We're All Stories

Both Netflix and my daughter have been trying to get me to watch Doctor Who for quite some time now, but despite my geeky ways, I spent a long time resisting the recommendation. But a few weeks ago I finally gave in and started watching the show. And of course, they were all right. I have absolutely loved it.

As we were wrapping up our viewing of the fifth series, one quote grabbed me. The story-line is convoluted, but basically The Doctor is speaking to his future companion while she sleeps as a little girl. He's telling her the story of their travels through time and space. He's about to step through a crack in time that will mean that he never existed, that he will just be a figment of her imagination, a story that she made up.

And then he said the line that made me run back the recording.

We're all stories, in the end.

The only way for him to exist again was for Amy to remember the stories and realize that they weren't her imagination, but that they actually happened.

The stories are what made him alive.

I love this. 

When I think about those closest to me, it would be easy to classify them and move on. But what has enriched my relationships with them has been discovering their stories. Taking the time to sit with them and hear about their childhood. To listen to what their upbringing was like. To discover not just what they think, but why they think it. Spending time together, learning about their opinions, their convictions, their hurts, their dreams, their joys, their disappointments, their lives. Their stories have made them more real to me and have deepened our friendships in countless ways. 

Much of the time we attach labels to one another, sometimes as time savers, but often as ways to simply dismiss people. Oh, he's a conservative. Oh, she's a feminist. Oh, they're Christians. Whatever group that we can use to categorize and cast off.

But we're so much more than that. We're the stories that brought us to this viewpoint. We're the experiences that shaped our thoughts. We're nuanced, intricate, winding tales.

You're more than a label or a classification or a brand. You're a story.

We're ALL stories, in the end.

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Have you taken the time to find out the story behind the label of someone else? How has that changed them in your mind? And what's your favorite Doctor Who quote?