PNN is a place for stories

Mainstream media is pretty much all the same stuff.  Important stuff at times, but pretty much all the same.  The trouble is you can't read really good stories.  You know, the really important ones about life and love and struggles and such?  Stories told by people that you can relate to, normal, struggling every day sort of people you can trust.  And in mainstream, you can't form a relationship with the authors - or chat with other people about the same thing.  Well, we hope that PNN becomes a place that you can do all these things.

I'm very lucky, in the story department.  I get a chance to meet most of the PNN authors and I'm telling you their stories are wonderful.  Erica Ortiz, for example.  28-years-old, works full time, goes to college, and just happens to be one of the fastest women on this planet in a drag racing car.  Her parents wouldn't know where to put oil in a car, but she grew up knowing that this is what she was going to do.

Donna Lange at 48-years-old has a personal tragedy that firms up the 'life is short' idea and figures she's got to do something else - so what does she do?  She decides to sail around the world alone - not a bad idea, but only trouble was she'd never sailed before.  But she learned, and took off.

The amazing part, at least to me, is that these are normal people, who just happen to be doing rather extraordinary things- if you met them on the street and didn't know who they were, you'd say 'yup, very nice folks'... then when you found out what they did you'd say - 'really?  You did what?"

At some point you realize that these stories and thousands of others like them are what give us hope, help us get along, make us think, and give meaning to life.  It really isn't about whether Paris Hilton deserves to be in jail, or what politician has gotten into trouble this week, it's about your aunt who raised you by herself and never expected anything for it, it's about a local farmer who has worked for hospice for 20 years, it's about the college kids who went to Zambia to work in refugee camps...

And what's interesting is to hear these stories, told by themselves or a friend or family member.  Not in a 15 second TV spot, not on some reality show, and not by some reporter who has to make a splashy title out of it to get his story accepted at 'True Lives' magazine.

Now, just so you don't get disheartened and think 'I don't have any stories like that', let me reassure you that you do, or someone in your family does, or someone in your neighborhood does - it's just a matter of taking the time to ask questions, then sharing the answers.

Now I'm off to chat with the mother of the student who went off to Zambia.  Turns out she got asked by her daughter to come to Zambia and set up solar panels in the camp.  Karen doesn't know a thing about solar panels but she's going, confident she can figure them out somehow.  And she will.