The Inner Library
‘We carry with us every story we have ever heard and every story we have ever lived, filed away at some deep place in our memory. We carry most of those stories unread, as it were, until we have grown the capacity or the readiness to read them. When that happens they may come back to us filled with unexpected meaning.’ (Rachel Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom , xli) Remen’s words touch on the idea of an ‘inner library’ which is expressed in Arthur W. Frank’s book, Letting Stories Breathe a Socio-narratology . They articulate a similar notion, that we may carry the kernel of a story with us for a long time until something triggers its memory and in doing so uncovers new meaning. When the right conditions prevent themselves old ideas we have carried with us but never really understood, acknowledged, or accepted, take root; blossoming into a new series of neural networks that can forever altar the idea of who we are. Story and the human brain have grown together over a long time. In our ...