Two strangers were sat in bar, both in solitude, until one of them broke the silence.

“You see this bar that we’re sat in? Look at all the beautiful furniture and the wonderful upholstery… I built it with my bare hands. The old fashioned way… I used no fancy tools.”

“Do they call me John the builder? NO!” He drunkenly thundered.

“If you look over there just beyond the trees, you will see a 30-feet well that I dug with nothing but a shovel. It provides water for the whole village.”

“Do they call me John the Digger? No.”

“You see that wooden sculpture out there? The magnificent curves and delicate lines that adorn each muscle fibre… I spent 8 months carving it with a small knife and chisel. The city council put it in their magazine as one of the wonders of the town.”

“Do they call me John the Sculptor? No.”

He took a deep breath and sighed. He stared intently into his glass of beer and turned to his drinking partner again.

“But you fuck one goat….”

I first heard this story – or at least a similar one – on a TED talk about story telling. It’s a brilliant story. Its brilliance is found in the context.

If you took only the last sentence as a standalone event, you almost do not know how to react and you might be caught asking what the point of the statement is.

That is where context comes in.

When the Nazi’s set out to exterminate the Jews, their first act was to redefine what it meant to be human. They termed the Jews “Rats”.

They understood that a Man without his context was nothing important. Just a number, just another brick in the wall.

The easiest way to destroy a person is to destroy the basis of their individuality. To water down their uniqueness.

You must write your own story. In your story, there is context for who and what you are. There is a side to you that only you can understand and intimately agree to. You owe it to yourself to gatekeep and guard it with a lot of jealousy. Write it, breathe it, guard it.

Context matters. A lot.