In the Shape of a Story

A good friend of mine once said

"I feel like I'm more of an observer and you Mahathir, are a great storyteller"
 
I’ve been thinking about why I’m drawn to stories, not just reading them, but living inside them, retelling them. Why certain memories replay in narrative form, like chapters I revisit when I need to understand myself again.

Maybe it’s because stories don’t just describe life.
They shape it.

When I look back at my life, I don’t see random events.

I see arcs. I see chapters.

I see a younger version of myself who believed love alone could fix everything. I see seasons of confusion. I see growth that didn’t feel like growth at the time. I see music marking transitions, like chapters closing and opening.

That’s the thing about memory, it doesn’t store data. It stores stories.

We don’t say, “On that day, X happened.”
We say, “That was the moment everything changed.”

We frame our lives in plot.

Life, in real time, is messy. It’s loud like a firework, emotions colliding, decisions half-formed, outcomes uncertain. But when we tell the story later, we smooth the edges. We find themes. like firework, it's still beautiful.

We say, “That heartbreak taught me.”
We say, “That struggle prepared me.”

Whether we realize it or not, we are editing our own biographies every day.

And maybe that’s necessary.

Without narrative, pain feels random. With narrative, it becomes part of becoming.

Sometimes when I read or watch a movie that captures something I’ve felt but couldn’t articulate, it’s not just admiration, it’s recognition.

That’s me.
That ache.
That longing.

Stories validate experience. They tell us we’re not strange for feeling deeply. They give language to what we thought was inexpressible.

Sometimes a line from a book or a dialogue from a movie feels like it was written specifically for a version of me I didn’t know how to protect.

I used to think identity was fixed, something solid and unchanging. But the more I reflect, the more I realize identity is narrative.

Who I am today is not just my actions. It’s the meaning I’ve assigned to them.

If I tell my story as a series of failures, I become smaller.
If I tell it as a journey of lessons, I become resilient.

The events don’t change.
The framing does.

And that framing matters.

Because we are storytelling creatures.

We fall in love and call it destiny.
We survive hardship and call it growth.
We listen to old songs and call it memory.

Stories allow us to hold contradictions, joy and regret, love and loss, youth and maturity, in the same space without collapsing.

They help us make peace with who we were, and gently shape who we are becoming.

Maybe that’s why I keep writing.

Not to create fiction.
Not to impress anyone.

But to understand my own chapters.

Because in the end, stories still matter for one simple reason:

They help us remember that we are more than moments.

We are meaning in motion.