Tuesday, November 25, 2003
Bedtime Stories
A friend of mine recently said that changing the world is all about changing our stories. This has given me food for thought...
The whole world is in the state it's in today because certain stories have won out over others. Whether it's the story of Odysseus or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, people understand the world we live in through stories. Whichever stories they find most appealing become the basis for their thoughts, feelings, and actions. This leads them to create a version of their stories in their own lives. This, in turn, leads others to believe that story because they see it with their own eyes. This, in turn, leads them to recreate it in their lives, and so on.
So far, this storytelling has resulted in a lot of messes. Some people try to tell a story that keeps them in power over others. Others just repeat the same story that was handed down to them without question. Too many stories, not enough people grasping the morals of the story - if there ever were any.
But what if we engaged in critical storytelling? What if we took a long, hard look at our lives, figured out what sorts of stories we've been telling ourselves for all these years, and decide what stories we would choose to live? We could each become the author of our own personal narrative.
For the past few years now, I've been attempting to do just that.
The landscape of my story has been trembling under the force of a series of earthquakes. The pillars of my idealized self have been crumbling all around me. It all used to be so clear... I was a Champion of Virtue, sworn to sacrifice myself in the service of the common good. I was little more than a vessel, living to put an end to ecocide and tyranny. Then I found that I had the power to create, to heal, to find joy even in a world plagued by such sorrow. I was here to balance the two - opposition and support, creation and destruction, all in the name of love. Yes, I was a Warrior Healer. But what now? What next?
The more I walked this journey, the more clear it was to me that I had been telling myself a long and intricate story. But the further I came, the more my preconceptions of the story dissolved. I was so much less, and so much more, than I had imagined myself to be. Who am I? What is my story? Where is it taking me?
In a way, it's quite disturbing to watch whole portions of who you thought you were crushed and swallowed whole by the Earth underfoot. And yet, in its own way, it's incredibly liberating. Sometimes I feel like a mad monk dancing amidst the ruins of my own monastery - crying tears of sorrow at the years of effort being swept away, and tears of joy at the years of effort being swept away.
How could I not feel joyous at the destruction of my own idealized self? So what if I'm standing in a field of rubble; the soil will be all the more fertile for the growth of my truly creative, truly authentic, truly human life that awaits me in the coming spring.
Anyway, all of this motivates me to get back into the business of storytelling. I've already put some narrative into Part I of my upcoming Warrior Healer Revolution book; now, I intend to work on my fiction side by side with this book rather than delaying it.
If there's one thing that the world needs right now, it's new stories.
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The whole world is in the state it's in today because certain stories have won out over others. Whether it's the story of Odysseus or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, people understand the world we live in through stories. Whichever stories they find most appealing become the basis for their thoughts, feelings, and actions. This leads them to create a version of their stories in their own lives. This, in turn, leads others to believe that story because they see it with their own eyes. This, in turn, leads them to recreate it in their lives, and so on.
So far, this storytelling has resulted in a lot of messes. Some people try to tell a story that keeps them in power over others. Others just repeat the same story that was handed down to them without question. Too many stories, not enough people grasping the morals of the story - if there ever were any.
But what if we engaged in critical storytelling? What if we took a long, hard look at our lives, figured out what sorts of stories we've been telling ourselves for all these years, and decide what stories we would choose to live? We could each become the author of our own personal narrative.
For the past few years now, I've been attempting to do just that.
The landscape of my story has been trembling under the force of a series of earthquakes. The pillars of my idealized self have been crumbling all around me. It all used to be so clear... I was a Champion of Virtue, sworn to sacrifice myself in the service of the common good. I was little more than a vessel, living to put an end to ecocide and tyranny. Then I found that I had the power to create, to heal, to find joy even in a world plagued by such sorrow. I was here to balance the two - opposition and support, creation and destruction, all in the name of love. Yes, I was a Warrior Healer. But what now? What next?
The more I walked this journey, the more clear it was to me that I had been telling myself a long and intricate story. But the further I came, the more my preconceptions of the story dissolved. I was so much less, and so much more, than I had imagined myself to be. Who am I? What is my story? Where is it taking me?
In a way, it's quite disturbing to watch whole portions of who you thought you were crushed and swallowed whole by the Earth underfoot. And yet, in its own way, it's incredibly liberating. Sometimes I feel like a mad monk dancing amidst the ruins of my own monastery - crying tears of sorrow at the years of effort being swept away, and tears of joy at the years of effort being swept away.
How could I not feel joyous at the destruction of my own idealized self? So what if I'm standing in a field of rubble; the soil will be all the more fertile for the growth of my truly creative, truly authentic, truly human life that awaits me in the coming spring.
Anyway, all of this motivates me to get back into the business of storytelling. I've already put some narrative into Part I of my upcoming Warrior Healer Revolution book; now, I intend to work on my fiction side by side with this book rather than delaying it.
If there's one thing that the world needs right now, it's new stories.
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