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.
When I make chairs, they have legs; they can go anywhere in the world. Interiors are a different responsibility. A house is a representation of where you are, and it has to be right for the place.
I hear the singing of the lives of women. They clear mystery, the offering, and pride.
Music is my way of taking my mind away from the game. When I'm singing, you don't got anything to worry about. Don't gotta worry about scoring however many points or winning the game. No matter how good or how bad you are, it's fun.
Some of the songs come so fully, it's like they are pre-packaged. There have been a couple that came in the middle of the night. And I thought, jeez, I'll never forget that. And went back to sleep, and it was gone. You'll hear something years later that another songwriter that you respect writes, and you go, jeez, I think that was the remnants of that song that got sent to me.
When you produce an album, you're dealing with it theatrically. It has to have a structure, and the inner response to that is that the ear loves it.
People really feel like music is free but will pay $6 for water. You can drink water free out of the tap, and it's good water. But they're OK paying for it.
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