A Quote by Helen Dunmore
As individuals, we are shaped by story from the time of birth; we are formed by what we are told by our parents, our teachers, our intimates.
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All that the future holds in store for each sacred child of God will be shaped by his or her parents, family, friends, and teachers. Thus, our faith now becomes part of our posterity's faith later.
In general, I think we're more or less shaped and formed by our late 20s. Things come along during that time that make us cynical. By the time you're in your 30s, it's hard to unpick those mindsets that have formed. It takes years of therapy to undo them.
How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but — mainly — to ourselves.
For the 99 percent of the time we've been on Earth, we were hunter and gatherers, our lives dependent on knowing the fine, small details of our world. Deep inside, we still have a longing to be reconnected with the nature that shaped our imagination, our language, our song and dance, our sense of the divine.
Socialisation is not optional. It's an inescapable contract, and our birth into the world is our signature of agreement. Norms and ideologies vary from society to society, and most of them weren't formed during our lifetimes but were handed down from one generation to the next.
We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents, or the country of our birth.
We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death.
But within this realm of choicelessnness, we do choose how we live.
Isn't it true that the fault of birth rests somewhat on the child? I believe it's we who led our parents on to bear us, and it's our unborn children who make our flesh itch.
Each of us is our own story, but none of us is only our own story. The arc of my own personal story is inexplicably and intrinsically linked to the story of my parents and the story of my neighbor and the story of the kid that I met one time. All of us are linked in ways that we don't always see. We are never simply ourselves.
What we call our destiny is truly our character and that character can be altered. The knowledge that we are responsible for our actions and attitudes does not need to be discouraging, because it also means that we are free to change this destiny. One is not in bondage to the past, which has shaped our feelings, to race, inheritance, background. All this can be altered if we have the courage to examine how it formed us. We can alter the chemistry provided we have the courage to dissect the elements.
At age three, if you have a still-growing brain, it's a human behavior. In chimps, by age three, the brain is formed over 90 percent. That's why they can cope with their environment very easily after birth - faster than us, anyway. But in humans, we continue to grow our brains. That's why we need care from our parents.
All men and women are born, live, suffer and die; what distinguishes us one from another is our dreams, whether they be dreams about worldly or unworldly things, and what we do to make them come about... We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death. But within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live.
We mourn; we sorrow for our loved ones that go - our wives, our husbands, our children, our parents; we sorrow for them; and it is well and proper that we should moum for them and shed tears for the loss, for it is our loss; but it is their gain, for it is in the march of progress, advancement and development. It will be all right when our time comes, when we have finished our work and accomplished what the Lord required of us.
... we are each shaped from our birth, not only by the blood and inheritance that lies behind us, but also by those we love and by whom we are loved in turn, by the knowledge given to our thirsty minds, to the learning of ourselves.
LGBT Americans are our colleagues, our teachers, our soldiers, our friends, our loved ones, and they are full and equal citizens and deserve the rights of citizenship. That includes marriage.
Myths are stories for our search through the ages for truth, for meaning, for significance. We all need to tell our story and to understand our story. We all need to understand death and to cope with death, and we all need help in our passages from birth to live and then to death. We need for life to signify, to touch the eternal, to understand the mysterious, to find out who we are.
So much of what determines our happiness, I believe, is who we choose as our intimates.
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