More about Me

Published by Brett on Monday, June 21, 2021

Stories and storytelling

Growing up I had a slight, but stinging, regret that I had wasted my childhood. I spent my time imagining far off fantastical places and things instead of being productive and present. I didn’t know it then, but a great deal of that “wasted time” was actually preparing me for a future of recognizing, creating, telling, and re-telling great stories. Storytelling is the major thread that connects every meaningful aspect of my life. This site is dedicated to writing, filming, and sharing my creative endeavors with anyone who is interested.

Not much of a reader or a writer

Years ago a friend of mine told me that she only had time to read one book per month. She used that self-imposed cap to calculate the very limited number of books she could expect to read in her lifetime. She was understandably very selective about what she spent her time reading. That conversation stuck with me. I have never been much of a reader. I can read of course, but I don’t do it often and almost never for pleasure. I like learning. I love stories, but there was (and still is) something out settling down and doing nothing but reading that doesn’t sit well with me. A bit of ADHD, perhaps? Deep down I have always felt like my disinterest in reading was a sizable disadvantage, educationally and creatively. In 2017 I had a breakthrough. I took up listening to streamed audiobooks online. Within 4 years I had listened to over 185 titles. It was right around that time one of my brothers asked me to write a book. For years I had been writing media for commercials, television, and film, but never a novel. It felt odd to just sit down and start writing a book, especially given my past history with the printed word. I haven’t done well in moving that particular goal forward. I am nowhere near completing that novel, but I will someday and on that day I will change this line and the preceding one! I don’t think of myself as a writer. When I describe what I do (writing and producing for film and television) and people say “Oh, you are a writer” and I think “No, writers are people who are good at writing. I am more of a storyteller.” Perhaps I will be a good writer someday, but something tells me I will never have the hubris to change this line. Some of you reading this will find it odd that I do not consider myself a writer and yet this site is dedicated to my writing. Some of you who have read my writing will be nodding slowly in agreement, which is fine. Just because I am not good at something doesn’t mean I won’t relentlessly try to improve at it.

Life and Philosophy

For those who are really curious (and still reading), I am a practicing member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My religion means a great deal to me. Trying to express just how much it has positively impacted my life in print never seems sufficient. We live in an age when organized religion is specially singled out and demonized. Many people believe that practicing a specific faith makes a person less able to have their own thoughts and opinions. Happily, this is not true for me. I love my faith because it rests on three critical concepts: (1) direct, individual revelation from God to mankind, (2) the sacred nature of individual moral agency, and (3) the incredibly lofty goal of striving to live a Christ-like life. Truly loving your enemies is as difficult a goal and as contrary to human nature as I can imagine. The fact that I feel that way probably means I am not a particularly good Christian. I am working on that, too. And I always will be. As a part of my audiobook “reading” experiment, I read a fairly wide spectrum of classics and found myself drawn to Stoic philosophy. There is a great deal of it that resonates with me. There is so much in life that is out of our control and stoicism puts that into sharp perspective. You can strive to change the world around you. Perhaps you will succeed. Perhaps you won’t. But either way, your efforts were influenced by an almost innumerable number of factors completely outside your knowledge or influence. That is not meant to be encouraging or discouraging. It is just reality. If you want to change the world, start with your world, start with yourself – that tiny sphere of influence inside you that only you can control. That is where real change begins and it is as true a maxim as life has to offer. It makes me accountable for faults and shortcomings that I could have and should have managed better, and it allows me to let go of the many things in life that I can’t, and in most cases shouldn’t, change.

Final thoughts

Looking back over this page, I wonder if this is more information than you really wanted, but I am only half responsible … because you kept reading. ;)

Thanks for stopping by,
Brett Winn