Critical Thinking@Julia’s blog

I have noticed that as part of the development of the genre of ‘the blog’ there is generally an ‘about the author’ type page.
Yes, I can understand that to listen well it helps to have a picture drawn (in words or images) of the author, but I also wonder how much of this desire to tell the stories of our lives is linked to a search for meaning? ( Yes , this phrase does also refer to that classic book which is well worth reading, Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl which details his harrowing experiences in a concentration camp during the Second World War, in which as he says:”Everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms–to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”)

Paul John Eakin (2004) in The Ethics of Life Writing Cornell University Press,
Ithaca writes that: “When we tell or write about our own lives, our stories establish our identity both as content - I am the person who did these things- and act- I am someone with a story to tell. And we do something even more fundamental, we establish our selves as persons: I am someone, someone who has lived a valuable life, a value affirmed precisely by any life story’s implicit claim that it is worth telling and hearing.”

And we all have a story worth telling.

Part of my story is that I have been associated with Murdoch University since working in the Library sorting books when I finished high school. This was long ago, in the far off time when Murdoch first began back in the misty days of 1975! Since then I have gained a few degrees and taught many students but am still pursuing the pleasures and perils of finding ways to improve my own and others’ capacity for clear, concise and careful thinking.