You want the story to be about something, have some deeper meaning, but there is also an emotional, almost instinctual, element, which is, does this story seize some part of you and compel you to get to the bottom of it?
David GrannRead
Memory is a code to who we are, a collection of not just dates and facts but also of epic emotional struggles, epiphanies, transformations.
Interpretation
Memory shapes our identity through our experiences and emotions.
This quote emphasizes that memory is not merely a record of our past events, but a complex interplay of our emotional experiences and pivotal moments that define our identity. It suggests that who we are is deeply connected to the memories of our struggles, realizations, and changes over time.
In practice
In a graduation speech, referencing this quote can highlight the importance of experiences in shaping students' lives.
You want the story to be about something, have some deeper meaning, but there is also an emotional, almost instinctual, element, which is, does this story seize some part of you and compel you to get to the bottom of it?
In Brazil, the history of the interaction between blancos and indios - whites and Indians - often reads like an extended epitaph. Tribes were wiped out by disease and massacres; languages and songs were obliterated.
There's a tendency when we write history to do it with the power of hindsight and then assume almost god-like knowledge that nobody living through history has.
I think you get into trouble as an author and a journalist when, rather than owning the gaps, you try to elide them.
Heroes have always served as a reflection of their times, a template of who we are and what we want to be.
The Osage have this lovely phrase: 'Travelers in the Mist.' It was the term for part of an Osage clan that would take the lead whenever the tribe was venturing into unfamiliar realms. And, in a way, we are all travelers in the mist. The challenge is that, as writers, we sometimes want to ignore this murkiness, or we want to write around it.
We are more pained when one of our friends is guilty of something shameful than when we do it ourselves.
Do not fear death, but welcome it, since it too comes from nature. For just as we are young and grow old, and flourish and reach maturity, have teeth and a beard and grey hairs, conceive, become pregnant, and bring forth new life, and all the other natural processes that follow the seasons of our existence, so also do we have death. A thoughtful person will never take death lightly, impatiently, or scornfully, but will wait for it as one of life's natural processes.
I know people who have a much better recollection of their childhood than I do. They remember very well when they were a year and a half and two years old. I've only one or two daguerreotypes that come to mind.
Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one's self?
A nation without means of reform is without means of survival.
There are many female gods recognized and honored by the tribes and Nations. Femaleness was highly valued, both respected and feared, and all social institutions reflected this attitude. Even modern sayings, such as the Cheyenne statement that a people is not conquered until the hearts of the women are on the ground, express the Indians understanding that without the power of woman the people will not live, but with it, they will endure and prosper.
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