Alright, but why are you doing this?

Well. Per Finn the Human, why does anyone do anything? But it’s a fair question and we can break it out a little.

Why ‘storytelling’? What does that mean?

I chose the word storytelling deliberately. Partly for technical correctness- I’ll touch on other media than books. But mostly in the hopes I’ll stick with what makes me fall in love with stories. I like a nice, tidy narrative as much as the next guy but make me feel something, and feel it strongly, and I’ll love you. A clever twist, biting bit of dialogue, the score building as you finally earn that end-game armor, even the comfortable nostalgia of sitting at the table during the holidays hearing someone tell the same story they’ve told a dozen times, and telling it well.

Why now? What’s the goal?

I’m writing this at the tail-end of 2020, a year where a lot of us are feeling lonely a lot of the time. My friends have been spectacular in rising to the occasion in all the ways we stay in touch. But in general (even excluding this year) the older we get the less we do in cahoots with others. When the inevitable ‘what do you miss most about college’ question arises, for me it’s immediately having a crew of 6-10 to do literally everything together. One of the biggest benefits of a book club is getting a group together in a room to talk about a shared event. The experience varies by the person, but everyone has that common starting point. I’m trying to hit those two marks; a hobby to fill a bit of that 2020 void (one that wasn’t becoming intimately familiar with sourdough starters) and sharing my experiences with stories in the hopes others do the same.

And the title?

Immersion in a story is one of my singular joys in life. Going to a library or book store evokes such a strong bittersweet feeling of excitement at the sheer number of available stories and sadness that I’ll make it through only a fraction of those in a lifetime. Wait But Why wrote an article exploring the idea of measuring a human life in metrics other than time; I figured what better way to measure mine than with stories. The stories in my life tend to be of the ‘tome’ rather than ‘novella’ variety, so assuming about 75 prime story-consumption years at a little over 30 stories a year gives me my 25 hundred.

Have another question? Need a clarification? Want to rant about something? Leave me a comment.