52 pages • 1-hour read
A Million Miles In A Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life
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Part 5-AfterwordChapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 5: “A Character Who Wants Something and Overcomes Conflict to Get It”
Part 5, Chapter 31 Summary: “Squeezing the Cat”
Content Warning: This section includes discussion of suicide, addiction, animal cruelty, illness, and death.
During the bike ride, Miller met a man in his 50s named Mike Barrow, whom the group called Iron Mike. Mike told many stories about his past. He was married four times, and he failed because he lacked resolve. He was a nurse and developed an addiction to drugs. Mike had an affair with a colleague. When she left him, Mike kidnapped her cat, called the woman, and squeezed the cat on the phone. The woman called the police, and Mike was arrested. He admitted he was a “real mess.” Mike explained to Miller’s bike group that his father died by suicide when he was a kid and that God helped him heal and change. He participated in the bike ride to show himself that he could finish it and was not a “quitter.”
Part 5, Chapter 32 Summary: “The Beauty of a Tragedy”
Miller refers to a friend named Jim who lost his 27-year-old wife, Janice, to cancer. Miller spent time with Jim as he and his children prepared for her death. Miller understood the man’s “deep well of love,” suggesting that people realize how capable of love they are when they lose loved ones and a story is ending (222). After Janice’s funeral, people gathered at home and told stories about her, which Miller felt were “scenes in her narrative” (227). Despite the loss, Miller notes that Janice left an “emotional inheritance” of stories that would remain. Realizing that an ending scene can be beautiful further inspired Miller to write an even better story.
Part 5, Chapter 33 Summary: “All You Have to Do Is Try”
Miller grew up in Texas and remembers when a small-town Odessa team won the state high school football championship. Twenty years later, a movie about the Odessa team was released titled Friday Night Lights. Miller notes that the film was a great sports movie about a team overcoming conflict. However, Miller was surprised that, in the film, the team lost the championship. Confused, Miller did research and discovered that the film focused on the year the team almost won because that year required that they “tried harder” since they overcame more adversity (230). Miller realized that winning is not essential for a good story, but to “sacrifice everything” makes a story great.
Part 5, Chapter 34 Summary: “To Speak Something into Nothing”
Miller argues that “a good storyteller speaks something into nothing” (232). Miller references his visit with Bob in San Diego where he learned that the family had organized a parade for the children to have fun on New Year’s Eve. Bob made a rule: Nobody would watch the parade, but anyone could participate. Their neighbors participated and, after the parade, they all had lunch at Bob’s house. The parade has been taking place for 10 years, attracting hundreds of people. Miller emphasizes that a good storyteller not only tells a better story but also invites people to join, giving those around them a better story as well.
Miller traveled to Uganda with Bob, who was building a new school. To commemorate the event, they planted three trees, and Bob invited Miller to plant a tree for him. In the process, Miller felt that Bob’s story also became his story and he donated funds for the schools and worked to offer a scholarship for a child. He felt happy to be telling a better story alongside Bob.
Part 5, Chapter 35 Summary: “Summer Snow in Delaware”
Before Miller and the group on the bike trip reached the end of their journey and arrived in Washington, D.C., many lamented its ending. Miller explains that the trip taught them that people’s lives are connected and one human’s story can impact many others. He notes that each day on the trip was an epic story. The participants started the day with ambition, entered the conflict, and experienced positive and negative turns that finally changed their characters.
Miller stresses that if storytelling shifts people’s moral compass, his own has transformed from “cynicism to hope” (240). On the last day of the bike ride, the group said a prayer and told Mike Barrow he inspired them all. By the time they arrived in Delaware, they had raised $200.000 to donate. The group stood on the shore and watched the falling snow. Miller noticed Mike’s happiness as they crossed the dunes.
Part 5, Chapter 36 Summary: “Where Once There Was Nothing”
Miller explains that he does not have fun writing a book and has to force himself to finish. He suggests that the same applies to real-life stories. While it would be easier to stop trying, Miller “plods through,” writing his next story and working on the Mentoring Project. He enjoys slower-paced and simpler stories. As they wrote their screenplay, Miller asked Steven what he hoped people would feel after watching the movie. Steven said he wanted people to feel grateful. Miller notes that returning from the bike trip, he felt grateful for being part of a beautiful story.
Miller refers to the book of Ecclesiastes and its practical advice for a meaningful life: find a job you enjoy, have a good marriage, and obey God. Miller feels that God suggests that people write a good story with His help and invite others to join them.
Before understanding story structure, Miller felt life was meaningless. He emphasizes that he has now rejected fatalism. The world contains many bad stories teaching people that humanity has no purpose. It is, therefore, a great “calling” to create better stories that will make people feel grateful and inspired to repeat them.
Afterword Summary
Miller no longer wonders what he will tell God when he arrives in heaven. Miller says he will talk about Mike, Bob, Jason, the bike trip, and the Mentoring Project. He will ask if God remembers his panic before his speech, and God will assure him He was by his side. Miller will sit with God and remember the stories together. God will congratulate him, and his soul will finally be at rest. Finally, they will walk towards the city God “spoke into existence […] in a place where once there’d be nothing” (249).
Part 5-Afterword Analysis
In the final section, Miller reiterates the book’s overarching arguments, tying them into his theme of Finding Meaning in Life Through Storytelling. He emphasizes that after choosing to pursue and live his own stories, his “moral compass changed from cynicism to hope” (240). Using story structure as a guidance tool to embrace conflict and seek ambition and purpose, Miller abandoned his comfort zone and created meaningful life experiences. The anecdotal story of the bike trip illustrates this idea. Miller mentions Mike’s story, a tormented man who battled addiction and participated in the bike ride to prove he does not “quit.” For Miller, the bike ride symbolizes a challenging ambition that urged him to confront and overcome conflict, thus transforming him.
Miller uses the motif of films to illustrate the idea that a good story is premised on the journey of life rather than a specific destination or outcome, underscoring his thematic interest in Purpose as a Perpetually Evolving Concept in the Human Experience. For instance, he discusses the film Friday Night Lights, noting that the story revolved around the Odessa football team’s ability to overcome adversity through hard work to perform well rather than centering the story of winning the championship. In this way, Miller emphasizes that, as in a story, people who “sacrifice everything” to overcome adversity are living out a meaningful story. Instead of focusing on achievement, Miller argues that the purpose of human life lies in the struggle.
Miller draws an analogy between death and tragedy and the narrative “resolution” of a story, viewing the ending of life through a hopeful and positive perspective. The anecdotal story about the illness and death of his friend’s young wife demonstrates Miller’s desire to find hope in a painful event. Miller uses the oxymoron “the beauty of a tragedy” to emphasize that even the darkest moments in people’s lives have meaning (220). Miller details the woman’s tragic experience with illness and her last moments with her family, but also describes the celebration of her life. His friend’s wife had created beautiful life moments which people watched in videos after her funeral as “scenes in her narrative,” highlighting Miller’s motif of memories as “an emotional inheritance”—a beautiful life story that remains after death (228).
Miller concludes his narrative with a call to action, encouraging readers to write better stories by pursuing human connection and a collective endeavor towards hope and intentionality. As Miller notes, a good storyteller “invites other people into the story” (235). Miller’s memories of his time with Bob emphasize that creating a good life also involves meaningful relationships. Because Bob organized a parade that became a collective event and invited Miller to commemorate the building of a school in Uganda, he made other people part of a greater story. For Miller, a storyteller is a positive force in the world, responsible for battling despair. He argues that by deciding to create a good story, people counter dark thoughts and “despondency” with “direct action” (247). To dismantle bad stories, people must join “a team of people doing hard work” (247).
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