The story inside your head

Storytelling stuff worth sharing

Hello friends—

So since I got back from New York I’ve been on a major exercise kick. Maybe all the non-stop walking (a mile each way to the theater from my East Village AirBnB!) clicked something inside me. But I’ve been craving the running, lifting, and swimming quite voraciously.

Pro tip. When walking in NYC, you’ve gotta account for the bikes far more than the cars!

It’s the swimming I want to focus on today, because my newest toy is a pair of Shokz OpenSwim waterproof headphones. (I don’t get a kickback or anything if you buy a pair; I just really like the company!) I used them for the first time earlier this week, and talk about a game-changer. First time in my life I’ve swam non-stop over a mile. And the time flew by. Well, I was in the water at the Y, so I suppose the time flowed by.

Obviously not a selfie. I mean, I have a beard.

Anyhow, once you put in your earplugs—cuz I hate water dribbling out of my ears for hours after a swim—and put on the headphones, and press play… it’s like the music is coming from inside your brain.

Now, I had misread the instructions and not downloaded my music into the headphones correctly, so I ended up having only two songs playing back and forth for that entire mile. Yeesh. Fixed that right away for the next swim. But still. Magical. Highly recommended.

Telling you that story reminds me of a great quote from Patrick Rothfuss, who writes fantastic fantasy novels like THE NAME OF THE WIND and THE WISE MAN’S FEAR. Again, no kickback, they are just really good books!

Fair warning: those are books 1 and 2 of his “Kingkiller Chronicle,” and while he’s dropped a couple Kingkiller short stories since finishing book 2 in 2011, the next book still hasn’t come out! Gaaaahhhh!!!

Anyhow, Patrick “I’ll write book 3 when I’m dang well ready” Rothfuss says…

It’s like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.

Basically… we are constantly creating who we are becoming.

And if you can tune into that story inside your head… like the music from a pair of Shokz… then stroke by stroke and lap by lap, you can do things you’ve never done before.

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And yet another product placement plug

This week also marked a year since I started keeping my journal in this:

That is the Some Lines a Day 5-Year Memory Book. (Still no kickback.)

Here’s what the inside looks like (not of mine, that’s private!)…

Basically, each page is a day. July 25. October 2. Whatever. And each day has five entries, so over the course of five years, you write a few lines a day. And then when you come back around to that day the following year, you get a snapshot of what you were doing/thinking/feeling the previous years.

As I said, I just came around the first year, and I tell you what, reading what I decided to jot down a year ago on this same day is fascinating. And sometimes baffling (like… why did I write the word “TIME” twice in all caps??). And sometimes bittersweet, or poignant, or ridiculous. It triggers a ton of memories. And reminds me of goals and ideas. And reintroduces me to my past self.

That story inside my head, externalized into ink on paper.

Stroke by stroke, page by page, lap by lap.

Wonder what I’ll read about myself next year?

Jason “Where’s My Dang Kickback?” Cannon