The stories of our lives

BELLEVUE, Wash. (RNS) — There is a metallic sculpture on the lawn in front of the public library in Bellevue, Wash.

It’s the profile of a man’s head; a circle of glass signifies its contents: a wolf, a bird, a shovel, a dolphin, a turtle, a violin, a key, a hammer, gardening spade, leaves, a magnet, a gear, a horn and more. How much stuff can be crammed into one head?

Back in the 1990s, I interviewed psychology professor Kenneth Gergen about his book, “The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life.” More than a decade ago, he was predicting dire consequences for people overwhelmed by sensory and information overload.

When our head is filled with multiple inputs of stories, how does the self nurture and develop its own story?

In an age where film, music, games, books, and blogs each compete to draw us into their stories, how can you strike the balance between living your story and absorbing electronically transmitted stories?

This is fresh on my mind because I just watched 20 films at the Sundance Film Festival. Through film, I ventured voyeuristically into the worlds of: lottery winners (“Lucky”), children trying to make their way through a failing public school system (“Waiting For Superman”), a 10-year-old Iraqi searching for his missing father (“Son of Babylon”).

What happens when a disproportionate amount of time is invested in virtual stories instead of living our own story? “Life 2.0” is a sobering documentary that explores the dangers of complete immersion in virtual reality in “Second Life,” the largest user-created, 3D virtual online world community.

“Life 2.0” follows one man and woman who leave their real life spouses for the idyllic matches made online. We get a glimpse into the mind of a 30-year-old man who masquerades as a teenage girl, creating a fictional story online that displaces his real-life identity. Forced with the choice between his exasperated fiancée and the online teen he chooses virtual life.

The great dreamer of dreams and advocate for perpetual childlikeness, J.M. Barrie said, “The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another.” Can we devote limitless time to absorbing other stories to the detriment of our own story?

One of the reasons I moved to a small island was to separate myself from the clutter and clamor of modern virtual life. Don Tompkins rode into town on his bike the other day to tell me his sheep had birthed some new lambs. My friend Dan Brown is dying of pancreatic cancer, so I drove out to see him. High winds blew large chunks of driftwood onto Crescent Beach the other day, so I stopped to watch the turbulent tide come in. Molly rode her horse yesterday and wife Kathy did her knitting while we chatted amiably.

In days gone by, stories were told through the interface of the printed page; today they are transmitted via digital bits. These stories have the power to shape us and enrich our lives, to break us out of our comfort zones in our known world. Stories have their place, but they should never displace human encounters with real people in daily life.

Staub is the author of “The Culturally Savvy Christian” and can be read at www.dickstaub.com.