My story could begin, no doubt like many others, with my birth. That is probably true for each of us—or at least that is what we believe. But it is not so. The story of a life, like a novel or a film, has a real beginning that rarely, if ever, coincides with the beginning of life itself. In the past of a life, just as in the virtual space preceding fiction, certain elements are trivial and unimportant because they serve no purpose in the story one wishes to tell.

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How did Michael Corleone spend those long weeks at war? How many enemy soldiers did he kill? What did he think about at night, after killing men during the day? Useless information: The Godfather begins precisely when he returns from the war. We know that this fictional prehistory existed—we can imagine what happened before—but there is no need to tell it.

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The same is true of Marius: Pagnol introduces him at the beginning of the play just as he is entering adulthood. Because what came before adds nothing to the story that follows.

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So it is with every human life. You—if a film or a book were to be made about your life, at what exact moment would it begin? What would need to be told first, what would truly matter, so that everything afterward could unfold naturally? You see? The beginning of our lives almost never coincides with the beginning of our stories.