In a way, it’s all a question of storytelling. Who gets to define the cultural narrative, and by what authority does he speak? The truth, after all, is a kind of silence—a silent presence, like Jesus at his trial. Things simply are: being, perception, chains of events. It’s the stories that we tell about those silent things that give them their shape and meaning: this series of actions and feelings is my self, this piece of earth is my country, these events are my biography, the story of my life. Our stories define what we make of what we experience; they are the lyrics we write to what Seamus
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