Is that the narrative that feeds your soul?

Or is it the just the one you're used to?

Dear Writer,

I love identity stories. There’s such an innate vulnerability to identity, because we so desperately want to know who we are, but we change so much so often that by the time we figure it out, that’s not who we are anymore.

I’ve been thinking about George R.R. Martin’s riff on architects and gardeners as a much gentler and more poetic take on plotters and pantsers, and I love it. What I’ve noticed is that, even though the definitions of architects and gardeners map pretty tightly to that of plotters and pantsers, I can’t help but bristle at the loss of the frantic connotation that comes with the idea of being a pantser.

A pantser is flying by the seat of their pants. A gardener is quietly cultivating without a desire to control the outcome.

Do you see what I mean? One is kinda negging.

And that one is, of course, the one I identify with the most.

I wake up most mornings and jump out of bed and hit the day like I’m mad at it. I rush from this thing to that thing and I try to get them all done as best I can. There is no moment of my life where there is nothing waiting for me on my to-do list. I am a human hummingbird, sometimes appearing still but always in motion. When I first discovered what a pantser was, I thought, Yeah, that’s me.

But… a gardener? It’s basically the same thing—you start something and then see what happens not really controlling for outcome—but the gardener identity is so much… calmer. So much more peaceful. So much more deliberate. Why do I feel my identity so threatened by simply looking at my approach to life from an angle that has less inherent judgment in it?

I’m self-deprecatory by nature. I take myself out at the knees whenever the opportunity presents itself. I have learned, in recent years, to also celebrate my strengths and accomplishments, but when I do, it’s awkward. Forced.

But I’m a goddamn natural at pointing out what a human turd I can be. A delightful human turd, but even a delightful turd is still a turd.

And this brings me right back to the power of narrative. As I defined the terms in How Story Works (hey, is that a plug? WHY YES IT IS!), a story is a series of events, and a narrative is what we decide those events mean. If you think of the definitions as the story, the facts, the series of events, what actually happened, then the negative or positive associations to those facts are the narrative and I gotta say… I’m really comfortable with a narrative that negs the hell out of me.

If you think of the basics of a gardener and a pantser, it’s the same thing; someone who starts something without knowing exactly how it’s going to end up. But there’s something in the freneticism of the pantser experience, the way it treats not knowing what’s going to happen like it’s inherently inferior to a plotter that… I don’t know. Speaks to my inner sense of Who do you think you are? And when I think about shifting my identity to the gardener model, which honors a writer’s sense of wonder and faith in their competence to figure it out, it makes me wriggle a bit in my skin.

That’s why I love identity. It’s so tied to our vulnerability, to our fear that we are different from who we think we are. You would think that trading an ingrained and accepted identity for one that thinks better of me—is that the narrative that feeds your soul?—would be a welcome change. And yet…

Had I not come across that idea from George R.R. Martin, I wouldn’t have had to wrestle with this little bit of internalized identity politics. I wouldn’t have had to ask myself why I’m so much more comfortable taking myself out than raising myself up, but it’s clearly a question I needed to ask.

Everything,

L