Matt Alspaugh

Introduction – My Apple Store Experience

Last week I went to the Apple Store in Cleveland to get help. My five-year old MacBook — that’s ancient in computer-years — my five year old computer needed attention.

Now if you’ve ever been to the Apple Store, you know it is a temple to technology, clean, white, with glass and blond wood everywhere, and red-shirted, iPad toting Geniuses wandering around helping people.

After checking in — you do need an appointment — I was sent to grab a seat at a long table, the Genius Bar, a kind of altar at the back of the store. An employee approached me, asked if I was Matt — that was creepy enough in itself, for we had not yet met. Apparently they track customers by making notes about their appearance on their iPads.

My Genuis asked what my issue was, and I said I wanted to downgrade my operating system from the current version to the previous version. He was caught back, a brief note of shock on his face, but regained composure and said that shouldn’t be too hard.  He told me that all the versions of software Apple offered were right inside this table. He hooked my computer up to the table with a cable, restarted it, and sure enough, we saw dozens of software versions to chose from. It should be a simple matter to pick the right one, and restore it into my computer.

Except it wasn’t. The installer refused to install. Stymied, the Genius consulted with another Genius, and another. They weren’t used to people downgrading their computers. Finally the Head Genius came over to try to talk me out of this idea. He said that the latest software had made changes to the firmware in the computer and it was possible that the computer might not work at all, or it might sort of work but freeze up randomly if they did what I wanted. “And did I have a backup, because everything would be erased,” he asked. I told him, “Of course I had a backup, let’s go ahead.”

“You’ll have to sign a waiver, then. Releasing Apple from any responsibility for damages” he told me. “In blood.” No, he didn’t say that part. And actually, they didn’t make me sign anything, just touch a box on one of the iPads.

And we tried again, and ran into more problems. This was an unusual request. It was taking forever. My Genius team asked if they could take my computer into the back. A little apprehensively, I said, “sure”. It was gone a long time, but then they brought it back.

Not only had they restored the older operating system, and it worked, but they pointed out that they had replaced the A key on the keyboard. My extra-muscular left pinky had worn out that key down over the years. And they had cleaned off five years of grime from the keypad.

And all of this was at no charge!  My faith in the religion of Apple, the cult of Mac, had been restored.

Now this sermon is not an advert for Apple, let me assure you.

This little story is part of a larger story in my life. You see, I’m changing the story I tell about myself. I am no longer a geek, living on the forward edge of technology. I may even be transitioning into a Luddite, a late-adopter, a laggard, when it comes to hi-tech. I seem to be downgrading myself, going backward.

Whereas in the past, I’d try the latest new thing just because it was new, I’m now content to stick with what works for me. Even if that means I’m using what the Apple Geniuses would call a ‘vintage’ computer, running down-rev software. Being near the front of the gate, technology-wise, is no longer a thing for me. I’ve shifted my story. I’m telling a new story about myself, and with the new story comes a degree of freedom.

The Danger of the Single Story

In a popular TED Talk, Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie [Chim-muh-MAHN-duh en-GOH-zee ah-DEECH-ee-(ay)] warns of the dangers of limiting stories. I recommend this talk, called “The Danger of the Single Story.” Just search for “TED single story”.

The single story is what you get when you compress all the complex stories of individuals or groups of individuals to a single, often oversimplified narrative.  Told enough times, such stories get internalized, and we forget they are merely stories.

In the talk, Adichie gives several examples where she — an African woman living in America — became the pitiable object of the single story.

She also offers this different example, one in which she inadvertently bought into a single story. She says:

“I come from a conventional, middle-class Nigerian family. My father was a professor. My mother was an administrator. And so we had, as was the norm, live-in domestic help, who would often come from nearby rural villages. So, the year I turned eight, we got a new house boy. His name was Fid-e. The only thing my mother told us about him was that his family was very poor. My mother sent yams and rice, and our old clothes, to his family. And when I didn’t finish my dinner, my mother would say, “Finish your food! Don’t you know? People like Fide’s family have nothing.” So I felt enormous pity for Fide’s family.

Then one Saturday, we went to his village to visit, and his mother showed us a beautifully patterned basket made of dyed raffia that his brother had made. I was startled. It had not occurred to me that anybody in his family could actually make something. All I had heard about them was how poor they were, so that it had become impossible for me to see them as anything else but poor. Their poverty was my single story of them.”[1]

“Who Am I?” – Exercise

How might we break out of telling a single story about ourselves? How might we realize when we’ve internalized such a limiting single story? Earlier, Gina shared a reading from the book, “Writing – the Sacred Art” in which author Rami Shapiro helps a woman realize that she can let go of a single story — actually a false story — about her life.[2]

Now because that is a book on writing, it is rich with prompts — little writing exercises to help you in your own personal exploration and growth.

So let’s do one of those prompts from the book. This is a very brief exercise. But because this is sacred writing, it will be writing for your eyes only. We may have time for a few people to share at the end if they want to, but no-one is obliged to share or show their notes to anyone. Which means you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.

I invite you to recall the earlier story of the woman who had been named for, and compelled to live the life of, her deceased aunt — until at her Jubilee year, she was set free to invent who she really was.

So here’s the prompt[3]:

“Imagine the person you were raised to be is actually modeled on somebody else. It may not matter who; it just isn’t the real you: the you you’ve imagined yourself to be, when you were lying alone with your thoughts in bed, the you you would be if you weren’t the you you are.

Now imagine that you are entering your personal Jubilee. [You are being freed.]You are being freed from the you you were, freed to be the you you wish you were.

What would your name be? What would you love? Whom would you love? What would you do to earn a living? How would you spend your time? Your money?”

Jot down a few notes, phrases or words introducing yourself. Write a short essay introducing yourself. Tell us everything we need to know if we are to know this new you deeply.

(We’ll take a couple of minutes for this part of the exercise.)

Now do it again, but this time assume that the new you is also a false you. If this were not you either, who would you be? Tell us about this person. What would you love? Whom would you love? What would you do to earn a living? How would you spend your time? Your money?

(We’ll take another couple of minutes.)

Now do it one more time, but this time assume that both the new you’s are also false you’s. If these were not you either, who would you be? Tell us about this person.

(We’ll take another couple of minutes.)

Now if we were following the prompt, we’d continue:

[doing] it again and again until you reach a point where you cannot imagine being anyone else.

But we will stop now. I encourage you to continue this process of invention in your own time. Do as many iterations as is needed until you run out of new you’s.

Let me ask if there is anyone who would like to share. You might share by introducing us to the alternate you’s you came up with.

(share)

Or you might have some insight or awareness that came up in doing this exercise.

(share)

My take on this exercise is that we are not a single story, but a rich combination of multiple stories. The process of storying our lives is a process of invention, not discovery – we get to create the stories. And when we realize these stories of ourselves are in fact stories, we can change them more easily.

Narrative Therapy

Being able to change the stories is important when some of those stories are limiting and problematic — troubling single stories from our past.

Maybe we were taught, or we tell ourselves, that we are ugly, or incompetent, or never enough. These stories can become self-fulfilling prophecies. We can even begin to notice and remember those things that reinforce the stories.

For example, my father had dementia for five years, and died from complications of that disorder. During his years of decline and after his death, I began to notice myself as a forgetful person — missing appointments, forgetting names, and so on. I wondered — in fact I began to tell myself — that this was the sign of early onset dementia. I had to step back, and consciously check out that my level of forgetfulness was not unusual for a person my age.

In the field of counseling called “narrative therapy,” we’re encouraged to look at the stories we tell ourselves in a new light. We learn to separate the ‘thin’ stories from the ‘thick’ stories.

Thin stories are those that don’t seem to have much detail or background. Thin stories tend to be the ‘single stories’ Adichie talked about. Thin stories are often created and imposed on us by other people: parents, teachers, those in authority. Because of that authority, we accept these stories without question. So, for example, Mary may say she’s lazy, because one of her teachers told her she was lazy when she was a little child.

Thick stories, on the other hand, are built from the real evidence of life. They are rich with examples, full of detail. They explore inner motives, and outward forces that may have made the person act that way. In the practice of narrative therapy, people are encouraged to create alternative stories to their thin stories, and to thicken them, looking for the richness and detail in their lives.

So Mary, who considered herself lazy, may find that she is in fact very creative, and often used her intelligence to find ways around boring tasks, a practice that many teachers would have considered laziness. She might review her life, and find many instances where she broke the mold, rejecting wearisome, dreary work for novel, interesting tasks. 

As one Narrative Therapist put it:

“Our lives and their pathways are not fixed in stone; instead they are shaped by story. The ways in which we understand and share the stories of our lives therefore make all the difference. If we tell stories that emphasize only desolation, then we become weaker. If we tell our stories in ways that make us stronger, we can soothe our losses and ease our sorrows. Learning how to re-envision the stories we tell about ourselves can make an enormous difference in the ways we live our lives.”[4]

Conclusion

I hope that our little exercise has helped you think of the multiple stories of your own lives. I encourage you to continue to invent and develop those stories, through writing or other practices. I encourage you to thicken those stories that make you stronger, and thin out any problem-saturated stories from your past.

I also invite you to think of the stories we share as an institution — as this church, for example. Particularly as we enter our Stewardship time, where we are making financial commitments to support the church, what shared stories limit us, and what stories create possibility and hope?

For that matter, consider the stories we tell ourselves as a nation. These stories are in tremendous flux right now, and we as Americans have plenty of opportunity to create life giving or life destroying narratives for our country. This is too large a topic to consider this morning, so I simply leave you with the words of Science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin:

“Storytelling is dangerous to those who profit from the way things are because it has the power to show that the way things are is not permanent, not universal, not necessary.  … We will not know our own injustice if we cannot imagine justice. We will not be free if we do not imagine freedom. We cannot demand that anyone try to attain justice and freedom who has not had a chance to imagine them as attainable.”[5]

So let’s tell stories, new stories, stories that open the path to freedom, justice, and peace. Let’s tell stories, lots of stories, thick, rich, hopeful stories, and in the telling, begin to make them true.

Nov 29, 2016

Notes:

1 https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story/transcript?language=en

2 Rami Shapiro and Aaron Shapiro, “Writing – The Sacred Art”, pp. 93-95.

3 Rami Shapiro and Aaron Shapiro, “Writing – The Sacred Art”, pp. 95-96.

4 http://www.narrativetherapylibrary.com/retelling-the-stories-of-our-lives-everyday-narrative-therapy-to-draw-inspiration-and-transform-experience.html

5 Ursula K. Le Guin, quotes in Soul Matters Theme Packet, Nov 2016