdered before their eyes. Then I go to Central Park, and people are talking about their third divorce and paying tuition.
Wherever I go, I just try to show normal life. If the work helps to dispel stereotypes, it's because I seek not to portray the extremities of a place, but the vast majority of people who are quite normal and are having normal life experiences.
I always say that my favorite people to interview are the people who are at the beginning and the ends of their lives because they have two alternate perspectives of the world, and neither of them are less profound.
It's a very immersive and intense form of travel to walk around with an interpreter and stop random people on the street and ask them about their lives.
Somebody's willingness to let me photograph them, and willingness to tell me a story, has nothing to do with the words I say. It all has to do with the energy I'm giving off, which hopefully is very genuine, very interested energy. It's just two people having a conversation in the street. I think that's where genuine content comes from.
Greater things are believed of those who are absent.
There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels for someone, pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echos.
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!
I put on an act sometimes, and people think I’m insensitive. Really, it’s like a kind of armor because I’m too sensitive. If there are two hundred people in a room and one of them doesn’t like me, I’ve got to get out.
When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity that surges between them.
The obligation to receive reduces our ability to choose whom we wish to be indebted to and puts that power in the hands of others.
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