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“Rutted faced men such as me do not determine the suitability of life’s terrain. Our terracotta passageway simply unfolds before us awaiting the minor edits we compose in the mistaken notion that as mere actors we also serve as the almighty playwright. In actuality, faltering men stumbling along in life such as me serve at the mercy of our base desires. Caught in cacoethes – uncontrollable desire – we manically act to satisfy our wild and occasionally harmful urges. Working slavishly to mollify our wants reduces us to serving as the unwitting chroniclers of the jeremiad canvas painted with the frayed lisle of our shillyshallying élan vital.”

“An author’s operating charter is to unearth embedded symbols that reflect complementary and inconsistent relationships of our collective assemblage, combine harmonizing and contradictory conceptions that motivate us, and delve larger truths out of variable and erratic elements of human nature.”

“With every passing day, we add a page to our personal story, an illustrative script that casts our character shaped by an implacable external environment and fashioned by our supple state of inwardness.”

“A shaman and a writer each serve as their communities’ seers by engaging in extraordinary acts of conscientious study of the past and the present and predicting the future. An inner voice calls to the shaman and an essayistic writer to answer the call that vexes the pernicious spirit of their times. Shamanistic writers induce a trance state of mind where they lose contact with physical reality through a rational disordering of the senses, in an effort to encounter for the umpteenth time the great unknown and the unutterable truths that structure existence. An afflicted person seeking clarification of existence cannot ignore the shamanistic calling of narrative exposition. Thus, I shall continue this longwinded howl – making a personal immortality vessel – into the darkness of night forevermore.”

“Storytelling creates a healing serum. The thematic unguent of our personal story represents a fusion of the ineffable truths that each of us must discover within ourselves.”

“Recounting the narrative of our personal story in a methodical and chronological manner helps us see our life in a historical perspective. Telling our personal stories allows us to bring hibernated memories out of seclusion. Reexamination of our historical existence under the light of growing conscious awareness assist us make psychological breakthroughs. Analyzing the elemental substance of our personal story from a sundry of viewpoints employing techniques of literature, philosophy, logical reasoning, and abstract thinking assist us perceive our discrete chronicle in symbolic terms and in mythological context.”

“We are each warriors of our own times. When we step out of our protective shell, we each encounter forces much more powerful than we are. What we learn through testing ourselves on the combat zones of our eon becomes the textbook protocol for how we shall live out the remainder of our life. The glorious skirmishes and daunting conflicts that we encounter, and what we learn from vigorous engagements on the battlefield of time, inscribe the story of our lives. Spiritual leaders help guide us in our times of doubt and self-questioning. Recognizing the value of the mentorship of spiritual guides in their self-questing ventures, persons who endure immense adversity wish to reciprocate their love of humanity by sharing the scored story of their episodic journey through the corridors of time and relay the incisive truths they discovered to any other travelers with a willing ear.”

“Talking to oneself is a recognized means to learn, in fact, self-speak may be the seed concept behind human consciousness. Private conversation that we hold with ourselves might represent the preeminent means to provoke the speaker into thinking (a form of cognitive auto-stimulation), modify behavior, and perhaps even amend the functional architecture of the plastic human brain. Writing out our private talks with oneself enables a person to “see” what they think, a process that invites reflection, ongoing thoughtful discourse with the self, and refinement of our thinking patterns and beliefs. Internal sotto voice conversations with our private-self provide several advantages, but most people find it difficult to maintain self-speak for an extended period. Internal dialogue must compete with external distractions. Writing allows a person to resume a personal dialogue where they left off before interrupted by outside stimuli. A written disquisition also provides a permanent record that a person can examine, amend, supplement, update, or reject.”

“Our personal story has many chapters that reconnoiter universal themes. We each struggle to understand ourselves and aspire to make ourselves known to the world. We struggle to win the love of other people. We seek to pick all the low hanging fruit that we come across in our journey through the corridor of time. We write our story in the Niagara of emotional experiences that flowing watercourse makes us human. We use a profusion of words, symbols, and the nuances pulled from a rich library of language to depict the cascade of our visions, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings, dreams, and infelicitous thoughts. We use logical and dialectal thought processes when communing with our inner self. We use self-speak along with the esemplastic powers of poetic imagination, sprinkled with the fizz of creativity, to cohere disparate chapters of our life into a unified whole and relay the effervescence of our story to other people.”

“Each of us is the enactor of our personal saga; we create the phantom of the self. We are the principal character in our personal story, as well as witnesses and reactors to the storylines of other persons whom we adore. We are each the composers of our evolving personal story; we are the protagonist of our personal life story.”

“What insistent questions must I ask and answer in order to uncover the essential truths for personal survival? Can I frame the crucial questions that self-revealing answers might stave off instant disintegration? Can I find a subject of intellectual investigation worthy of creating an enduring legacy? How do I eradicate from a secretive, brooding, and shut-in mind the insidious and incapacitating thoughts that turned me into an inert maumet or an empty-headed person? Must I accept the rheum of my timid meagerness? Alternatively, must I expunge all mucus remnants of my diseased former self? Can I shock myself awake from a zombie-like state of spiritual deadness? Can I create out of the phlegm of a frozen mind a new Adam that walks and talks for me? By destroying a former self, can I save myself and create a vessel of lifeworks that carries a stream of earnest thoughts into the minds of future readers?”

“When looking back on our lives, it is difficult objectively to evaluate our actions. When retelling our story, it is challenging to achieve balanced journalism. It is understandable why we might be inclined to overemphasize nostalgic feelings of happiness, glamorize stretches of childhood or other periods where life was rather uncomplicated, while assigning a disproportionate amount of anxiety to rougher periods of life. When we create strong, joyous memories, we preserve cherished feelings in the present. By assigning selective pleasant memories to the past, we create a homey place where we can return to visit. Fondness for nostalgic memories provides a buffer from existential threat, improves mood, combats loneliness, increases social consecutiveness, and enhances self-regard.”

“The author explores the contours of a restless mind racked with fear and doubt and questions the origins of his personal disenchantment and cynical bitterness. Do other people share similar feelings of disquiet and despair, and how does a person escape a vortex of suffering? Perchance he can marshal human beings’ innate gifts of memory, language, and consciousness to transform his vile existence. Perhaps by studiously examining the self and seeking to unite all disparate parts of a fragmented psyche, he will become a thoughtful, considerate, and affectionate man who lives joyfully without pangs of pain, shame, and misgivings. The goal of this vision quest is to attain personal harmony with the world and enjoy an admirable state of attentive mindfulness after investigating and expressing all that is sayable pertaining the meaning of existence and the unique features of being human. The author aspires to discard frivolous attachments, pierce mental delusions, and attain a peaceful state of serenity by accepting reality and appreciating the incomparable beauty of this magnificent world and the little pleasures that each unfolding day affords. Perhaps writing of his struggles to transcend his own pain and develop the wisdom and serenity of the mind that comes from living an examined life might even provide a template for other people explore their own life story.”

“The quality of interpersonal relationships that we forge when purposefully engaging in work that advances the interest of the multitudes is the shining endorsement to a life well lived. Within the corners of each person’s private and public canvas lies his or her masterpiece. Each person’s matchless artistry provides an indelible testament to how he or she lived. A person’s lifetime body of work unequivocally expresses a road map to their innermost salvation. Only by actualizing our innate natural mind can any of us funnel our motivational forces into directional inspiration that leads us to peacefulness and wisdom. All efforts to achieve meaningful tributes to a life well lived are noisy affairs that clang in our hearts. Only through death can any of us attain a state of soundless perfection.”

“Each day I attempt to establish a conjugated ring of reasons to rise tomorrow. Each day I seek to engage in some audible act of faith reaffirming a spiritual warrior’s commitment to living. Each day when engaged in investigative writing, I seek to perform some testimonial act that will lead me towards achieving desirable, premeditated change. Each day that I dabble with writing a deliberative memoir requires a scathing examination of how I lived. It also demands scrupulous assessment of how I want to live the remainder of an unspooling life.”

“In the forest canopied with the leafy niche of daily events, a benevolent listener reverberates in the canonical poetry of the ages humming irrepressible visceral contradictions. A squall of tears of bereavement pierces the elegiac sea of a silent night. The red-rimmed eye of sunrise greets us with a torrent of rage spilling over from frontlines of an examined life’s vital quarrels. The flute of life ushers in a welcoming breeze of reassuring resonance.”

“We must carefully cultivate the voice that speaks to us because an internal voice is the ultimate narrator of our charming and delightful personal story or the documentarian of our tragic and disgraceful plotlines. Stories that we tell ourselves become our functional reality, which format structures the concourse of the nested emotional control panel that guides and girds us through the din of the present.”

“Storytelling entails weaving a narrative out of the disturbing, strange, inspirational, and unremarkable detritus of life. By picking among the litter of our personal experiences to select evocative anecdotes to weave into a narrative format, we reveal which of life’s legendary offerings prove the most sublime to us. Acts of omission are momentous. Our narration of personal sketches divulge what factoids inspire us or do not stir us into action, or contain obdurate truths that prove virtually impossible to crack.”

“Our remembered experiences and our present day hopes and desires form the spine of each person’s storybook. Knowledge of life and death are traceable facts that shape the contours of each person’s storyboard. Other truths gleaned from living brilliantly fill the pages of each person’s ongoing anthology.”

“I wish to create a piece of work that produces a permanent mark in the record book of human existence. I also write to insulate myself from leading a meaningless life. Awareness of an inescapable mortality urges me to write at a frantic pace, in a hysterical attempt to assign a purpose to my life by creating something external that endures.”

“Awareness and knowledge of what occurs in the present, which we call reality, is imperfect and vague. While we can never comprehend all aspects of reality, a person enhances personal comprehension by placing the seed of their existence under strict scrutiny. Acting as an impartial judge of our own deeds and by reviewing the lives of other people whom underwent similar experiences, we enhance our level of self-awareness. Reviewing other people’s stories increases our understanding of humanity and provides insight into our own personal struggles.”

“I seek to create an artistic statement of my being by producing a unified voice that speaks for me and to me. I will attempt to capture the pulsation of my mind and harness its incessant rush into a telling format that is revelatory and self-healing. Confessing my sins is the first steps of communing with the self by focusing the light of consciousness upon the darkness of the unconsciousness in an attempt to comprehend what I am for the very first time. I endeavor to open my heart and mind, be an indomitable witness to the paradoxes that bedevil humanity, and serve as an unrepentant admirer of the irrepressible splendor of living in a natural manner undisturbed by the behavior of other people or the inevitable changes in the world that we occupy.”

“Scholars laud personal essay writing for its ability to explore the past, present, and the future, and assist people gain a better understanding of life, people, and oneself. A growing trend is for both famous and non-famous people to write their memoirs as a means of documenting their personal history and exploring their quest for identity.”

“As a prose mode of expository writing, the narrative approach, more than any other, offers writers a chance to think and write about their personal history and cultural identity. A personal narrative process that constructs memories in thematic sequences represents the fundamental nature of the self.”

“Human beings construct their individual life stories by navigating a complex network of recursive natural structures that guide and shape human behavior. Akin to a revolving top spinning on its axis, an inexhaustible number of natural responses are available to a person when conducting a walkabout in a chaotic world. A mature person comprehends that there are many ways to conduct their lives, appreciates the richness and complexities of alternative ways of life, and makes conscious decisions pertaining to what course of behavior will provide them with personal bliss.”

“It has been suggested that each person lives hermetically sealed within his or her self-perpetuated myths. Scholars postulate that we tell ourselves stories to make sense of our lives. We begin exploration of the self with the experience of failed transcendence. Philosophy originates from the experience of disappointment. Our failures lead us to discoveries. At birth, we know very little, almost nothing; all knowledge instigate from the experience and recognition of our limitations. With the uncertainty that surrounds our existence in the universe, perhaps we must create ourselves. Perchance we seek self-exploration when the myths that we once operated under no longer work. Perhaps we undergo self-analysis only when a coalescence of the past, the present, and the future betrays our current myth-making. Perhaps at such times when failure reigns center court, our survival instinct urges us to create a new story-line.”

“Philosophic thoughts allow people to use human reason and imagination to consider eternal matters and explore the ramifications of their own transience. American author Joan Didion postulated that we tell ourselves stories in order to live. Conceivably a personal crisis propels a person to delve into creating a guiding philosophy for living with reduced mental and emotional turmoil. Alternatively, perhaps we tell stories to examine, explain, and justify our failures.”

“Reflecting on the past while living in the present, we make decisions that will reverberate in the future. Our daily actions, thought patterns, and the concepts we choose to cherish will create the paradigmatic structure of our life story; our collective decision-making determines our final manifestation.”

“Storytelling is an imperfect methodology to provide a true accounting to a multiplicity of bilateral and three-dimensional interactions. Language cannot reach every recess of the mind, it cannot document every emotional chord, and it cannot splice the discordant pieces within us. Each story by a writer represents the sanitized accounting of the mind’s depictions. Try as one might, employing a panoply of traditional technique or other slick tools of modernist stage craft, it is impossible to separate the teller from the telling any more than one can distinguish the author from their doppelganger writer’s voice.”

“A good story is both one hundred percent true and one hundred percent false. A good story uses small lies to take a stab at piercing larger truths. An overstatement and understatement are part of writer’s craft; each standing alone is an untruth. An understatement might be used as an attempt at humor, just as an overstatement might be used to probe a truth that lies beyond the exact retelling of who, what, when, and where style employed in police report writing. Even writing biography, autobiography, memoir, and personal essays that studiously and relentless adheres to established facts can distort the truth. Faithful adherence to stringing rote facts together omits many aspects of both the subject and the operable social, cultural, and political environment that stages human interaction, contest, conflict, drama, and strife.”

“Storytelling is one means to entertain, share knowledge, and transmit cultural ideology. Through the universal lens of storytelling, do we become familiar with the life altering dilemmas and moral challenges that fuselage provides the linkage to mode the character patterns essential to leading a principled life? By shuffling through scores of loose leafed stories, can we glean the clarity of thought and the lucidity of perception needed successfully to tackle our own life with gusto? Is reading stories of struggle and redemption one way that we become acquainted with the chemistry of pain and suffering that permeates the arteries of all thinking human beings? Does appreciation for other people’s hardbound stories assist us place the vertebrae of our own experiences into a telling template? Can we draw upon the accumulated experiences of other people’s lives as well as our own hands-on experiences when we see our lives folded into a comprehensible scabbard depicting what it means to be human and, therefore, fallible?”

“Self-knowledge enables a person to grasp what future decisions will define their final formation. The human mind habitually hits the rewind button and replays past events. Can looking back over the rim of time and engaging in thoughtful criticism of the precursor events of my formative years be of any possible assistance to expose the indurate truth of factual reality? Can I employ the tools of memory and imagination along with the techniques of logos – reasoned discourse – to escape strife and pathos? Does it make sense to write the story of my life so that I can ascertain who I am? With these unsettling thoughts and these maieutic questions in mind, I began writing an enantiomorphism-like scroll. The crystal molecules that comprise this text construct a mirror that replicates the multiple dimensions of a risky adventure into self-psychology. I harbor no expectation regarding the outcome of this reflective venture. Regardless of the consequences, all I can do is follow the psychic flow generated by this writing enterprise. I do not know where this positional analysis will take me or how this psychodynamic field study will end. I am simply dedicating all remaining personal energy reserves to capitulating to a tornado-like process of self-study, a turbulent procedure with an unpredictable outcome. Perhaps something sensible will result from deploying a series of narrative personal essays to deconstruct the parasitic evolution of an egocentric self.”

“This narrative scroll is my story. It represents a peep show into a self-prescribed, ceremonial quest to stare myself down, mutilate myself, slice myself into minuscule pieces, exam and innervate my paralytic soul. Writing this manuscript documenting disenchantment with my selfhood’s unsatisfactory interactions with significant life defining experiences constitutes a calculated surgical disembodiment of my former egoistical self. The act of writing my life story serves as a spiritual dismemberment undertaken to reconfigure and reconstitute my essential being. Perhaps this anatomical deconstruction of a delusional self represents a talisman-like step in attempted self-healing. Alternatively, perhaps this megalomaniac manuscript, which amplifies my psychopathic condition characterized by narcissistic fantasies of power and greatness, and chorusing ring of self-doubt, is nothing more than the sound and fury of an idiot’s paranoid rant. Is my self-induced schizophrenia running rampant, writing page after page of pure drivel, descending me deeper into a private hell? Perchance writing this oscillating scroll is a well-intended personal attempt to escape my mortality, an effort to cheat death by entering into the web of eternity, immerse my voice into the collective consciousness of humankind by creating an immortality vessel. Conversely, mayhap the illogical rant that demarks this scroll proves that the devil does take the hindmost.”

“We learn about ourselves by taking one footstep at a time along a road of discovery. Greek philosopher Heraclitus who lived around 500 BCE proffered cogent advice about how to acquire wisdom and achieve a proper perspective on all worldly events. ‘Whosoever wishes to know about the world must learn about it in its particular details. Knowledge is not intelligence. In searching for truth, be ready for the unexpected. The same road goes both up and down. The beginning of a circle is also its end. Not I, but the world says it: all is one.’ This script tells of one man’s journeying a full circle in an effort to become one with all that exists.”

“Unable to face the paltriness of our lives, it is simpler to bask in a fleeting pleasure dome than labor endlessly to create worthy secular testimonies demonstrating that a life well lived does in fact have intrinsic value. Regardless of what providence has in store, dense men such as me fritter away their lives hoping to capture eroticism’s delights. It is less taxing to rummage through the garbage dump picking amidst the trash heap of life’s inglorious scandals than it is to delve into penetrating our defensive shells.”

“Storytelling is ultimately the only way that we know besides song, dance, painting, and music to share with our tribesmen what it means to be human, express the indefinable feelings that unite humankind.”

“Life is a collection of memories and feelings. Mawkish sentimentally urges us to engage in artistic overtures, we yearn to share with other people a melody of rudimentary experiences and respond to a stabilizing tune strung together with a shared ethos. We walk in parallel strides with our brethren seeking out equivalent affirmations of our being. We long to shout out to the world that we once walked this earth; we seek to leave in our wake traces of our pithy habitation. Our unfilled longing propels us into committing senseless acts of self-sabotage and then we desperately seek redemption from our slippery selves by building monuments to the human spirit. We employ a bewildering blend of conscious and unconscious materials to construct synoptic testaments to our temporal existence. We labor on the canvas of our choosing to scrawl our inimitable mark, fanatically toiling to escape a sentence of total obliteration along with our impending mortality.”

“The whole of eternity is present now. We apprehend eternity through our senses and mental imagination. We can never recapture lost time. Memory allows us to taste the scintillating experience of living by recollecting our past in a series of sequential personal events and an orderly arrangement of a linked series of cultural happenings. Writing our personal story calls for us to remember the sensation of what it entails to live tactilely before losing lucidity of the mind.”

“The metaphysical poetry of our innovative life springs from the aesthetic, scenic, and systematic processes of inventiveness, the creative impulse of an active mind generating aesthetical intuition.”