Conclusion: What We All Gain from Narrative Generosity

I’m going to talk for a moment about Facebook. I spend a lot of time there, even more so since I began my long journey with chronic illness. It helps me feel connected to people. When I’m unable to leave the house or I’m stuck in bed on a particularly high pain day, it helps me fight my sense of isolation, makes me feel like I am part of something bigger than myself.I’ve always tried to approach my social media interactions with a certain level of authenticity and vulnerability. It’s an important coping mechanism and also an opportunity to encourage others not to shy away from their own challenges. Even so, I still find myself carefully curating just how I will present my illness online or negotiating what my quota should be for health-related posts.I know others must do the same. I know that sometimes we only post the good things; we give people the impression of some kind of “perfect” life, ignoring the very real ups and downs that are so essentially human to experience.The Internet—the world—can be a scary, judgmental place after all, and God forbid any of us should become one of those people: those oversharers, those annoyingly joyful or exasperatingly sad people, those profiles you just want to unfollow.So, what does any of this have to do with the idea of narrative generosity? A lot, actually. Because just as we have the control to choose how or how much of ourselves we share online and out in the world, each of the writers who so generously shared a piece of themselves and their story throughout the previous month had a choice, as well. And each of them chose to dive in.We writers benefit from sharing those pieces of who we are, what scares and inspires us. We benefit from wrestling with different types of narrative, from the creative to the academic. We benefit from helping other writers to achieve, whether through mentorship or creating a literary journal.And, even more so, others benefit from the work of the writer. We all benefit when we can get to know a veteran, a chronic illness warrior, or a memoirist-turned-mental health advocate. We are moved by the search for cultural identity or the desire to bring the voices of a historical tragedy to life. We learn something about ourselves when we engage with a narrator so unlike us.Writers, artists of any kind, are the gatekeepers to a deeper understanding of ourselves. The more these creatives give of themselves and their narratives, the closer we all come to apprehending the powerful gift of what it means to exist as a human being.

Writers, artists of any kind, are the gatekeepers to a deeper understanding of ourselves.

So, I guess what I want to say is this: writers, write on. Creators, create. Don’t be afraid to pour yourselves and your stories out for the world. We need you to guide the way. We need you to teach us, to inspire us, and to help us recognize our shared humanity.And to you, dear reader, perhaps you are a writer, a creative, or perhaps not. Perhaps you enjoy social media, and perhaps you don’t. Perhaps you share yourself and your stories with the people in your life, or perhaps you are afraid. Perhaps you are at any moment in time a combination of all these things.My greatest hope for you is that you will continue to invest yourself in the stories of others, just as much as you will push to be vulnerable and generous with the story of yourself. It’s going to be hard work. You may learn things that challenge or upset you. You may entrust your own story to someone who doesn’t respect this gift. But keep trying, keep sharing, anyway.A photographer friend of mine often says that we are all just a collection of stories. I like this. Because as we unwind the threads of our own stories, as we tug on the threads of the stories of others, everything begins to come together, a great web, and we are, all of us, connected. And that, I think, is the most powerful story we have.

Stephanie Harper received her Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at Fairfield University. Her debut poetry collection, Sermon Series, was published in September 2017 with Finishing Line Press. Her work can be found in The Huffington Post, HelloGiggles, Healthline, Grok Nation, Feminine Collective, Matador Review, Poetry Quarterly, Midwest Literary Magazine, and Spry Literary Journal. She lives in Colorado.