I've collected 15 stories so far: some were submitted online, others I sat with them and transcribed what they had to say. In neither case were they without prompts, though I tried to keep my input to a minimum and let them explore wherever their thoughts took them. (In one case that resulted in an page of extraneous information I will have to cut, but for the most part people wanted to stay on topic.) Somehow it seems like it came far easier to every single person than it could possibly come to me.
How could I possibly pick out those parts of my life most relevant to my development of sense of self, as shaped by the context of this small geopolitical region? Perhaps they are graced with the freshness of the topic. I've been mulling this over for years, with particular intensity since I began this project. How could I now unthink that which has already been overthought? I could write a book. Some have said I should write a book. I don't have the time and energy to commit to that sort of project, and I would wither away under the spectre of Future Andy, not knowing what would satisfy their judgemental nature.
While interviewing my girlfriend November, they said that nobody in Kosciusko County has ever helped them develop as a person. I wondered why they didn't consider me to be under that umbrella. They pointed out that I was living in St Louis at the time. I said I don't consider my time spent there to be in isolation of the upbringing in K Co that shaped me. They still insisted that they cannot give credit to K Co for that, because if I hadn't lived in StL for a while, I would not myself have been situated so as to bring them there to live with me, which helped them find out who they really are. Two people living in the same household, across two cities, have different perspectives on the same story. Our sense of self is not only shaped by our surroundings, our sense of self shapes our perception of our surroundings. How can one story be the "real" one?
Having gathered the raw stories, I need to edit them for readability. As I read through the stories with an editor's eye, I gather the entirety of the content within my mind, sorting the idea fog into individual little thought clouds shaped like paragraphs. I am interacting with these stories in a way that further aids their absorption where simple reading or even dialog could not. Every interaction I have, every new story I absorb, becomes a part of me and shapes my perception both of myself and of the next story I hear. I feel deeply connected to these people and to my community - I have touched the fringes of the Numinous.
