Ian Weinberg

5 years ago · 2 min. reading time · ~10 ·

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A tall story

A tall story


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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

Thanks for sharing Milos Djukic

Ian Weinberg

5 years ago #27

#35
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, you are a thinker. But unlike most thinkers who are thrust into dark depression by the Sisyphean pursuit of trying to achieve enlightenment, you somehow manage to find in the cave wall a fracture that lets in the tiniest bit of light. And that makes all the difference in the world. You have a good weekend, too, my friend. Cheers!

Ian Weinberg

5 years ago #25

#33
Thanks Jim

Jim Murray

5 years ago #24

Nice piece, sir.

Ian Weinberg

5 years ago #23

#31
Thanks very much Tausif Mundrawala Best wishes.

Bill Stankiewicz

5 years ago #21

Great post here 👍👍👍

Paul Walters

5 years ago #20

Ian Weinberg . another gem...thank you

Randall Burns

5 years ago #19

Great post with excellent comments Ian Weinberg You've illustrated wonderfully the multidimensional aspect of writing and communicating, elevating above just a string of words lined up together.

Lada 🏡 Prkic

5 years ago #18

#23
Ian, you laughed me to tears. Thank you.

Ian Weinberg

5 years ago #17

#22
You got me worried Lada \ud83c\udfe1 Prkic I think I'd better read it again myself!

Lada 🏡 Prkic

5 years ago #16

Ian, I read your post twice and still don't know what to comment. I have nothing profound to add and don't want to repeat what is already been said. Your words just left me thinking about my narrative. It is what high-quality content should be. I'm going to read it one more time. :)

Bill Stankiewicz

5 years ago #15

Great 👍👍👍

Zacharias 🐝 Voulgaris

5 years ago #14

Both of these things are basically aspects of connectedness, what's often missing from the narratives in places like conferences and any other modern forum. Very good points, both of them, and a great reminder that without something to provide us with perspective and awareness of the whole, anything we do or create will be like an island. Cheers!

Jerry Fletcher

5 years ago #13

Ian, I, too, have experienced the wellspring of boredom at a conference. What I've unearthed by talking to others about the phenomenon is that those with probing minds and multiple interests use the time as you have noted to think on topics with no connection to the event. Others, with less full lives just don't connect other dots. Their bored minds do not go venturing.

Ian Weinberg

5 years ago #12

#12
Thank you Neil

Ian Weinberg

5 years ago #11

#11
Thanks Geoff Hudson-Searle

Ian Weinberg

5 years ago #10

#10
I guess that's as comprehensive as it gets Ken Boddie Thanks for those wise words.

Neil Smith

5 years ago #9

In one of the"Science of Discworld" series of popular science books by Ian Stewart, Jack Cohen and Terry Pratchett, the authors expound on the point that we are a species that are less Homo Sapiens (Wise man) than we would like to think and much more Pan Narrans (the Storytelling Ape). Our liking for narratives to explain our experience can be extremely useful but can lead us to gloss over or completely ignore any inconvenient facts that clash with the story. I hope your next symposium is every bit as boring so I can enjoy your next article. Thanks.

Geoff Hudson-Searle

5 years ago #8

A wonderful Buzz Ian Weinberg, well written, well said! :-)

Ken Boddie

5 years ago #7

Nothing like a few boring symposium presenters, Ian, to allow the mind to wander untethered across the stage of life, differentiating and integrating like maniacal mathematicians, as we strut or stumble, according to our mood. But I prefer to think of our passage onwards and upwards as the assembly of a series of jig way puzzles, rather than mosaics. Sometimes we meet an edge piece to contain our concepts and guide our path, and occasionally we meet the grandiose corner piece which anchors our reasoning. But mostly we make do with sorting out a flotilla of random coloured pieces, each containing both sharp edges and rounded curves, depending upon our perspective, but both essential yin and yang. Some of us float blissfully from one puzzle layer to another, without being engaged in joining the pieces, yet still enjoying the promised imagery of each landscape over the next horizon. Others focus on the completion of each puzzle, piece by piece, gaining their satisfaction from the act of construction and seldom standing back to see the final image created, before preparing for the next to be commenced. And then there are those whose pathways are to re-assemble the puzzles when they are inexplicably ripped apart, accepting the unenviable task of preserving the narrative, while forced to integrate with little or no context. Only the coal face assemblers and menders notice whether we are swamped in puzzles or mosaics. The visionaries are standing too far back to see the ripples and joints.

Lisa Vanderburg

5 years ago #6

You got me thinking! Life is a series of random happenstance, so live the moment, absorb the experiance and discard the detritus. At least that what I drew from your excellent buzz!

Ian Weinberg

5 years ago #5

#7
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

Those boring conferences are great triggers Ian Weinberg :-) All the stories are worth being told some are more fascinating than others but in the end the context will transcend them if you let it happen....... Drop the guard become a bard :-)

Jim Taggart

5 years ago #3

Thanks Ian. Been there, while at conferences when my mind began to wander and ideas began to germinate.

Ian Weinberg

5 years ago #1

#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.

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