The thing you do not have to say make you rich.
Saying things you do not have to say weakens your talk.
Hearing things you do not need to hear dulls your hearing.
And things you know before you hear them – those are you,
Those are why you are in the world.*
(William Stafford)

Audiences and readers do not go to the storyteller to learn yet again what they already know. They go in hope of discovering a world they have never seen before.**
(Robert McKee)

We are a journeying species:

emergent beings, in the flow of life, part of evolution^.

Part of life’s evolutionary flux, the changes taking place through the human generations are too small for us to perceive.

And yet, you and I can instigate such innovations within our lives that we can feel ourselves to be completely differently people from one end of our lives to the other.

Or less, even: say five, ten, fifteen years, depending on the journey we set out on.

Try it for yourself: I recommend identifying talents, values and energies.

*William Stafford, quoted in John O’Donohue’s Divine Beauty;
**From Robert McKee‘s newsletter: Parasite;
^From Paul Gilbert’s The Compassionate Mind.