Wednesday, March 10, 2010

IASC3F00 - Authorship vs. Narration

A discussion of a class that I recorded a video of, but have unfortunately misplaced.




When speaking in a literal, real-world sense, how do we control our lives? Do we author it as we go, or do we simply narrate our journey?

For those who are religious, they may feel that the authorship of their lives is in the hands of a divine one. In this sense, we merely narrate what has been given to us as the story of our lives by another being. Religious or not, things may be placed into our lives that we simply cannot control and in this way, our authorship is very limited, if we had any to begin with. It can also be an implicit part of life that individuals feel differently - when we are backed into a corner, feeling helpless, perhaps it is then that we lose whatever authorship we had over our lives because we willingly give it up.

In disagreement with this, however, is the idea that we would not move forward in life if we did not author ourselves. We would not seek education or work, we would not see the things we feel we need as people.

Narration is much simpler. Whether or not we actually author our lives and our futures, we still live it and narrate life to ourselves. Our actions are merely the implementation and thus, the storytelling of our authored lives.

No comments: