I spent today crafting autobiographical statements of intent for this fellowship program I'm applying to. Writing for someone other than myself has always been hard going, and today was no exception. It's not to say that the process isn't enjoyable in some way. Yielding something feels good, yielding something coherent and meaningful even more so.
Just like practicing interviews makes me feel all the more interviewable, writing big picture statements on my life makes me feel like there's more of a big picture to speak of. Like there's this overall trajectory, despite the twists and turns. As I've said before, I don't care about the big picture. It's only when you're trying to package yourself to another (aka selling yourself) does the big picture matter.
But it feels nice to have a big picture. Not so much because it's soothing to me - it's nice in that it reminds me that I have this ability of packaging phenomena into a narrative, of drawing meaning out of happenstance.
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What happens though, when a previously crafted narrative goes awry? Or stubborn bits and pieces stick out? Does it get ignored or discarded? Is this what memory does for us, sand down the edges of narrative uncomformity with the passing of time?
Is the human penchant and longing for narrative just a function of our imperfect memory?