I saw the movie The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus the other day. That movie is all about the power of imagination, and how telling stories sustains the universe and reality itself. That idea sounds all pretty and romantic, but there's a dark side to that truth. Stories do not just fill us with awe and noble ideals, they can also trap us and limit us.
Lately it's a pet peeve of mine how people always like to tell stories, give reasons and excuses for why something is the way it is, even when those stories are very tenuous, unverifiable, or unnecessary. It's probably not a good example, but a recent one springs to mind: I overheard someone said something like "When I pinch someone it hurts because I play the piano". The piano-playing seemed very irrelevant in the larger context, it seemed like a dumb thing to say at the time... As if pinching people does not usually hurt. More commonly offensive, it will be said that someone has some personality trait because they are Irish, or Latin, Nordic, male or female. Most people today in modern society are taught to understand how unfair and limiting such "stories" based on racism and sexism can be. Note how these labels do not explain or inform in any way yet still they satisfy something inside the mind sometimes; e.g. The amount of melanin in one's skin has no apparent cause-and-effect relationship with dancing ability, but that does not stop people from saying "[white person] can't dance because he is white". Perhaps skin color can be associated with culture and upbringing, but why not just say "[white person] can't dance because of his upbringing". That would make more sense but that is still bullshit, just another "story". A person can be a good or bad dancer regardless of or despite any kind of upbringing.
For another example, consider the ideas of "evolutionism". Now, I'm not debating against evolution, I use the word "evolutionism" here to refer to the way many materialistic folks think these days; they constantly make up stories out of thin air about why people behave the way they do. These stories are completely unverifiable and unfalsifiable, but people relate them to evolution and evolution is all sciency so that is enough proof for them. If there is some tendency for men to behave differently from women, it must be because "men were hunters and women were gatherers and so blah blah blah". It is a simple and satisfying story, so who needs actual facts or evidence?
Feminism, or at least its internet implementation is another pet peeve of mines. I have a bad habit of reading feminist blogs when I'm bored, just so I can feel shocked and disgusted at how warped and deranged the thinking of supposedly sentient beings can be. Feminism likes to tell the story of poor oppressed downtrodden Woman. Woman throughout history has had everything worse than The Man. Forget the reality of the diversity of human experience, forget ordinary men and women living and loving together, sharing their struggles in surviving and raising their families. It would not be so annoying if it was not how most people seem to see the world these days. Most people actually believe that Today is special, and in the past everyone followed the rules and no one thought for themselves. They act like history consists of men sitting in mansions and sipping martinis while women slaved away in cotton fields. They think that somehow in a world that lacked tv and internet and newspapers there existed stronger and more universal and oppressive social norms. Facts about men's disadvantages in life throughout history are ignored and minimized.
So I do not like history books much either, they try too hard to make everything a nice neat little story.
And then people tell stories that completely contradict each other. It really makes me scratch my head. For instance, open the newspaper and read about "kids these days". Read about how all kids are ostracized and gay-bullied and abused all day long, alongside another article about how spoiled kids are these days and how they are constantly rewarded for participating and never criticized and treated with kid-gloves by "helicopter-parents" and with their self-esteem coddled all day long.
I am getting tired of stories. I like facts. Facts can be tricky, but many of them are quite simple. I am typing this using a computer: Fact. I am typing this on a computer because evolution women oppressed gay bullying : Story. Stories help us remember facts, but do not confuse them for facts. I get the impression that that idea is a rabbit hole I have barely begun to explore enough. I use the word "story" here to mean one or more facts or stories strung together in a narrative, often using cause-and-effect.
In physical reality, regular science has found that seemingly solid stable matter is made up of jiggly atoms with plenty of space in-between. And those atoms are made of some particles and more space. And then those particles are made of subatomic particles, but then at the bottom of it all, it's just space with energy trapped within it. Solid matter is an illusion. That's basically what the Qabalah has taught for hundreds or thousands of years, but anyway, my point is just to illustrate using metaphor what perhaps is the truth about metaphysical reality. We conceive of reality with stories, and words which act as labels. But such things only have meaning because they point to something else, they can be broken down into more stories, facts, and labels. Perhaps there is no meaning at the bottom of all these stories and labels. Perhaps metaphysical reality is based not on solid stable meaning, but just the trapped, swirling energy of emotions and desires.
I can philosophize forever, I bore myself. At the end of the day, what use is this knowledge? How can we put it into practice?
First, note that often the purpose of these stories are to deny free will, to pretend we do not have choices, to satisfy desires and emotions. (Unless I am just telling myself a story in saying that). One might be tempted to feel disturbed that we are all trapped in stories that are not necessarily true, there is no apparent way to stop telling them. But perhaps we can take conscious control of this story-telling, we can take an existing story that we do not like anymore and rewrite it. Realizing this is a breakthrough I have had recently, it's really starting to sink in. Yet it's just more of the same along the same vein I have been in for a while: realizing that magic is everywhere, it's been there all along. Men and women are asleep, mired in illusion. The magician, the Initiate, learns to choose his or her illusions.
For a little while it felt a bit like losing my mind. For a day or two I kept questioning everything, any kind of assertion about cause and effect. I realized that you can take any two facts and pretend that one causes the other if you try hard enough. Some illusions work better than others, but in the end it's all illusion.
A person must first look inside of themselves and see which stories they have been telling themselves that they do not want anymore, see which stories have outlived their usefulness.
One may tell themselves the story about how they had abusive, unloving parents, in the context of how they themselves are or will be as parents. Too often that story goes, "I had bad parents, so that means I have no choice but to be a bad parent too." But it would be just as reasonable to say "I had bad parents, so that means I will be a better parent because I have the special opportunity to learn from my own parents' mistakes."
It has sunk in that any story, all stories, without exception, we tell ourselves can be changed, remodeled. One can have the most oppressive, grueling, and cruel existence and then just spin that into a proud story of being strong, brave, and heroic. Or we can pick and choose the facts that we pay attention to.
I read the book Neverending Story a while ago, last year. That book is awesome, the author explains some deep esoteric truths in there. There was that one part where a character explains that when something escapes "Fantastica" into physical reality, it becomes a lie. I still do not really understand the significance of that notion, but this is just my segueway into a discussion about lies:
Despite my better judgement, I saw the movie The Invention of Lying the other day. In this movie we have the high concept story of a world where no one ever lies. I knew in advance I would disagree with how they portrayed such a world, but mostly in the end I thought more about how sorry I felt sorry for Ricky Gervais (he wrote and starred in the movie); the movie was a window into his narrow dysfunctional worldview. Supposedly in such a world where people tell only the truth people would be mean all the time and insult and bully each other constantly, especially him. The most bizarre part is his emphasis on how supposedly ugly his nose his. He wrote the movie, so it is probably safe to assume he thinks his nose is too squat, since someone says so every five minutes in the movie. Meanwhile he has a perfectly nice and regular and unremarkable nose, I suppose he would not be happy unless he looked like Owen Wilson.
Reminds me of those situations where someone can read other people's minds, like Mel Gibson's What Woman Want or that one episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I thought it was rather sick and wrong/incorrect how they assume people just think depressing and self-loathing thoughts all day.
Recently I also read an advice column where someone complained about how they dislike having to act fake and cheerful all of the time. I was depressed by the response from the advice columnist and other commentators. They all, without exception agreed that the "truth" is that we all have to act cheerful and fake because society rewards this. Another story that does not make sense. Tomorrow when it is convenient to the purpose of feeling oppressed and hopeless and without choices someone in the same advice column will complain that they are too cheerful and nice and society rewards assholes.
I assert here that deep down people are not so shallow and callous and ugly. At least there is no reason to think so. The things we fear the most have a way of seeming more real than things we are not so afraid of, but they are not any more or less real, or they do not have to be. When we break down and tell the truth, what stands out in our minds is the parts we have to say that are callous and shallow, but that does not mean that the callous and shallow is the truth. Cynics like to think that deep down we are just animals and we are selfish and want to kill and rape and plunder. Those are the parts of us that seem to jump out of us the most forcefully, but that is only because those are the parts of us that we push down the deepest. The image of pushing a flotation device underwater in a swimming pool comes to mind. When people act selfless, nice, and charitable, that is real. People get rewarded for being nice, and people get rewarded for being mean.
I would encourage anyone reading this to be yourself, speak your truth. It feels good to see see people get cranky and angry sometimes, it is good when it means justice, or something others can relate to. People who act cheerful in a fake way are obvious and repellant, in my opinion and experience anyway. If you say something uncalled-for, just apologize, and mean it, and move on. It's sensical and okay to have more than one opinion or feeling about something at the same time. Go ahead and be cranky, just not all the time. The most boring and repellant people are the ones who act the same all the time.
Anyway, for more information about the nature of the illusory stories we tell ourselves, I found material by the channeled individual Vywamus very elucidating.
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