L.I.F.T.

This post is about the story (or stories) we tell ourselves.

I just read Semiotics: The Basics, by Dan Chandler.

It was a fascinating book. Semiotics is the study of signs. Not just “traffic signs,” but anything that signifies something else, and how that signification functions.

There were bits and pieces throughout the book that have given me a new perspective on the way(s) we (actively) construct our world and our lives. One of the claims made by semiotics is that, in language (and perhaps in “thought”) we construct opposites like:
good/bad (or evil)
light/dark
male/female
science/art
reason/emotion
man/nature
nationalism/individualism

What’s interesting about such opposites is that one is always preferred over the other. I’ve put the opposites above in the preferred/non-preferred sequence (or at least, how I perceive those to be in our culture).

What’s even more interesting, is that, once we tell ourselves a story (with its inherent opposing-pairs), we eventually forget that we made up those opposites to begin with. That is, we determined the preference based on something. There is no “objective truth” to the determination of those opposing pairs.

What that forgetting leads to, is an assumption that our story is reality itself. But how “real” is this “reality?” As we’ve seen throughout history, the story changes. In different cultures, different realities, and different preferences within those opposing pairs, prevail.

Again, the story we tell/create/manufacture is what will guide the way we use whatever technologies we develop or embrace, and also how those technologies will use us.

The way I see this process is this – we experience something, then we create a “reason” for that thing happening – we tell a story to ourselves (and/or others) about what happened, and why.

As soon as we’ve told the story, we believe in it. This is called “faith” in certain circles. In order to believe in it, we have to forget that we created the explanation/story ourselves…that is, we made up the interpretation of events that we now accept as “truth” or “fact.”

Why do we forget? I think it’s a matter of efficiency. If we had to question every assumption or “rule” that we follow every time we follow it, we’d never get anywhere. We’d be stuck in a mire of endless self-reflectivity.

Beneath it all, is Reality itself. I think. Semioticians aren’t so sure of this (having accepted their story as reality). To me, there is a common ground that we experience – Nature, Reality…whatever you want to call it. It is how we can create language. We reference the same “ground.”

Are some “realities” (stories) more “real” than others?

I’ve often wondered why European methods prevailed over Indian ways in America. Why did the Indians not fight? Surely, for one, they couldn’t imagine what their future would look like. But I think what lies beneath this is a deeper story.

Science is a tool of the mind. It is a way of grasping reality, taking it apart, and using it to achieve our ends. Any “technology” is a tool – a way of taking reality apart – separating ever-flowing “being” from the process of continual becoming/unfolding – and using it.

Your Personal Story
The other book I’m reading on this, which I haven’t finished yet, is Jim Loehr’s “The Power of Story.” Loehr has taken this process of story-telling, and provided a way for readers to unearth and re-write their personal (or “business”) story. It’s a powerful book, a powerful technology. I highly recommend it.

Ultimately, our story-telling process, our sign-making process, is a technology. It’s a tool we created somewhere in order to be able to survive.

The end to which any technology is always used is that of Life itself. That end, or purpose, is – to expand, to live, to grow, to become.

If we look at all of life, it is all constantly striving to become more of what it is. It acts to LIVE, regardless, in spite of, or directly against the circumstances in which it finds itself.

Having given life to our technologies, they too, like Frankenstein’s monster, seek to grow, expand, become – to live.

Instead of “love will find a way,” “live” or “life” will find a way. And it does.

One thing that we tend to do, in our creating and forgetting, is to mistake the tool we create for life, or Reality.

Then the monster is the ruler. We are at its whim. We are helpless to change things. Until we wake up and see that that is a decision as well…to be helpless.

Recognize the stories in your life. The ones you tell yourself, the ones you were told. Recognize them as stories, and ask whether or not they are helping to create the world and life you want.

Then re-write them, so that they are.

I recently posted with the subject heading “I shouldn’t be alive…”

It was meant to be funny, based on the TV show of the same name.  Granted, most of the people who appear in that show have real stories that back up the claim…while mine, though real, was not necessarily life-threatening.

It got me to thinking, though, writing that post, about what our culture promotes.  What types of stories we tell one another.

The stories on the show “I Shouldn’t Be Alive” are usually very grim.  And the ones I’ve seen have all been stories about survival occurring due to luck or chance.

That’s a different mentality than the story of a person who survives because they know how to.

In Wade Davis’ TED talk he tells the story an Inuit man named Olayek told him.  Olayek’s grandfather was not interested in relocating to the settlement the Canadian government was trying to put the Inuit on.  The family were worried for the grandfather’s life.  They were afraid that the Canadian government might try to force him to move.  If the grandfather rebelled violently, they might kill him.  So they did the only thing they could think to do – they took away all of his belongings.  Wade tells the rest as follows:

“The Inuit did not fear the cold, they took advantage of it…so, this man’ts grandfather was not intimidated by the arctic night or the blizzard that was blowing, he simply slipped outside, pulled down his sealskin trousers, and defecated into his hand.  And as the feces began to freeze, he shaped it into the form of a blade.  He put a string of saliva on the end of the shit-knife, and as it finally froze solid, he butchered a dog with it.  He skinned the dog and improvised a harness.  Took the ribcage of the dog and improvised a sled.  Harnessed up an adjacent dog, and disappeared over the ice floes, shit knife in belt.  Talk about getting by with nothing.”

Now that’s ingenuity!

One of my most favorite “playful thinkers” of all time is Bugs Bunny.  That rabbit always plays.  Every other episode featuring Bugs starts off with him singing a carefree song.

When trouble comes around, it’s no worry.  It’s a game.  Some of the funniest scenes are where it actually gets serious, and Bugs hightails it out of there!  You don’t see cartoons like that nowadays…at least, I haven’t.  Everything’s loaded with seriousness or innuendo.  No ingenious characters, who approach every problem with a light heart, and the power of their quick wit.

As Wade Davis points out, what changes people, and in turn, what changes societies, are the stories they tell to themselves, or to one another.

What stories are you telling yourself, and those around you?

What stories are you being told?

What story do you want to tell or be told?