Vignette Days
Let every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close:—then let every one of these short lives leave its sure record of some kindly thing done for others—some goodly strength or knowledge gained for yourselves.
John Ruskin
I like the idea of each day being a new life, but the analogy breaks down pretty quickly. I came to work today so that I would be paid on Monday. A lot of the things I do today are echoes of yesterday and seeds for tomorrow.
If your life was a series of short stories or vignettes then each day would need to be whole unto itself with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Most importantly, it would have to have meaning, action, drama, purpose, closure. A side effect of being a wordy person is that I often narrate my life inside my own head. My flatmate occasionally declares that my life is sometimes more like the movies or a sitcom than real life. I’m not sure how much of that is happenstance, whether I create it that way, or whether it’s just an effect of the re-telling. Still, it amuses me to hear that because it’s how I frame my life inside my head.
In a sitcom, the world falls apart and is put back together again in half an hour (22 minutes actually, if you account for ad breaks). The characters don’t have time to draw out their storylines endlessly.
Imagine you were a viewer of your own life. What do you think you would be shouting at the tv as you clutch at your pillow? If today was a single episode, what happened in it? What story thread opened or closed today? What thematic link will you pick up on again tomorrow?
If your life was a tv series, would you want to watch it?
Muchness 