Reflection 9: The desire to tell one's story

​A desire to tell one's story is a powerful drive in people. It is right up there with eating, sleeping and the the sex drive! Examples go back to the very beginning of Western civilization (and I suppose Eastern civilization as well, although I am not familiar enough with the east to cite examples). In the oral tradition, the blind poet Homer told the story to whoever would listen to his version of the Trojan War and the return home in the Greek epic poems Iliad and Odyssey in the 8th century BC. In the same tradition, Jesus of Nazareth told his short moral stories or parables to the gathering crowds.  Telling the story satisfies both the author's need to verbalize it and the listener, to be entertained and informed. 

 This desire to 'get things off of one's chest' as it were can also be found in Act 5 Scene 2 of William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Hamlet: Prince of Denmark (1597). In this scene, Hamlet instructs Horatio (his confidant) to tell his story just prior to committing suicide by drinking poison.  

John Milton, a man of letters, poet and civil servant and was totally blind by1652. Like all of us, he too experienced this need for self-expression. With the assistance of a loyal secretary, he wrote Paradise Lost in 1667. 

At the age of 44, Ludwig van Beethoven (composer and pianist) was almost totally deaf (1814). Today his hearing would be classified as Extreme Hearing Loss, just above Profound. That did not stop him from telling his stories through music. In 1814 he wrote and conducted the Ninth Symphony. The desire for self-expression was that strong. "The symphony received rapturous applause which Beethoven could not hear. Legend has it that the young contralto Carolina Unger approached the maestro and turned him around to face the audience, to see the ovation." (Immortal Beloved -- Ode to Joy Scene).​ Other well-loved scores followed. 

Getting it out or externalizing feelings is important to everyone. It is no wonder that speaking and writing are two of the four language skills we cherish the most as humans. Both can act as therapy. Keeping it 'bottled in' does the opposite.  

Writing or the desire to tell one's story through writing about the experience of living with head and neck cancer is so meaningful to me and perhaps to you as well. It puts structure to my feelings and ideas. Like most people, I have been writing most of my life. Like most people, I did not know about the therapeutic power of writing or telling my story...until now. That is such a positive!


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