I like to learn from the stories between the crags. It’s my kind of thing; the story behind the story. For every story told, particularly ones crafted for public consumption, there remains the untold part, and these, for me, usually forms the main ingredient for the successes or failures that are portrayed to us. This is why I like Malcolm Gladwell’s writings. He’s an explorer willing to unravel the finer details that seem too trivial for story tellers to bother about. What is obvious is usually a perfect mix of unspoken words and inactions combined with the revealed to produce the stories that we rejoice or disregard.

Once I hear of or read a story, I immediately begin to find other parts of that story not reported. This is in particular to stories of mess ups, downfalls, disgrace, and the likes. People usually do not willingly plot a path to failure or severe dishonour. Such circumstances arise from a series of bad decisions and choices for which alternatives were ignored and advice was hissed at. For this reason I seek to always find out what was ignored on the path to dishonour.

I remember when I experienced an epic fail in a relationship as a young man in my 20s. I was cultured, disciplined, spiritual, and kind of a role model for younger folks in my family. I never believed that such stupidity could befall a person of my standing. I felt invincible as it had to do with relating with the opposite sex. I was warned by two separate persons, who called me aside and asked probing questions. I flushed my answers down their throats, bouncing the questions off me as if to tell them “can’t your eyes see how pure this is?” Well…I got bitten and it was quite terrible. It was a fall from grace. Grace grassed me like some will say. Or was it my foolishness that did? In this light, I like to learn from broken people; folks who have crashed small or big time. I call it feeding from the thrash.
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FEEDING FROM THE THRASH.