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Finding Out How Similar We All Really Are

Story by Rossyyume Flickr CC BY NC ND

I love stories. Especially people's stories. The stories they've created. The stories that created them. Stories were a big part of why I majored in Journalism. It was an excuse to listen to people tell their stories.

As a 19-year-old soon-to-be Journalism student, my goal was to live in a tiny apartment with five cats and interview interesting people all day. And while it's probably best for everyone -- including the cats -- that the career muses didn't send me down that path, I am still drawn to the experiences of others and how they share those memories and ideas.

It's fascinating to me that we now have so many ways to tell stories -- ours and others. So many ways to document our lives, the lives of the people we know and the people we pretend to be. With each story comes a chance to put ourselves in someone else's shoes. In doing so, we get a little more understanding of how similar we all are.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Humans of New York: Brandon Stanton lets others tell their stories through his lens. A picture and a brief snippet of conversation provide a glimpse into the lives of strangers. It's that glimpse that proves we are all made of the same stuff. I follow both the RSS feed and the Instagram account.

StoryCorps: It began with a mission to preserve the connections between people and a recording booth in New York City. It's now a popular podcast featuring several stories each week, an app for anyone to record interviews and five books of curated memories.

Snap Judgement: After some recent travel, I cleared out my podcast backlog and found myself needing something to listen to. I put out a call on Twitter for suggestions, and this is one that came back. While the first few episodes were thought-provoking and interesting, the episode from this week, "How Far Would You Go," was absolutely fascinating. Most of the stories so far have been biographical recollections, or at least plausibly so. This one was science fiction with an intense mental question that stayed with me long after the episode ended.

What stories do you enjoy and where do you share yours?

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