Stories. We love ‘em.
We like them big. Big feelings, big transformations, big come-uppances. Larger than life? (interesting expression.) Yes please.
Love! Pain! Royals! Trump!
Drama is greatly preferred but boring will do if necessary. It’s not required to like the story, or even to be entertained. Subject matter? Irrelevant. We’ll tell a tale about anything. (“The water is grey today.”)
Humans narrate life.
Watching, symbolizing, evaluating, chronicling.
All. The. Time.
“I am feeling anxious. She shouldn’t have said that. He was angry and depressed. I need more money. The umbrella is gone. This pain is terrible- it’s like an elephant inside. I’m in love. The sky is blue.”
These are descriptions of experience, a constant masking narration, putting up a separating layer between us and existence.
Turns out we are much less interested in living than in describing living.
No other creatures do this. Other species just are. Is-ness happening.
Which, funny enough, is an unembellished presence that many enlightenment seekers happen to aspire to.
So then why not drop the requisite telling of how we feel, who we are, what we think, and if we’re getting anywhere?
Nah, most humans are going to hold tight to narration as if our lives depended on it.
Which, maybe they do.
After all, what exactly would be left if it was possible for the constant story-telling to fall away?
There’s be no tale of Me, no experiencer, no evaluation of like-not-like, or good-bad, right-wrong, or “who I am.” There’s be no identity, meaning, or symbols. There's be no analysis, talking about, thinking about.
Yeah, no thanks.
Give us TV, movies, computer, Facebook, let us delve compulsively into people’s lives including our own, let us try to fix things via inquiry, therapy, and medication. Hey maybe we’ll find enlightenment via talking ourselves through meditation, thank you very much.
Being without the narrative sounds sooo unappealing.
Because there can’t be a sense of Self without story.
Even the word “myself” is description.
There can’t be a way to know where experience ends and Me begins, unless there is constant metaphoring.
Description creates fantasy while masquerading as reality, provides certainty and a sense of Me-ness that separates absolutely everything.
And it feels like an absolute given.
Most folks are not likely to give that up.
Even though without story, it’s a helluva lot quieter.
A whole bunch of crazy goes instantly poof. Including the sense of Self.
Still… probably not.
Which is fine of course.
Even so, every once in a while…
Maybe experiencing without chronicling will happen anyway.
Maybe the ABOUT overlay will occasionally be noticed. Maybe the storied presence that so many people work so hard for will be noticed to be here already.
Maybe once in a while…
Who knows. Who can know. Who will report.
Is-ness.
Happily ever after.
The end.
