What we think...
Barack Obama has been hailed as one of the finest orators in recent history. On the day that he is inaugurated as the 44th US President, we celebrate a passage from Dreams Of My Father (Barack Obama 1995):
“…beneath the small talk and sketchy biographies and received opinions, people carried within them some central explanation of themselves. Stories full of terror and wonder, studded with events that still haunted or inspired them. Sacred stories.
“And it was this realisation, I think, that finally allowed me to share more of myself with the people I was working with, to break out of the larger isolation that I carried with me to Chicago. …as people listened to my stories… they would nod their heads or shrug or laugh… Then they’d offer a story to match or confound mine, a knot to bind our experiences together… As time passed, I found that these stories, taken together, had helped me bind my world together, that they gave me the sense of place and purpose I’d been looking for.”