A tall story
I was sitting in a medical symposium this morning, bored to tears, when it suddenly occurred to me that everything is a story, a narrative. Each one of us is a unique narrative with a beginning and an end. In that narrative there are chapters, sub-sections, paragraphs, sentences and words. But it’s a juicy story, filled with pictures, sounds, smells and things - all bound together with drippy or red hot emotions, whatever the case may be.
Then of course there is the crossing of paths with another and the resulting sharing of the story for a time, briefly or more permanently. The really enmeshed narratives bond the individual stories along a shared path. But still, all individual narratives remain separable and unique.
Context
The narrative however is more than a mere chronicle of life’s experiences. It is the phenomenon that confers context to experience. For without context, that which we experience would melt or blow away with the wind, leaving us no richer for the experience. Context results from the meeting of our subjectivity with what life uncovers along the path. It is the way in which we make sense of things, give life meaning and develop awareness.
Context however is not the end point of the narrative. A mosaic of many individual contexts, no matter how colorful, juicy or gratifying they each may be, still renders us bound by individual context to make sense of things. In this configuration we are relegated to bouncing from one mosaic piece to another, hopping and hoping that we land on an inspiring one and not one that wacks the life out of us! Each individual mosaic piece is our entire subjective world view while we occupy it. This state of affairs is a little risky for the maintenance of a fulfilling disposition. It’s going to be difficult to laugh in a humorous space after emerging from a scalding one. I would propose that the final component which is required to lift the narrative to a more gratifying and sustaining space is that of integration.
Integration
Lifting the game to the level of integration literally allows us to see the full mosaic in all its glory, as a mosaic. We are no longer confined to the individual components at any one time. We are no longer the prisoners of red alone until we move into the blue. With integration we are able to see all the shades of red, blue and the rest. Most importantly we know that the blue lies just on the other side of the red with even more possibilities beyond that. Integration provides the narrative with far greater awareness – of ourselves, others and the extended environment.
Returning to the story – be curious and engage; recognize and embrace context; but then strive to transcend the small increments, the fragments of the narrative, to behold the entire mosaic. Sure there will be the individual contexts of love, fear, loss and irritation. But when reminded that all is not the black of night and that the sun will rise again, love and laughter may just permeate that little bit further.
Have a most splendid weekend!
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Comments
Ian Weinberg
5 years ago #28
Ian Weinberg
5 years ago #27
Thanks for the kind words Phil Friedman And thanks for enlightening me in Sisyphus and the Sisyphean pursuit - the never ending course in the University of Life.
Phil Friedman
5 years ago #26
Ian Weinberg
5 years ago #25
Thanks Jim
Jim Murray
5 years ago #24
Ian Weinberg
5 years ago #23
Thanks very much Tausif Mundrawala Best wishes.
Ian Weinberg
5 years ago #22
Bill Stankiewicz
5 years ago #21
Paul Walters
5 years ago #20
Randall Burns
5 years ago #19
Lada 🏡 Prkic
5 years ago #18
Ian, you laughed me to tears. Thank you.
Ian Weinberg
5 years ago #17
You got me worried Lada \ud83c\udfe1 Prkic I think I'd better read it again myself!
Lada 🏡 Prkic
5 years ago #16
Bill Stankiewicz
5 years ago #15
Zacharias 🐝 Voulgaris
5 years ago #14
Jerry Fletcher
5 years ago #13
Ian Weinberg
5 years ago #12
Thank you Neil
Ian Weinberg
5 years ago #11
Thanks Geoff Hudson-Searle
Ian Weinberg
5 years ago #10
I guess that's as comprehensive as it gets Ken Boddie Thanks for those wise words.
Neil Smith
5 years ago #9
Geoff Hudson-Searle
5 years ago #8
Ken Boddie
5 years ago #7
Lisa Vanderburg
5 years ago #6
Ian Weinberg
5 years ago #5
Perhaps Praveen Raj Gullepalli the characters that occupy the nodal points of intersection along our timelines resonate with the 'energy' of the moment? And so in the context of the matter-energy spectrum there may be no separation of the narrative from the players.
Pascal Derrien
5 years ago #4
Jim Taggart
5 years ago #3
(Nacho) Ignacio Orna
5 years ago #2
Ian Weinberg
5 years ago #1
Profound thoughts Bill. My personal interpretation of this dynamic is based on the description that I've used previously to describe space-time (see https://www.bebee.com/producer/@ian-weinberg/relativity-relatives-and-other-relationships ) In summary - if we're standing in the shallow surf, looking out to sea, we note the swell increasing over time and distance and then crashing against us as the wave. The origin of the swell is the past, the crashing against us is the present and the future is the continuation of the wave behind us. If we froze the entire evolution of the swell and crashing wave into one frame, we then have space-time. The pivotal questions are - does the past influence the present? Obviously. Does the present influence the past? Indeed it does. If we very rapidly excavated a a trench between us and the evolving swell, we'd change the configuration of the wave form. The analogy if applied to layers of neuronal 'space-time' could feasibly lead to the postulate that we retrospectively change heritage-determining neuronal configurations - we re-create ourselves. As an aside, epigenetics has shown that emotions and lifestyle also change DNA segments that are suppressed and expressed. So my answer is yes. I believe there is the intrinsic potential to recreate our narrative retrospectively.