Story matter for their lives

"Common games of sport and gambling are but stripped down, stylized and abbreviated dramas, inviting the direct or vicarious participation of masses of people seeking for some adventure, no matter how minuscule, to provide story matter for their lives" (Karl E. Scheibe, "Self-Narratives and Adventure" 134).

"The value of vertigo is revealed thorugh an examination of the nature of the thrill: that which James said we live for even as we live by habit" (136).

"No strictly rational argument exists for maintaining a cold war, striving in an arms race, or attaining nuclear superiority. The game is not what it seems. These adventures are required not logically but dramatically—the requirement that some sort of reasonably coherent and compelling political story line be sustained" (142).

Kurt Vonnegut on life and self stories:

"If a person survives and ordinary span of sixty years or more, there is every chance that his or her life as a shapely story has ended and all that remains to be experienced is epilogue. Life is not over, but the story is" (Deadeye Dick, 1982, qutd. in Scheibe 143)

"Adventure creates story and contributes to the realization of completed identities. Seriousness is at risk in every venturing forth. But without the venturing forth there is no seriousness. Without the possibility of adventure, domesticity becomes a ludicrous reduction of life, and cannot be serious". (149)

From Karl E. Scheibe's "Self-Narratives and Adventure," in Narrative Psychology, ed. T. R. Sarbin.

Out of Character