“Stranger than Fiction” shows a writer with writer’s block.\u00c2\u00a0 The way she smokes her cigarettes makes me think of an addict who is in dispair but can’t stop.\u00c2\u00a0 The spirit of change that enters her life is like that of someone who has lost faith in the storyline of her life.\u00c2\u00a0 It reminds me of Eckhart Tolle’s account in The Power of Now of how he\u00c2\u00a0fell through the bottom of the life he was living.\u00c2\u00a0 In our study of the role of stories in our life, I haven’t been thinking of one of the most potent agents of change: we see the emptiness and irrelevance of the stories we’re trying so hard to live, and–in extreme cases–we stop dead in our tracks.\u00c2\u00a0 Years ago I wrote down a passage from Knowledge of Freedom, Time to Change (P233): “If we are disillusioned with the roles society offers us, and are unwilling or unable to play the competitive game, we can, instead, find roles that are uniquely our own, and build within ourselves a new understanding of what it means to be a successful human being.”\u00c2\u00a0 That seems like a pretty good description of what happens to both Harold Crick and his narrator.–Michael<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“Stranger than Fiction” shows a writer with writer’s block.\u00c2\u00a0 The way she smokes her cigarettes makes me think of an addict who is in dispair but can’t stop.\u00c2\u00a0 The spirit of change that enters her life is like that of … Continue reading