This internal sense of right-ness that we all experience so often is not a reliable guide to what is actually going on in the external world. And when we act like it is, and we stop entertaining the possibility that we could be wrong, that's when we start doing things like dumping millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Or torpedoing the global economy.
- Kathryn Schulz: On Being Wrong
Forgetting well is almost as important as remembering well. Forgetting is about editing. It's about taking the flood, the ocean of sense information coming at you, and forgetting everything but what's important.
- Gavin E. Crooks, The Botany of Desire
"Any truly effective therapeutic approach, however, would require a thorough examination of the inhumane context in which minds function - and, presumably, a comprehensive systemic rewiring."
- Belen Fernandez
I don't know if I correctly remember who I once was. Now as I listen to myself recount the events of my past I found I have embellished, bedazzled, sculpted and polished my memories into beautiful accoutrements fit for a person of honor. I try to remember who I was but through new (older) eyes I only see someone who does not see what I see and at first I feel wiser, but then I remember that if I don't understand her then I must not be able to see what she sees, either.
I worry about this, sometimes. All things wither and die in their cycles, sands take form and are swept away but I still like to think some part of me is always reaching up, always and forever. Some part of me understands, and is determined to understand, forever.
I feel like when I 'get it' I understand that she is me, and that I am still her. Sometimes I bend time-space with calculations using variables representing inconceivable units. Sometimes I feel like I'm there, and everything is plugged in, and I have the proper cables and the universe and I are aligned and now I can fly, or swim, be a superhero or something equally fantastic. At least, I can open my soul to you and with some strange alchemy transform words into the rarest sampling of my most perfect, true, humiliating and illuminating moments in time, and circumstance, and chance. At least, I can relive at will every moment savored in my recent life. At least I can travel through time. No big deal.
Sometimes I struggle with wanting to climb mountains while equally also liking it just fine on the ground. Sometimes I think there are things I'll never be able to do in a million years. I used to grieve over the realization that I would get older, and at a certain point, I would no longer have the potential to do certain things. I suppose this is the lamentation of every being that is programmed to strive.
The system is faulty, but not broken. The game is not winnable, but still fun. What would happen if I reject the notion that I am not who I am and just adopt the persona of my wildest imagination? Would it be all fun and games? Would it be a nightmare?
Am I doing it right now, as I type this?
I was telling a story to someone I had just met yesterday. I have a story for everything. I could write about an empty can, and make it mean something to me. My memories have engineered an intricate road map that navigates me through the complexity of being alive, and the older I get the more these roads pave and I can maneuver life's events with increasing grace and ease. A librarian has categorized every memory by vintage to be mulled, cured, aged and perfected for exactly the right moment. I must pay attention to the moments around me because magic only happens when all the elements are able to make it to stage for curtain call.
Making something out of nothing takes moxie, but we do it every day and all the time. We enlighten, entertain, enrage and intrigue each other. We excite and enjoy and disgust and manipulate each other with our stories.
There is a myth I have constructed, that I am a mediocre and insignificant person. She follows me like a ghostly asterisk on every epiphany, constantly reminding me that nothing I say matters, and nobody wants to hear it. I have dreams and also actual moments in my life when I try to tell people something, but they didn't hear me and I feel invisible.
No one wants to go unheard. No one wants to be invisible.
I let this person exist, the one that reduces contrast in my dynamic life and makes it all look grey. Like an asshole.
As my paths become beaten I watch the grass die beneath my feet. The more I trudge in the same direction the muddier the ground, and my steps become labored. I no longer get lost but sometimes I look at the ways I have not gone, green patches, pure and untouched and I feel that like a beast, I have destroyed what was once beautiful.
It makes me think of the burning cane fields... the soot, and the smell. It makes me think about how we burn acres of plants to the ground, and kick dust into our childrens' lungs so we can put sugar into our tea. We humans find so much of what we do ugly and despicable. It makes me wonder how we got to be so self-loathing, and what could possibly happen if we all forgave ourselves for being human. Something tells me it would be quite transforming, in an upward sort of way.
What is the future of story?
"In the digital age, people are reading less fiction, but this is because they've found new ways to jam extra story into their lives--on average we watch five hours of TV per day, listen to hours of songs, and spend more and more time playing story-centric video games. I think we are seeing, in video games, the birth of what will become the 21st century's dominant form of storytelling. The fantasy lands of online games like World of Warcraft attract tens of millions of players, who spend an average of 20–30 hours per week adventuring in interactive story. Players describe the experience of these games as "being inside a novel as it is being written." In upcoming decades, as computing power increases exponentially, these virtual worlds are going to become so attractive that we will be increasingly reluctant to unplug. So the real danger isn't that story will disappear from our lives. It is that story will take them over completely."
- Jonathan Gottschall, Author, "The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human"
