There’s this scene in a movie, I can’t remember which one, where someone asks their friend what the point of life is. The other person holds up their finger and says “This one thing.” The first person says, “What’s the one thing?” “That,” says their friend, “is for you to work out.” I knew when I was told I was dying that I hadn’t worked that one thing out.
People love stories. There are many reasons why. Stories connect us. They inform us. They help us feel like we’re okay. They excite us. Inspire us. They comfort us, and illuminate the past and the future. They make us feel special. They help us realise we’re not alone. What happened to me happened to them. [...]
Whenever I go speak to a group or at an event, I never take any new material. I’ve learned the cleverer or more authoritarian I pretend to be on a subject, the bigger a wanker I appear, and the harder it is to keep on pretending to be wonderful when I get down from the [...]
