Ira Glass update

There's never enough Ira. A friend gave me a copy of a CD with an interview of Terry Gross by Ira Glass and an interview of Ira Glass by Terry Gross. NPR listeners are such geeks!! And I mean that in the nicest way possible.

Oh, so there's a comment made by Terry Gross. She describing how she thinks people might be living their lives for display. We've become a society where we are so open about our personal selves that it seems like every action we undertake is so that we can tell others. And she has some angst about it because she feels like her show (Fresh Air) might have something to do with it. And Ira (I can call him Ira, right, because I love him) says that he has no problem with it at all because so much of what we hear is so fake all the time. These little bits of honesty are to be treasured. He also doesn't think it's a problem because he doesn't think it is something that crosses the minds of most individuals. I think he's thinking too small. No, I don't think my life will every be on the radio, but I sure can make my friends laugh when I go back home. I live everything thinking about the story I will tell.

So I actually agree with Terry Gross and not Ira as to how I live my life. I live my life thinking that everything I do will be a good story. I left the house ten minutes late, it started to rain, I missed the bus by thirty seconds, the computer crashed before I saved my work, the place I wanted to eat closed early, and the place I was going to stop and buy that card was closed because it didn't have electricity. All of it is okay because IT WILL BE A GOOD STORY. I honestly don't know how people get through life when they don't think this way.

I think I could have enjoyed a very happy life as a first year grad student if I had only had this perspective. Yes, it's miserable and I'm sad that I have gone two weeks without a single person talking to me except the bus driver and the cashier and the grocery store, but someday this will be a fun story to tell. I wish I could have thought that way.

I have a friend who is currently at the hospital because she is suicidal. I keep calling her every two hours to make sure she's still okay. And I want to tell her that someday this will be a GREAT story. But I've been where she is. Where there's no place to go, you can't go home, you can't go to work, and there's nothing in the future to look forward to. And I know that when you're in this place, the idea of a future story is not enough to make things look brighter.

So, Terry Gross may be right that our world is all about what a great story it will be. But I don't think it's a bad thing. If that's what's giving you something to look forward to, that can't be a bad thing. I don't share her angst that it's wrong. I'm not telling the world my stories, but I have them to tell.